Re: light gauge railway

[dbromage@fang.omni.com.au (David Bromage)]

Rod (comtrain@mpx.com.au) wrote:
: 2 ft gauge Cane Trains used to run on 7 lb and 14 lb rail and it was welded
: up like Triang set track and placed through each paddock, just before
: harvest and moved as the cane was cut. This is no longer done, and I guess
: that they would use much heavier rail now.

Many of the Queensland sugar cane lines are being relaid with second hand
45lb or even 60lb rail. This was necessary when they started buying diesel
hydraulic locos off QR and SRA.

: I have heard that parts of Indonesia, and other third world cane producing
: Countries have surplus equipment including Engines and rail for sale, but
: again my information is dated a few years now.

IIRC, India had a fair amount of surplus rail for sale some time back, but
decided to keep it.

: BHP about 5 years ago were able to make any size rail you wanted, but small
: quantities meant a huge surcharge for the set-up, and nobody had that sort
: of money.

BHP doesn't have a big range of rail available these days, but Emrails
buys a lot of light AS rail from Japan and holds it in stock. 

Cheers
David