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Railways and Tramways. 



By R. L. Nash. 



It may be that if tlie railways of tliis colony had at the outset been 

 designed to cover the mileage they do to-day, they would to some 

 extent have followed different routes. They have been put together 

 piecemeal like the railways of the United Kingdom ; but at any rate, 

 there is not the same unnecessary amount of duplication of routes as 

 is to be found in the Old Country ; and although they have grown 

 perhaps less with a view to a symmetrical whole than as the progress 

 of settlement suggested, New South Wales is to-day possessed of a 

 very serviceable network converging upon the two great ports of 

 Sydney and Newcastle. The 2,5ol ^ miles of Government line in opera- 

 tion on the 30th June, 1895, may be classified as under : — 



Costing on the average £12,39G per mile for construction, and 

 £2,068 for rolling stock, &c., or a total of £14,463 per mile. 



These Government Railways are all constructed upon the 4 feet 8^ 

 inches English gauge, and are substantially built. There are, in 

 addition, some private lines. That from Deniliquin to Moama, on 

 the River Murray, is 45 miles, and constructed on the Victorian 

 gauge of 5 feet 3 inches by a Melbourne company, and it feeds the 

 Victorian railway system. The Silvei'ton steam tramways are 35f 

 miles in length, with a 3 feet 6 inches gauge, and connect Broken 

 Hill with the South Australian railways. There are, too, tvro small 

 branches, together 3| miles, on the standard gauge, so that, in all, 

 there arc 2,G15| miles of railway in the colony, the capital cost of 



