LIGHT RAILWAYS FOR NEW SOUTH WALES. Ve 
times in each district, but even the occurrence of races, agricul- 
tural shows, etc., makes an important variation in the business to 
be done. On standard gauge branches, the want of rolling stock 
on one, may be met by the superfluity of another, or of the main 
line, and an average stock suffices for the whole. If narrow gauge 
branches existed, isolated from each other, either every branch 
would have to be provided with its maximum requirements, which 
might be wanted only for one month in the year, with the extra 
stock lying idle between times, or, during pressure, the wants of 
the traffic could not be met, to the great loss of the department 
and the dissatisfaction of the public. 
Fourthly, the last drawback to be mentioned 1s perhaps the most 
fatal of all. In the Railway Commissioners’ report for the year end- 
ing June 1890, out of a total of four hundred and forty-two engines 
running all over the lines no less than two hundred and twenty 
were put through the main repairing shops at Eveleigh and New- 
castle for repairs. In the year ending June 30, 1891, out of four 
hundred and thirty-nine, two hundred and seventy-two were so 
dealt with, and in the last year’s report out of four hundred and 
eighty-nine, two hundred and thirty were repaired in the main 
shops. Now the Commissioners know their business better than 
to bring no less than fifty-three per cent. of their engines for 
repairs, up to Sydney and Newcastle, unless it is clearly more 
economical to do so, and this is intelligible, because it saves multi- 
plying expensive machinery, and maintaining highly paid artisans 
in outlying districts, where they might not be fully employed, 
whereas the engines are probably utilized in their journeys to the 
shed and back. With regard to coaching, goods, and cattle stock, 
out of an average stock of ten thousand nine hundred and forty- 
six vehicles, for the three years mentioned, no less than sixty-six 
per cent, were through the two main shops for repairs. After 
deducting from these figures the stock which in any case, from 
their nearness, would have gone to the Sydney and Newcastle 
shops for repairs, small and great, there still would remain a very 
large percentage (for the above figures are exclusive of what are 
