LIGHT RAILWAYS FOR NEW SOUTH WALES. 243 
satisfaction, the cost of maintenance of such a lightly ballasted 
line would be comparatively large, and as the ballast was calcu- 
lated to cost only five shillings per cubic yard, the material could 
not be expected to be of very high quality, and such a thin layer 
would soon be converted into pulp by the sleepers, or disappear 
in the formation, and although the cost per mile taking it for the 
cheaper of the estimates, would be about ten per cent. higher, and 
by keeping to the present number of sleepers and allowing six 
inches of ballast under them, the additional interest on capital 
would be only £9 per annum per mile, and this would be fully 
saved in maintenance, besides giving a better and safer track on 
which higher speeds could be run with perfect impunity. Another 
point on which he disagreed with the author was the proposal to 
use existing road bridges for railway traffic. He did not think . 
that many of the existing road bridges could be sufficiently stiffened 
to carry the loads which trains of the weight proposed would 
impose upon them ; besides in the majority of cases the approaches 
were entirely unsuited for the projected purpose. With regard 
to the author’s objections to break of gauge, he would admit that 
he was not in favour of it so long as a standard line could be made 
to pay, even if only after some years. A railway was only a 
machine, and if a two,hundred horse power engine would do all 
the work required, a five hundred horse power one would not be 
used, and similarly if it was found that a railway with say a two 
feet gauge could carry all the traffic that was ever likely to come 
on to it, and calculating all the drawbacks set forth by the author 
and capitalising the extra cost per annum due to them, it was 
then found that the two feet gauge would still leave a fair margin 
of profit, while the standard gauge would shew a loss, he would 
unhesitatingly say change the gauge. A properly designed two 
feet gauge line could be constructed at from one-half to two-thirds 
the cost of standard gauge lines; the saving with the metre or the 
three feet six inches gauge was not so large proportionately, and 
once a change of gauge was decided upon, the one which could do 
the work desired with the least capital outlay should be adopted. 
