Geschichte und Betrieb:Geschichte/en

Light railways have been and still are "private carrier narrow gauge railways", which have been used when a task would have been too much for waggons, but still unprofitable for a "real" railroad.
The following belonged to these "third class railroads" or still do:

• The farm-tramways, used to transport agricultural commodities
• The waggon-railroads, an early kind of farming-railroad
• The logging-railroads, used in logging
• The supply-railroad used in lime- and rock-quarries, sand-, gravel-, and clay-pits, brickworks, and peat-bogs
• The supply-tramways for in-house transportation
• The construction-railroads used on large construction-sites
• The military light railways from both world-wars
• The mining-railroads
• The transfer-railroads for transportation between a business and the next transfer-point
• The towing-railroads to tow ships through artificial water-ways

The variety of light railways runs from the most basic push-car lines to thoroughly constructed railroad-like transportation lines. The simple light railways mostly were built with handy track-frames layed on unprepared ground, to provide a way for light man-powered tip-cars. The most heavy types came near to narrow-gauge railroad standards with rails permanently bolted to wooden ties on graveled roadbeds, and operated with heavy locomotives and cars. The variety between these two extremes is impossible to count. The light railway in general provided any small business, including even farmers, with a chance to make use of the advantages of the wheel-rail-system, which for all times have been the ease in transportation of heavy loads.

The roots of the light railways go back to the 16th century when the first mining-railways came to use. In 1556 Georg Agricola wrote in his book "Vom Berg- und Hüttenwesen" (Mining and Metallurgy) about a push-car, called "Hund", a pin-guided open car running on wooden boards.
From this point on the development led to rail-guided cars running on wooden and later on iron-fitted wood-rails. In 1767 a british Mr. Reynolds invented the first iron-rail. These rails were built in the street. They were slightly U-shaped, since the railroad-cars still lacked flanges.
Flanged wheels were used for the first time in 1775 by the german engineer Friedrich for his railway from the mine to the stamp-mill in Clausthal. The year 1789 marks the birth of the real "rail-ways". It was that year when a Mr. Jessop invented the mushroom-shaped iron-rail that finally required flanged wheels.
The next step, the industrial production of light railways, was taken in 1826, when the german Fritz Harkort started the construction of mining-railroads, including the Muttentalbahn, opened in 1829 to connect the Nachtigall-Mine near Witten with the rest of the world. In Bavaria the first light railways were used on the construction of the Ludwig-Canal in 1839 when excavating a cut near Dörlbach.

Pioneering for the worldwide acceptance of light railways has been Paul Decauville from France. In 1875 he started to use a light railway on his farm with modular tracks, much like most model railroads today. A year later he started mass-production of this modular railroad and carried his system to a worldwide success. In the 1880's others followed Decauville's ideas and started construction of modular light railways, including the two famous german builders R. Dolberg and A. Koppel (later Orenstein & Koppel), which carried the modular-system to perfection.

The first tracks, Decauville manufactured, were built to 400 mm (15-3/4") gauge, but later changed to the two standards of 500 mm (19-11/16") and 600 mm (23-578") gauge. Following the german standards DIN 1250 and DIN BERG 500 the 500 mm gauge had to be used as standard in underground brown-coal mining, in quarries, small peat-bogs and brickworks, and on scaffoldings. According to DIN 1250 the 600 mm gauge had to be used as standard in mining, in quarries, with earth-work, and on structural engineering and small civil engineering sites. 750 mm gauge was used mainly in iron-works and on heavier construction-railroads, and beneath this was the preferred narrow-gauge of the "Verein Deutscher Eisenbahnverwaltungen" (German Railroad Association). The 900 mm (35-7/16") gauge has been designed for surface brown-coal mining and heavy construction-railroads. By establishing these four standard gauges, the manufacturers could produce their equipment in large quantities and sell from stock.

Light railways experienced their biggest upswing in and after WW-I. Their second and last heydays were after WW-II when the light railways were used in the removal of the ruins left. In the late 1950's the use of light railways declined rapidly as more and more trucks took their tasks over. Today light railways can be found in museums, the few light railway operations left are found in peat-bogs, in underground mining and tunnel construction, and in third-world country's farming.