" Timehri " and Development. 183 



In 189b a line surveyed from Cartabo westward lor 35 miles was 

 submitted to a cod suiting engineer in London who estimated the cost on 

 the data furnished him at £6,239 sterling per mile for a 2ft. Gin. line. 



Mr. Luke Hill in 1902 reckoned on a million and a half sterling for 

 420 miles from Bartica to the source of the Essequibo river and a half 

 million sterling for a Cartabo-Puruni line 140 miles in length. These 

 figures work out at about £3,700 and £3,500 per mile for a 4ft. 8£in. 

 gauge which he proposed. 



Mr. Dorman put the cost of a 3ft. 6in gauge at £1,500 per mile, 

 while Mr. de la Bastide calculated £2,500 for that type of railway and 

 £1,800 for a 2ft 6in. gauge. The same authority put a standard gauge 

 line at £6,000 per mile. 



The writer of " Railways Ten Years After " considered that a line 

 " tapping the savannahs and aiming to link up with a line from Manaos 

 would barely exceed 300 miles and could be built of a metre gauge for \\ 

 millions sterling.'' 



£8,000 per mile for a 200-mile railway was put by Colonel Link as 

 the maximum cost of a standard gauge line running to the boundary by 

 a route undetermined but with a probable starting point at Bartica. 



Mr. Tew's estimate for the Rockstone to Konawaruk line was £7,500 

 per mile without cost of bridging the Essequibo. 



The average old colonist with ponderous gloom puts the cost per 

 mile of any gauge of railway from anywhere in the colony to anywhere 

 else at £15,000-£20,000 a mile and bankruptcy to follow. 



Neglecting these last-mentioned humourists, we may take it that on 

 surveyed lines through the most difficult regions of Guiana, the maximum 

 cost of railway building to metre gauge is, wherever a competent engineer 

 had data for calculation, put at from £6,000-£7,000. A main trunk line 

 through the easy country mapped out for a frontier railway including 

 the one heavy peice of engineering required to bridge the Essequibo may 

 be carried out at one-half that rate. 



Sir Walter Egerton's despatch of February, 1914, names £3,500 as 

 the approximate cost made up as follows : 



Item. Cost Per Mile. 



Survey... ... ... ... ... £ 30 



Earthworks and Clearing ... ... ... 525 



Bridges and Culverts ... ... ... 600 



Permanent Way and Ballast ... ... ... 1,200 



Stations and Quarters ... ... ... 200 



Station, Machinery and Workshops ... ... 100 



Rolling Stock "... ... ... ... 500 



Telegraphs ... .. ... ... 40 



Engineering and Administration ... ... 270 



Contingencies ... ... ... ... 35 



£ 3,500 



Estimated Length of Line ... ... 380 Miles 



Total Cost ... ... ... £980,000 



