Well, the cupola on the two foot caboose stock in Maine isn't close to that height... It's probably a good foot or two lower than the one that the N&CV built.

Another question, but is anyone even looking at the O&K, seeing it's just a display piece?

The WW&F 2' (Maine narrow gauge) equipment is much more substantial - and has a much lower center of gravity than any of the rolling stock pictured on the web site. Looking at Google Maps, the track plan (basically an oval with a good size yard) is full of very sharp curves - which would not be possible with Maine narrow gauge-sized equipment.

They have a large Plymouth locomotive that appears unrestored and inoperable. It looks to be very similar in size to WW&F's #52. I would be willing to bet that they never used it because it would likely rip up their light track and tight curves. To put that in perspective, WW&F 52 looks pretty tiny compared to any historic Maine narrow gauge rolling stock or locomotives on the WW&F.

There are a lot of treasures there - I hope they all find good homes.

The depot with the Claremont station sign appears like it might have actually been a railroad depot. The Chicago & North Western served Claremont, Minnesota and I'm wondering if this might have been the C&NW's station that was located there, with possibly a "more modern" annex added. Anyone know for sure?

Les

There is certainly three kinds of two foot gauge. There is the big operations such as the WW&F and other Maine two footers that utilize large equipment and do their best to act look and feel like standard gauge common carriers. Then there are the industrials with smaller but heavier equipment and heavy track such as found in steel mills, and finally the light stuff laid on 20 or 30 lb. rail with equipment that you can haul around in your pickup truck. Although they share a common track gauge, there isn't much else that can be shared among the three without looking out of place.

Interesting. So there may be a variety of equipment built to AARish standard, or not.

The 2 foot gauge is subject to FRA jurisdiction but the 600mm stuff is not. FRA jurisdiction pre-empts state, so the 600mm track lapses to state regulation. It may be the only such railroad in the state. The legislation may not be in place or the agency may not realize it's in their bailiwick. They may not know what to do with it, and may be too laissez-faire or too harsh.

That may be why the builder in OP chose that gauge.

Anyway, such an accident can make the regulatory agency cautious, effectively poisoning the state for other similar operations and impacting their prospects for sale.

You are kind of leaving out the park train sized equipment which can indeed be 24 inch gauge, or even 30" gauge, as built by National Amusement or Chance. It does not fall under FRA jurisdiction, in fact “full sized” 24” gauge only falls under FRA under certain conditions. You really can’t make such generalities. Key is that park train wheel standards are much different than say “full sized” or industrial equipment wheel standards. Flange dimensions and tread width being key areas of difference.

In this case, it simply looks like a faulty design, but then even a commercial CPH 24” gauge amusement set goes over on its side every now and then. Compared to a Chance CPH set, the center of gravity for a National set was about as low as one could ever go.

As to considering it light stuff, yes the amusement equipment is lighter in general, but my National locomotives weighed in at just about 4000 pounds and could haul 12 car loads of people at a fairly good clip.