LIGHT RAILWAYS FOR NEW SOUTH WALES. 65 
of renewal, maintenance would be thus increased. It may be said 
that in America, sleepers are often cut from the nearest forest, 
but that is because generally in such cases they have no timber 
fairly accessible of the magnificent kind we have, or it is certain 
it would be used. In a discussion on this subject at the Institu- 
tion of Civil Engineers, Vol. uxxxv, Mr., now Sir Benjamin 
Baker, said that on the Erie railroad, the price for sleepers was 
three shillings and three pence for oak, lasting seven years, two 
shillings and ninepence for chestnut, lasting five years, and one 
shilling and ninepence for hemlock, lasting three and a-half years; 
the average was therefore about sixpence per annum per sleeper 
for renewals. Now our ironbark sleepers will cost on an average 
about four shillings and sixpence, and last over twenty years, 
which will give about twopence farthing per annum, besides sav- 
ing the labour of three to six relayings. 
So called economy must not take therefore the form of the supply 
of inferior material in sleepers, the best being emphatically the 
cheapest. But if light engines be used their number may be 
reduced. The bearing area of the sleepers on the ballast on the 
New South Wales railways is about twelve thousand square feet per 
mile. On the Midland, and London and North Western this area 
is fourteen thousand five hundred and twenty and thirteen thousand 
two hundred square feet respectively, but very high speeds have 
to be dealt with in these cases. On the narrow gauge railways in 
India the same area is eight thousand square feet, on those of the 
Cape Colony it is nine thousand two hundred and forty square 
feet, and on the Festiniog two feet gauge, about six thousand five 
hundred square feet. The author is no advocate for a change of 
gauge, as will be shewn later, but there seems no reason why the 
supporting power, as represented by the area of contact of the 
sleeper with the ballast, should not be reduced in the same pro- 
portion as the weight on the axle is reduced. 
The true criterion of a light line is the weight per axle it has 
to bear, and not the distance between the rails, or gauge, in fact a 
narrow gauge line might be nearly as heavy as a broader gauge 
E—May 3, 1893. 
