INDUSTRIAL PROGRESS DURING THE YEAR 187G. cciii 



Delaware and Bound Brook Railroad Companies. The new line is 

 eighty-eight miles long, and is affirmed to be several miles shorter 

 than other existing routes. 



The success of the Boston, Revere Beach, and Lynn Railroad, it is 

 reported, has started into life numerous schemes for narrow-gauge 

 roads of greater or less length to radiate from Boston in all direc- 

 tions, the propositions being, in brief, to build a net-work of narrow- 

 gauge railways from Boston to many of the principal towns between 

 that city and Worcester and Fitchburg. The difficulty of entering 

 Boston without cost it is proposed to meet by a pile bridge over the 

 Charles River, and a tunnel under Beach Hill, coming out on Pem- 

 berton Square, or Washington Street, near the Old South Church. 

 One of these proposed lines, the Newton and Boston, has already 

 been surveyed through Brighton and Newton to East Natick. An- 

 other is the Boston, Watertown, and Waltham, with a branch to 

 Cambridge. It is also proposed to finish the Massachusetts Cen- 

 tral as a narrow gauge to West Boyleston. Another line is pro- 

 posed from the west end of the tunnel and Charles River through 

 Brighton, Newton, Wellesley, Natick, Framingham, Ashland, Soutli- 

 boro and Westboro to Worcester. 



From foreign sources we glean the following outlines concerning 

 the more important projects for railway extension, in course of exe- 

 cution or projected during the past year. In New South Wales the 

 Colonial government has under consideration a proposition for bor- 

 rowing 3,000,000 for an extension of the existing railway system, 

 with particular reference to a project for connecting the port of Sid- 

 ney with certain extensive coal-fields within a radius of fifty miles. 

 Surveys have been made with the view to the establishment of a 

 railway 360 miles long in Newfoundland, at a cost of 2,500,000. 

 In Buenos Ayres an English company has projected a road from 

 San Nicholas to Juuon, to traverse about 100 miles of well-settled 

 country. A contract for the construction of the Caraccas railway was 

 concluded, and the road will probably be built with French capital. 



On the continent of Europe it is declared that, in spite of the pro- 

 longed depression in trade, there is more activity and vitality in rail- 

 road circles than there has been for many years. At the close of 

 the past year there were no less than 400 miles of railway in course 

 of construction in Italy, and several new lines in contemplation. 

 Some 400 miles of railway are about being constructed in Portugal, 

 the necessary concessions and surveys having been made ; while no 

 less than eight new lines were authorized by the Austrian govern- 

 ment, and a beginning was made with the Seville and Huelva Rail- 

 way in Spain, 105 kilos, in length. A line was projected from Tim- 

 buctoo to Algiers by way of Galeali and the Sahara. The Russian 

 government is said to have given serious consideration to the con- 

 struction of a European-Siberian line from Kazan to Ekaterinburg, 



