No, this photograph is not a fake.
These days, when the average person thinks "trains" (the real thing; not models) they think one size (really big) running on track with the rails a certain distance apart (really far). But go back 100 years and smaller trains were everywhere. Until viable trucks came on the scene, when you had to move bulk material from one spot to another, an "industrial" railway was the solution.
For example, the monster in the background above brought coal to the depot, and the two tiny locos moved it to ships in the harbour. Or, other way 'round, when you had, say, acres of sugar cane to get from field to depot, a small, light, narrow gauge railway worked great. Same for lugging away earth during highway construction, carrying trees out of the forest, or hauling rock salt from the mine to the processing plant, which is the operation I've chosen to model.
My garden railway depicts a two-foot (60cm) gauge line, and since my rails are 45mm apart, the ratio of model to prototype is 1:13.7. Put another way, 7/8ths of an inch equates to a foot, which is why this scale is known as 7/8ths (or SE) scale. Think of a six foot man standing just over five inches tall and you've got it.
For more real-life information on these hardworking little trains, here are two good sites:
