Mini-railroads?

[weekendrailroader]

Hi all.
I was just wondering how many of you have a mini-railroad (such as a grand-scale miniature railroad) or a narrow gauge (such as 15 or 18") line meant exclusively for passengers (like Tommy Thompson's Anacortes Railway) On your layout.

Here's a photo of a grand-scale train, posing next to a full size train, in HO scale.

 

[weekendrailroader]

Sorry, hit the wrong button. Here's the photo.

http://www.modelrailroadforums.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=12598&stc=1&d=1235104382

 

[nephthyr]

What is that, like Z scale?

 

[UP2CSX]

I have no idea what you're talking about. What's "grand scale"? What's a "mini railroad"? Your picture makes me even more confused since it looks like a Lionel O scale train next to what appears to be a Z scale locomotive and freight cars not in the same scale that look like they came out of a cereal box. All the scales have proper names and it would help a lot if you would use them and explain exactly what your question means. The Anacortes Railway reference is even more confusing since it stopped running in 1999 and was a live steam large scale model, something no one is likely to have on a layout.

 

[weekendrailroader]

Okay, hopefully this will clear up any confusion.

Grand scale (or a ridable miniature railroad) is the largest size of model trains out there. (For more info, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_scale

The Anacortes Railway was 18" gauge, and it's locomotive was formerly used in mining operations, so technically it was a "full-size" railroad, just narrow gauge. (There are 18" ridable gauge miniature railroads though, that are not "full-size" railroads as their trains are models of "full-size" trains)

I'm just curious if anyone has modeled a ridable miniature railroad in one of the "tabletop" scales. For example, I once saw a layout that was made up of N scale trains, but had G or O scale people sitting on them. This had the effect of making the N-scale trains look like a backyard railroad for the G or O scale people. It was really quite clever.

In my photo, the larger train is HO scale. The smaller train is a ridable miniature railroad for the HO scale people, though in reality, it is just a kid's toy.

By the way, just to make things really confusing, are the locomotives that are currently used at Promontory Point models, or are they "full-size" trains? Full size models, perhaps?

 

[AyTrane]

I like that the smaller train goes through an old boxcar; clever.

 

[Railphotog]

What most people think of "grand scale" models is "live steam" models. I've never heard of the term "grand scale". So the question seems to be "Does anyone have a model of a live steam ride-on train on their layout?"

 

[UP2CSX]

OK, that now makes more sense. I too thought of "grand scale" as a live steam railroad. The club I belonged to was HO and had a park with an N scale layout that had an F unit and a couple of flat cars with benches that had O scale figures riding on the train. I'm sure similar things have been done on other larger layouts. It was a cool looking little layout and people really liked it.

The locomotives at Promentory Point are more correctly called replicas than models. They were constructed by Chadwell O'Connor Engineering Laboratories of Costa Mesa, California and are exact replicas of the Jupiter and the No. 119 so I guess they are really "grand scale" but not models.