William L. Daney

Early 1.5 Scale




TLS No 147


Steve Booth wrote:


 * William L. Daney started building locomotives in 1925. He built two of the Pacific’s owned by the Tipsico Lakeshore Railroad. His first, TLS No. 688, was started in 1922 and finished in 1925. His largest 1-1/2” scale pacific, TLS No. 147, was built in 1936.



5 Inch Scale
From "Narrow Gauge" from Master Railroad Builder by Steve Booth:


 * The Search for the perfect park railroad gauge and scale had been going on for decades when Erich Thomsen go together with Live Steam veteran William L. Daney of Pueblo, Colorado, back in the early 1950's. At the time, Erich was operating his 12-inch Tilden, South Gate & Pacific Railway, and Bill had a 3-inch scale, 15-inch gauge park railroad at Pueblo.  Neither of them were really happy with what they had because both railroads had a seat width of 27-1/2 inches, not wide enough fro two adults side by side.  They agreed then that the choice of the ideal scale and gauge "should begin with the width of the average adult fanny multiplied by two."


 * When the two men sat down and measured themselves, they found a seat 36 inches wide would accommodate them easily. With two inches added for each car side, the overall width dimension of a car came out 40 inches, exactly 5-inch scale of the full-size, 8-foot wide cars commonly used on 36-inch gauge, which scales down to 15 inches.  What a happy coincidence! Also, such nice round numbers.


 * It was then that 5-inch scale was born as an answer to the problems of track curvature, rolling stock stability and passenger-carrying efficiency, factors of great importance to park system operators who are faced constantly with the bottom line - if it doesn't make money it can't succeed. Soon, Bill Daney started building a 5-inch scale Consolidation for Guy Stillman's new Paradise & Pacific Railroad on a ranch at Scottsdale.  Erich Thomsen began planning the conversion of his Tilden Park Railroad to the new scale and gauge, and he started construction of No. 4, the diamond-stacked 2-4-2 he out-shopped in 1965 with a string of 15-inch narrow gauge cars.


 * In Colorado, Lee Merrick converts miniatures of standard gauge prototypes to narrow gauge. His first locomotive, built originally by the Texas & Pacific Railroad Shops in Big Springs, Texas as a 4-6-2 and later sold to Bill Daney, now runs on the Paradise and Pacific at Scottsdale's McCormack Railroad Park.  The line was given to the city by Guy Stillman and rebuilt across the road from its original location.


 * It's with the originators of the scale, though, where most of the activity has been. Bill Daney has built a whole stable of engines for the P&P, and Erich Thomsen, who always has more than one locomotive in some stage of construction, is building a stable of his own narrow gauge thoroughbreds for operation on the Redwood Valley Railway at Tilden Park, what was originally the TSG&P. It's the Redwood Valley that shows how successful the scale is, how much potential it has for both commercial and private use.  With the Redwood Valley, Erich has refined his designs and construction methods and turned out what can only be called a gem of a railroad.



Family
1940 Census


 * William Daney, male, head of household, 1ge 41
 * Birthplace: Colorado, About 1899
 * Home in 1940
 * 612 Euclid
 * Pueblo, Colorado
 * Wife: Isabel Daney, age 35
 * Son: William Chester Daney, age 5
 * Son: David Earl Daney, age 2