232 DISCUSSION ON 
than that resulting from the other cause of demurrage already 
mentioned, viz., over £300 a year. So that these traffic charges 
alone, due to break of gauge, and taken at minimum figures, 
would exceed the saving in interest on first cost of the cheaper line. 
Now they had to add No. 2, the expenses of providing and 
maintaining the additional rolling stock necessary to meet occas- 
ional extra traffic, instead of being able to draw from over 11,000 
trucks already in use on the main lines, and secondly, the serious 
increase to the repairs, due to isolation. Apart from break of 
gauge, the repairs of the narrow gauge stock would probably, for 
the same duty, be greater than the larger stock, for the repairs 
would not decrease in the same proportion as size, and, for the 
same duty, nearly three times the train mileage would have to be 
run. But when they added to this the necessity of maintaining 
separate appliances and skilled labour on the branches, which 
would be only partially employed, and when it was considered 
that under present circumstances when the main sheds were 
accessible, the average annual repairs to an engine, carriage, and 
truck were £350, £50, and £9 respectively, or say about £1,200 
to £1,500 a year for such a branch as that supposed, it could 
easily be conceived how these items would mount up. 
He had purposely taken the two feet gauge, as that gave the 
maximum of saving in first cost. The intermediate gauges would 
diminish this, while the expenses of the break in working would 
be as great. It must not be forgotten that while the saving in 
interest on first cost is constant on the credit side, every item he 
had mentioned on the other side, which had been calculated on the 
"basis of the line just meeting its expenses, would increase as the 
traflic increased. 
The figures of course in the foregoing calculations are neces- 
sarily approximate—the saving in construction might be more, 
the expenses due to break of gauge less—no calculation on these 
points can be decisive unless they could deal with each particular 
branch on its own data, but enough is shown to prove that before 
such a momentous change be taken, in the railway policy, as 
