350 RAILWAY CONSTRUCTION. 



conveyed to the nearest railway stations with greater facility and 

 at much less expense than by carting along the public highway. 

 Such little lines are available in places where the most sanguine 

 promoter would hesitate to suggest an ordinary railway, and may 

 be found to supply what is felt to be the missing link in the 

 economical transport of a long list of materials of everyday use. 

 As they would be almost exclusively intended for merchandise 

 purposes, the statutory requirements would be on the most 

 moderate scale, and as they would be generally constructed at 

 the cost of the parties who had to operate them, the outlay 

 would be restricted to the actual works necessary for con- 

 venience and efficiency. Similar little lines have been in use for 

 many years in the busy yards of large ironworks, shipbuilders, 

 and many other localities, where weighty masses of materials 

 have to be moved from place to place in the course of manu- 

 facture, and it would be merely carrying out the same idea to a 

 more extended range. The principal inducement for their intro- 

 duction is the great advantage, both in convenience and cost, 

 that is obtained by hauling a ton of materials over a pair of rails 

 as compared with carting the same weight along an ordinary 

 road ; and as the fact becomes more and more proved by expe- 

 rience, these little fourth-rank lines will become more general. 

 Numbers of them are in use at the present time, and some of 

 them, even of only 2-feet gauge, are doing good service, the little 

 trucks conveying manufactured goods to the nearest railway 

 station and returning loaded with coals and other materials. By 

 making suitable arrangements for passing places and junctions, 

 the system could be carried out to considerable distances in 

 thinly populated districts, and be made available by means of 

 local sidings, to several places along the route. With a narrow- 

 gauge type there would, of course, always be the time and expense 

 of transhipment to or from the ordinary railway trucks in the 

 same way as with the road carts, but the time and expense may 

 be lessened by so constructing the little narrow-gauge trucks 

 that the bodies may be readily lifted off the frames and wheels, 

 and be placed like packing-cases in the railway waggons. 



It is natural to look to the railways of the first rank for the 

 latest advances in construction, appliances, and equipment, and 

 it is generally there they are found. Great trunk lines, crowded 

 with traffic of all kinds, have not only the opportunity and 

 means, but all the strong inducements to try or adopt any 



