PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. ll 
purchased to meet the special case. You will understand 
that Iam only advocating the use of sharp curves and 
steep grades on branch lines and short connections where 
high speeds are not a necessity. . The Railway Department 
does not consider high speed a necessity on branch lines. 
Look up for instance the timetable, we find the following: — 
The distance between Manilla— Tamworth is 29 miles and 
trains take 3 hours for the journey; Moree — Inverell, 96 
miles—6 hours, 15 min.; Lismore— Murwillumbah, 62 
miles—3 hours, 50 minutes; Grafton — Casino, 85 miles— 
6 hours, 17 minutes ;: Narrandera—Finlay, 101 miles—7 
hours 30 minutes. It may be said this slowness of speed 
is partly due to the trains being mixed ones, but if mixed 
trains are good enough for passengers, speed is evidently 
not wanted. I am expressing, however, no approval of 
mixed trains, which I think are most unpleasant inventions, 
I think that on what one may call second grade lines, that 
is interurban lines of high importance, but not between 
capitals, very flat curves are by no means a necessity and 
their introduction is often a waste of money. 
As an illustration of what may be done with sharp 
curves, there is the line I have recently constructed for 
the Commonwealth Oil Corporation, Limited, running from 
the Great Western Line to Newnes, in the Wolgan Valley. 
At the end of April, 1906, Mr. D. A. Sutherland, Consult- 
ing Kngineer and General Manager of that Company on the 
eve oi leaving for Hngland, asked me to see him on the 
subject of providing access by railway with the Company’s 
Shale Deposits, stretching between the Wolgan and 
Capertee Valleys. Mr. Sutherland himself had been 
already over the ground, and had submitted a rough 
estimate for a line into the valley, which later on proved 
not to differ very widely from the actual cost. As the 
result of the interview, I undertook the laying out of a 
