[Talk-GB] Miniature railway or minimum gauge?

[Martin Wynne]

On 21/05/2019 12:18, Mark Goodge wrote:
 >  ...
>  From a mapping perspective, therefore, there are two questions which 
> need to be asked:
> 
> 1. Was the railway originally constructed purely for leisure purposes?
> 
> 2. Are the locomotives intended to be models or replicas of full-size 
> locomotives (or are otherwise "faked", such as petrol-engined locos 
> designed to look like steam locos)?
> 
> If the answer to both questions is "yes", it's definitely a miniature 
> railway. If the answer to both are "no", then it definitely isn't.

There are several small-gauge railways which are essentially leisure 
railways but which have been built or rebuilt on the trackbed of former 
full-size working railways, so answering your Q.1 isn't always 
straightforward.

Q.2 assumes that all the rolling-stock either is or isn't a replica of 
full-size railways, when often it is a mixture of both.

I would suggest that a more useful mapping question would be

3. Does the small-gauge railway publish a public timetable?

If so, to my mind it is definitely a "Narrow-Gauge Railway", regardless 
of the gauge or design of the rolling stock.

If not, it is probably better described as a "miniature" railway of some 
sort.

The latter type can be further divided into

a. those which are essentially the preserve of model engineering 
enthusiasts or clubs, where giving public rides is an occasional 
fund-raising exercise, and for their own amusement they are just as 
happy to run trains for themselves or friends:

  http://www.kinvermodelengineers.org.uk/images/50/20.jpg

My original example of the Rhiw Valley Light Railway also falls into 
that category.

and

b. commercially operated seaside or park railways, where the object of 
the exercise is to amuse the paying passengers rather than the 
locomotive driver:

  https://www.pecorama.co.uk/trains/

These two types are quite distinct, and we do probably need some 
separate tagging for them. But I'm not quite sure what? Perhaps the 
miniature railway could have commercial=yes or no added?

I re-tagged the RVLR as narrow-gauge in line with the wiki page as it 
then was, but I think perhaps I should now change it back.

Martin.