NOTES ON MOUNT DUNDAS NARROW GAUGE 



RAILWAY. 



By F. Back, A.M.I.C.E., F.S.S. 



Read May m, 1897. 



In speaking of narrow gauge railways in Tasmania, we 

 must accept the term in its comparative sense. It is a 

 general practice to describe all railways of a less width than 

 4ft. 8|in. as narrow gauge. Indeed, not many years since 

 the term "narrow gauge" was applied to the 4ft. 8|in. 

 guage, which is now called the standard gauge of England. 

 The Tasmanian Railways, being of a gauge of 3ft. 6in., 

 should properly be described as a narrow gauge system. 

 What we have attempted to do on the West Coast is to 

 construct a narrower gauge, viz., a 2ft. line, as being more 

 suitable to local and financial conditions. 



Although oar 2ft. gauge line on the West Coast marks a 

 new era in Government railway construction in Australasia, 

 it must not be regarded in the light of an experiment. The 

 oldest 2ft. gauge line, as far as I am aware, is the Festiniog 

 line in Wales. To be accurate, the width of this line is 

 lft. lljin. The Festiniog Railway Company was originally 

 incorporated in 1832, and commenced work as a tramway 

 from Port Madoek to certain slate quarries near Festiniog. 

 In 1869 the Company was re-incorporated and the present 

 line constructed at a cost of ^£10,727 per mile. The ruling 

 gradients are comparatively easy as compared with our Tas- 

 manian grades, viz., 1 in 80. The line is worked with double 

 Fairlie engines, weighing 24 tons, and the Company pays 

 rather better than 5 per cent, on its capital. 



Of late years narrow gauge railways have been constructed 

 in almost every country in the Continent of Europe, and 

 largely in India. 



The principal opponents to the construction of these 

 narrow gauge lines are railway men who have had little or no 

 experience in working them, and who make a bogey of the 

 break of gauge. No railway manager would, of choice, 

 agree to a break of gauge, but under certain conditions it 

 becomes a necessity. Such a condition, for instance, as where 

 the construction of a broad gauge railway would be an im- 

 possibility on account of the cost ; when in fact it becomes a 

 question of a narrow gauge railway or no railway. 



The late Mr. Grierson, for many years General Manager of 

 the Great Western Railway of England, whose name is a 

 household world amongst railway men, was perhaps the one 



