LIGHT RAILWAYS FOR NEW SOUTH WALES. 219 
LIGHT RAILWAYS FOR NEW SOUTH WALES.* 
By Cuar.Les Ormsspy BurGzs, M. Inst. C.E. 
Principal Assistant Engineer-in-Charge, Railway Surveys, N.S. W. 
[Read before the Engineering Section of the Royal Society of N.S. Wales, 
December 21, 1892. | 
Discussion. 
Mr. C. O. Buras, in opening the discussion, submitted the 
following comparison of cost of construction and working of pro- 
posed light standard gauge railways, according to the egtimate 
contained in the paper, with that of the two feet gauge lines of the 
type now constructed in France, applied to similar country, and 
on the basis of Colonial rates. In making this comparison he 
took the figures, converted into English equivalents, of M. Regis 
Tartary, an engineer in the French Government service, who had 
written on the latest extensive development of the two feet gauge 
system, of which there is over three hundred miles in France, and 
who, being strongly in favour of that system, was not likely to 
hide any of its advantages. 
The only items substantially affected by gauge, as regards 
construction, were :—1. Earthwork; 2. culverts and bridges ; 
2. ballast; 4. sleepers; 5. rails and fastenings; 6. laying road. 
1. Mr. Burge made the saving in earthwork for the two feet 
gauge, for a light surface line to amount to per mile about £91 ; 
2. culvert and bridges, about £21; 3. ballast, about £67; 4. sleepers 
about £92; 5. permanent way material, about £491; 6. laying 
the road, about £118 ; total per mile £880. The two first items 
of the above, which were about one-eighth of the whole saving, 
would be the only ones affected by the roughness of the country. 
Working Expenses.—Excluding, for the present, the question 
of break of gauge, and merely comparing one gauge with another, 
it would be found that, practically, traffic expenditure was inde- 
* The paper on which this discussion is based appears on pp. 54 - 75. 
