130 



SECTIONAL ADDRESSES. 



turning the vehicle, and it would be difficult to carry this out at junctions 

 where branch lines came in from both the right and the left. Mr. 

 Deane's own idea was that the third rail producing a mixed gauge would 

 be the best solution of the problem. This would involve difficulties at 

 points and crossings. Mr. Brennan, the well-known torpedo expert, 

 had prepared a design for compound switches, and a model of this had 

 been made at the Sydney Eailway Interlocking Workshops. Mr. 

 Deane was of opinion that this design of Mr. Brennan would probably 

 overcome the difficulties introduced by the use of the third rail, and 

 he suggested to the Commonwealth Government that two or three full- 

 size sets of the switches should be constructed and tried at an im- 

 portant junction station. Mr. Deane was oi opinion that the change- 

 over as regards Victoria and South Australia, if carried out on these 

 lines, would occupy from five to ten years. The table which follows 

 gives the lengths of the various gauges, tlae original capital cost, and 

 the cost per mile of the State Eailway s on June 30, 1910, that is at the 

 date when Mr. Deane was preparing this report. 



Mileage and Gauge of Australian Railways on June 80, 1910. 



In 1913 a further conference of the Engineers-in-Ohief was held, 

 and this conference adopted two resolutions of considerable importance : 



1. That it was advantageous that the work of unification should be 

 undertaken at once, since the longer the work was delayed the greater 

 would be the cost. 



2. That the relative advantages of the 5 ft. 3 in. and the 4 ft. 8 J in. 

 gauges from the point of view of efficiency and economy of working, and 

 discarding the question of interest on cost of conversion, approximately 

 balanced one another, and that, since the cost of conversion of the 

 wider to the narrower gauge was much less than for the converse 

 operation, they recommended the adoption of the 4 ft. 8 J in. gauge. 



This conference estimated that the cost of converting all the railway 

 lines of Australia to the 4 ft. 8J in. gauge would be 37,164,000L, but, 

 if it were decided merely to unify the main-line routes connecting the 

 various capitals, the cost would be 12,142,OO0L Of this latter sum 

 the new lines which would be required would account for 4,847,0G0L, 

 and the conversion of the existing 5 ft. 3 in lines (all the Victorian 

 but only some of the South Australian) would cost 7,295,000L 



