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250 DISCUSSION ON 
Victoria, South Australia had only one gauge, viz., the five feet 
three inches, but the three feet six inches was afterwards intro- 
duced, and an extension on the five feet three inches gauge thirty- 
nine miles in length was constructed for £5,427 per mile, includ- 
ing rolling stock and all costs. Another line on the same gauge 
fifty-seven miles long, which for two-thirds of its distance was a 
heavy line having grades of one in sixty and one in sixty-five, 
cost including rolling stock and everything else, £5,600 per 
mile. Taking the narrow gauge lines which existed in South 
Australia and which embraced some of the heavier portions, as 
well as very easy roads through the long stretches of desert, nine 
hundred and fifty-six miles were constructed at a cost including 
rolling stock of £5065 per mile. For both these grades forty-one 
pound steel rails were used. 
There was no special effort made to reduce the cost of the lines 
on either to the minimum, but they were made sufficiently strong, 
as it was thought, to meet the requirements of the country. It 
was however, very difficult to estimate the growth of traffic in 
some cases. One of these narrow gauge lines was built from Port 
Augusta which is at the head of one of the gulfs in South Australia 
and it extended to a place called ‘‘Government Gums” two 
hundred miles north. The contractors expressed the opinion and 
every one believed them at the time, that one train each way per 
week would carry all the traffic likely to go over the line, but as 
a matter of fact within two or three years the traffic necessitated 
as many as nine trains a day to accommodate the carriage of 
passengers, stores, and live-stock. He agreed with the views of 
the author of the paper, in his opposition to the introduction 
of the three feet six inch gauge into this country, and with his 
proposal to use sixty pound rails for the light lines in New South 
Wales. There would be no difficulty whatever in making engines 
flexible enough to suit that road or indeed to suit a lighter road, 
but it must be admitted that sharp curves and steep gradients, 
especially when combined, were antagonistic to light locomotive = 
construction. If paying loads were to be hauled over. roads of. 
