American 3-foot equipment abandoned... IN JAPAN?

p51 · **Posted:** Wed Mar 21, 2012 10:54 pm

Check this out, you won't believe this!
http://www.michaeljohngrist.com/2011/06/japans-abandoned-wild-west-town/
More here. http://www.michaeljohngrist.com/2011/07/cowboy-haunted-house-and-mexicoland-japan/ Man, that D&RGW hack looks real...
I found out that indeed at least one of the locomotives is really from the US: http://steamlocomotive.info/jstate.cfm?state=tochigi

o anderson · **Posted:** Wed Mar 21, 2012 11:54 pm

Interesting photos. Abandoned parks like that in the U.S. get vandalized pretty quickly. This one looks untouched!
The equipment is related to the same ones in this thread. Restored by a gentleman in Wisconsin...
http://www.rypn.org/forums/viewtopic.php?p=170743

gra2472 · **Posted:** Thu Mar 22, 2012 9:23 am

The #4 locomotive in those photos is most likely the Waipahu from Roaring Camp.

softwerkslex · **Posted:** Thu Mar 22, 2012 5:26 pm

Imagine the climate there. This has been abandoned, what, 15 years? But it looks like 50.

p51 · **Posted:** Thu Mar 22, 2012 6:28 pm

I really would like to know if that “D&RGW” caboose is the real thing or a reproduction. I know for sure that the real #0505 is at Durango, so it’s not really 505. But if it’s a replica, it’s a darned good looking one.
This site doesn’t list it, not surprisingly: http://www.drgw.org/data/caboose/caboose.htm But notice # 510 on that site. Could that be it?

Ed Kelley · **Posted:** Thu Mar 22, 2012 7:42 pm

The kettle in question is indeed the Waipahu (an outside frame, inside-counterweight Baldwin 0-6-2T of 1897 vintage), which was previously operated by owner Dale Gentry at the National Orange Show fairgrounds in San Bernardino. It had few fans in Felton, and IIRC was put up for sale about the time 7 showed up from Tuolumne and needed the space. The new owners reportedly reboilered it after a few years in service and ran it with an ex-RC&BT Pulaski obs. car thrown in to clinch the deal. The other locomotive at the park, and I believe the caboose as well, came from the Tobies Creek & Mission Hill collection in Minnesota, which also included the ex-Huckleberry/Hal Wilmunder/Panamanian Mogul presently too operating in Japan at the Otaru Point transportation museum in Hokkaido.

RCD · **Posted:** Thu Mar 22, 2012 11:07 pm

p51 wrote:

so it’s not really 505. But if it’s a replica, it’s a darned good looking one.

The Japanese seem to have keen knowledge of trains in main stream culture, here is some screen grabs of a Japaneses children cartoon

note how they got almost everything right from the lights to the trucks to even the control layout and this cartoon isn't even about trains.