Railway modelling or model railroading is a hobby in which rail transport systems are modelled at a reduced scale.
The Ravenglass and Eskdale Railway is a 15 in minimum gauge heritage railway in Cumbria, England. The 7-mile (11.3 km) line runs from Ravenglass to Dalegarth Station near Boot in the valley of Eskdale, in the Lake District. At Ravenglass the line ends at Ravenglass railway station on the Cumbrian Coast Line.
The Fairbourne Railway is a 12+1⁄4 in gauge miniature railway running for 2 miles (3.2 km) from the village of Fairbourne on the Mid-Wales coast, alongside the beach to the end of a peninsula at Barmouth Ferry railway station, where there is a connection with the Barmouth Ferry across the Mawddach estuary to the seaside resort of Barmouth.
Live steam is steam under pressure, obtained by heating water in a boiler. The steam may be used to operate stationary or moving equipment.
A backyard railroad is a privately owned, outdoor railroad, most often in miniature, but large enough for one or several persons to ride on. The rail gauge can be anything from 2+1⁄2 in to 7+1⁄2 in or more. Smaller backyard or outdoor railroads that cannot be ridden are called garden railroads. Some backyard railroads use full-size rolling stock, such as the former 3 ft narrow gauge Grizzly Flats Railroad owned by railfan and Disney animator Ward Kimball.
The Wells and Walsingham Light Railway is a 10+1⁄4 in gauge heritage railway in Norfolk, England running between the coastal town of Wells-next-the-Sea and the inland village of Walsingham. The railway occupies a four-mile (6.4 km) section of the trackbed of the former Wymondham to Wells branch which was closed to passengers in stages from 1964 to 1969 as part of the Beeching cuts. Other parts of this line, further south, have also been preserved by the Mid-Norfolk Railway.
Ten and a quarter inch gauge is a large modelling scale, generally only used for ridable miniature railways. Model railways at this scale normally confine the scale modelling aspects to the reproduction of the locomotive and with steam locomotives the accompanying tender. Rolling stock is generally made to carry passengers or maintenance equipment and is not to scale. There are also a number of railways which use this gauge of track but are narrow-gauge railways. Examples are Rudyard Lake Steam Railway, Isle of Mull Railway and Wells and Walsingham Light Railway. An organisation to promote this gauge of railway has been reformed in May 2010 as The Ten and a Quarter Railway Society, which will also cover the larger 12+1⁄4 in and smaller 9+1⁄2 in gauges.
Minimum-gauge railways have a gauge of most commonly 15 in, 400 mm, 16 in, 18 in, 19 in, 500 mm or 20 in. The notion of minimum-gauge railways was originally developed by estate railways and the French company of Decauville for light railways, trench railways, mining, and farming applications.
The 15 in gauge, single track Lakeside Miniature Railway runs along the seaward side of the Marine Lake in Southport, England.
The Ashorne Hall Railway was a ridable miniature railway in Warwickshire, England. It was conceived as an added attraction to the collection of mechanical musical instruments at the Ashorne Hall museum. It was completed in the mid-1990s and was called the Nickelodeon Line.
The Conwy Valley Railway Museum is located at Betws-y-Coed railway station, Betws-y-Coed, North Wales, on the site of the old railway goods yard.
Gauge conversion is the changing of one railway track gauge to another.
This article gives details of the locomotives used on the Ravenglass and Eskdale Railway, a 15 in narrow gauge preserved railway line running for 7 miles (11 km) from Ravenglass on the Cumbrian coast to Dalegarth near the village of Boot, in Eskdale.
Blenheim Park Railway is a 15 in gauge miniature railway operating in the grounds of Blenheim Palace, in Oxfordshire, England.
The Hastings Miniature Railway is a 10+1⁄4 in gauge miniature railway located on the seafront at Hastings, a seaside resort, town, and ancient cinque port, in East Sussex, England. Opened in 1948, it remains a popular tourist attraction. The line was re-opened in the summer of 2011 after a period of reconstruction and restoration, which coincided with a forced closure of the eastern part of the line, to facilitate building work on a new art gallery adjacent to the railway.
The Abbeydale miniature railway is a railway run by the Sheffield & District Society of Model & Experimental Engineers Ltd. in Ecclesall Woods in south-west Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England. The railway has two sections: a dual gauge ground level section with gauges of 7+1⁄4 inches (180 mm) and 5 inches (130 mm). There is also a smaller multigauge raised section that has gauges of 3+1⁄2 inches (89 mm), 5 inches (130 mm) and 7+1⁄4 inches (180 mm).
The Long Beach and Asbury Park Railway was a profitable but short-lived miniature railway with the unusual gauge of 14+1⁄2 in, which operated from 1902 until 21 August 1903 at Long Beach in California.
The Miniature Railway Company on Broadway in Manhattan, New York, operated their ridable miniature railways at four World Expositions around 1900 and delivered them to many parks throughout the world.
