This is a photo taken at the TCA National Convention held in 1966 in Anaheim, Ca. The trains appear to be standard gauge, but they are running on 2-rail tracks with wooden ties. Can anyone identify them?
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Can't say anything about the track or if the trains are running, but the steamer appears to be an American Flyer brass piper engine and the coaches in the background appear to be Lionel State cars.
Might possible be outside third rail track.
Mystery solved! So it turns out that TCA Western Division had a long time member named Dick Wheeler who operated a 2-rail Standard gauge layout in his backyard for many years. The Monrovia Northern Railroad was a Standard gauge Garden Railroad run by Dick (founder of Model Engineering Works) on his elaborate terrace pike in Monrovia Canyon from the early 1960's to about 2000. He started building it around 1958. He ran modified Standard gauge Lionel, Ives, and American Flyer trains as well as a variety of custom-built equipment centered on the limited edition brass 4-6-0 Colorado Midland #25 that he designed and imported from Japan for Model Engineering Works (MEW). Western Division members and their families would spend weekends running their trains on Dick's layout and enjoying backyard get togethers. Dick can be seen in the photo kneeling.
Very cool... 👍
Mark in Oregon
Jerry Brown (who later made the fantastic standard gauge streamliners) also had a two rail standard gauge layout and modified (and built) some trains to run on it in the mid to late 1970's. .It was actually and outside railroad, very nicely done.
Jim
