My favorite railroad has always been the Denver and Rio Grande Western, the state of Colorado's home railroad, that was originally built to a narrow gauge of 3'-0", instead of the standard gauge of 4'-8-1/2". The famous Durango & Silverton scenic railroad in southwest Colorado is a preserved piece of what was once a vast narrow gauge rail network stretching from Denver to Salt Lake City. When I was younger, the narrow gauge HO scale models were always so expensive to be out of reach, and in the meantime I switched to focus my collecting efforts on the smaller N scale. Recently, a Japanese company named Rokuhan began producing very inexpensive Z scale locomotive chassis (smaller than N scale), that were being used my N scale narrow gauge modelers to create inexpensive narrow gauge locomotives running on Z gauge track. I joined in the fun, and cut down a spare tank engine shell to fit the chassis. It has become one of my favorite locomotives, fulfilling the dream of modeling the narrow gauge railroads I love most.
