The earliest applications of the 15 inch gauge actually date back to the 1850’s. At that time several engine manufacturers built scale models about 1/3 or 1/4 of the size of a main line locomotive of that age as demonstration models. Demonstration models as such, however, came into use much earlier - they are believed to have been invented by Timothy Hackworth in the 1820’s. Hackworth built demonstration models to the proportions of standard gauge engines of his time that ran on 3′ gauge track, so he can be called the inventor of No.3 scale model trains. But that is another story.

This is a paper by M. DECAUVILLE, Aîne, of Petit-Bourg (Seine and Oise), France which was read before the Institute of Mechanical Engineers and published in Scientific American Supplement No. 446 (July 1884). It offers a fascinating insight from one of the pioneers of minimum gauge railways.
Narrow gauge railways have been known for a […]

Seemingly built to a different scale to the Perrygrove is this New Zealand line. Construction was started in 1975, by potter Barry Brickell shortly after he established a pottery workshop on a block of land he had recently purchased.

The Perrygrove Railway, on the edge of the Royal Forest of Dean, is a 15″ gauge line which runs for ¾ mile through farmland and woods to the site of a disused iron mine, giving a 1½ mile round trip which includes two sections with 1 in 30 gradients.