most discussions of rail transportation here typically involves standard gauge, this shit needs to change

Fact: The best stories occurred on narrow gauge networks

fact: the first steam locomotive was narrow gauge (4ft 1in), ergo narrow gauge is the superior gauge

a few favorite anecdotes of mine:

1. in the 1800s one of the Ffestiniog Railways 0-4-4Ts with the name of Taliesin (don't ask me to pronounce it FFS, it's welsh) hit a purported speed of 40 miles per hour on an empty coaching stock run from Ffestiniog to Porthmaddog, on a gauge of less than 2 foot (1ft 11in and a micron or something) it's safe to say the guard likely needed to hose out his compartment at the end of the run.

2. The reason so much of the Ffestiniog survived to be preserved is that towards the end it was that fucking broke they couldn't even file for bankruptcy or liquidation, so the entire network more or less set there in a wierd state of legal purgatory where the owners couldn't afford to run it, but the authorities had no legal right to touch it, and every so often they would experience a burst of life as the slate mine produced enough slate to warrant firing up one of the prehistoric George Englands to haul slate down to Porthmaddog