- Backyard railroad
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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" (63 mm) to 7-1/2" (190 mm) or more. Smaller backyard or outdoor railroads that cannot be ridden are calledgarden railroad s.Hundreds, even thousands of backyard railroads exist, especially in the UK and USA. One of the most famous backyard railroads was
Walt Disney 'sCarolwood Pacific Railroad , in operation from 1950 to 1953, which inspired Disney to surround his plannedDisneyland amusement park with a working, narrow gauge railroad.Track
Tracks for the layout can be either portable (i.e. removable), or permanent. The former may be of fairly simple welded
steel construction, but the latter are usually built from miniature steel oraluminium rails attached to wooden or plastic sleepers (US: ties), and put on a proper foundation of crushed stone ("track ballast "), just as in full size. Turnouts (US: switches) are also fabricated from these basic materials. Usually, prototypical appearance is sought for, but some portable tracks may not closely resemble real railroad tracks.Rolling stock
Rolling stock is often modelled after real railroad equipment, as far as being painted withlogo s of past or existing railroads.Boxcar s,flat car s,tank car s andcaboose s are common. For passenger use, special cars are constructed, with a lowcenter of gravity for safety.Locomotives
Locomotive s on a backyard railroad can be of different types;steam locomotive s,gasoline ordiesel engines, or even electrically operated, using rechargeablelead-acid batteries inside the locomotive.Live Steam
Miniature steam locomotives are an element of a related hobby known as "
live steam ".ee also
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Ridable miniature railways
*Train ride
*Garden railway
*Children's railway
*Live Steam External links
* [http://www.saunalahti.fi/animato/steam Building backyard railroad trains]
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