This item in the Washington Post has a surprising number of detailed photos of the workings of the narrow gauge in the Urals. Worth a look.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/in-sight/wp/2015/12/08/what-life-looks-like-in-the-dying-villages-of-the-remote-russian-urals/

Kalach, the village pictured, actually figured in world events. The Soviet capture of the bridge over the Don river at Kalach in November 1942 completed the encirclement around the German 6th Army at Stalingrad, and the rest, as they say, is history.

I believe I've seen a couple documentaries of this area and the railroad on Youtube. The videos are in Russian, buy from what I could gather, at least one of the towns died out as the railroad pulled out the rails, thus cutting off the only link to the outside world.