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When your grandmother was a little girl, fast trains ran from coast to
coast and slower ones climbed to towns high in the mountains.
Super-highways for automobiles and trucks were something that only a few
people even imagined then. So--if freight and passengers were going very
far, they had to travel by train. Mountains gave the railroads a lot of
trouble, because it was hard to dig wide roadbeds along the steep,
rocky hillsides or to push them through tunnels in solid stone.
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One answer to the problem was to make the tracks not so wide and the
tunnels not so high and the trains not so big! These railroads were
called narrow gauge. (Gauge means the distance between the tracks.) The
trains looked like toys, but they carried on their jobs perfectly well.
A narrow-gauge engine and cars could whip easily around sharp curves,
hugging the side of the cliff. The pint-sized locomotives pulled heavy
loads. Elegant ladies and gentlemen used to travel in the tiny cars
which were just as fancy as the big streamliners are now--maybe even
fancier.
When good highways and huge trailer trucks came along, most of the
narrow gauge railroads stopped running. A truck and trailer cost a lot
less to operate than even a toy-like locomotive and freight cars. But in
a few places you can still see the little giants at work. For instance,
there is the Edaville Railroad which runs through the cranberry bogs in
Massachusetts.
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The narrow gauge Edaville trains haul boxes into the bogs where pickers
fill them with berries. Then the loaded cars take the berries out to a
cleaning and sorting shed for shipment to canneries and stores.
On many trips the Edaville trains carry passengers, too, for people love
to ride behind the old-time engines. The man who owns the railroad lets
everyone travel free, but if you want a souvenir ticket, you can buy it
for a nickel!
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