RAILWAY PROBLEMS OF AUSTRALIA. 



ADDRESS TO SECTION G (ENGINEERING) BY 



Professor T. HUDSON BEAEE, B.A., B.Sc, D.L., 



PRESIDENT OF THE SECTION. 



In 1914 the Association held its annual meeting in AustraHa, and, 

 thanks to the excellent arrangements made by the Local Committees 

 and the Commonwealth and State Governments, the visiting members 

 had exceptional facilities for travelling over extensive areas of the great 

 island continent. The visitors on arriving in Western Australia found 

 that they were still cut off from the rest of Australia by a sea journey 

 of 1,025 miles, the East- West Transcontinental Eailway being then 

 still uncompleted; they also found later on that the railway journeys 

 from Melbourne to Sydney and from Sydney to Brisbane involved in 

 each case a change of carriage at an intermediate station, owing to 

 break of gauge; they thus had practical experience of the need of the 

 solution of the two railway problems I propose to discuss in this address. 



I began my professional career in the service of the Public Works 

 Department of South AustraHa, at that time engaged on an important 

 scheme of railway development in the rich wheat-growing northern areas 

 of that province, under what was called the Boucaut policy, and I have 

 since that date followed closely the development of the railway systems 

 of Australia, as in the methods of construction and working there were 

 important differences from railway practice in this country. While in 

 Australia in 1914 I specially devoted my time to a study of the two 

 great problems which were then and are still engaging the attention 

 of the people of the Commonwealth — namely, (1) the unification of the 

 existing railway gauges, which are such a serious handicap to railway 

 transportation between the various States, and (2) the opening up of 

 the tropical areas of North Australia by a system of railways linking 

 up with the existing railway systems of the southern and eastern areas 

 of the continent. 



The first is a problem which in great measure affects only the people 

 of AustraHa, though, as will be shown later, its solution involves the 

 expenditure of such a large sum of money — much of which will go 

 in the purchase of permanent way material and rolling-stock — that the 

 manner in which it is solved must be a matter of considerable interest 

 to the iron and steel industries of this country. The second question 

 is one which I venture to suggest is of paramount importance to the 

 whole of the Empire. The future safety of Australia depends upon 

 securing such a rapid increase in the rate of the growth of its population 

 that any idea of a hostile attack upon it would become a hopeless 

 proposition. The vast empty spaces of Central and North Australia 

 are a temptation to the rapidly increasing races of certain Asiatic 



