LIGHT RAILWAYS FOR NEW SOUTH WALES. 959 
Mr. Vandevelde’s figures as to the cost of two feet lines in 
France, allowing for the difference in rate of wages, agreed closely 
with the £880 per mile saving in first cost over standard gauge 
lines estimated by Mr. Burge in opening the discussion. Mr. 
Vandevelde had asked him if he would advise now, that the 
Festiniog line should be altered to the standard gauge, evidently 
thinking that he was hostile to the smaller gauges, whereas his 
hostility was only to the mixture of them. He should not only 
oppose the change he refers to, but would probably adopt the two 
feet gauge if the line had to be made anew. Besides a small tourist 
traffic, the great business done was conveying slates from the 
quarries to the seaport. When he was engaged on it, there were 
eight hundred and fifty trucks specially made for slates, out of a 
total of eight hundred and ninety-two, weighing thirteen to nine- 
teen cwt. each, and carrying two to three tons of slates, a ratio of 
dead to live load impracticable for this heavy material in the wider 
gauges; there was no connection with any other line, and if there 
was, there could be no interchange of traffic, as it was crowded to 
its utmost capacity in the conveyance of slates from quarry to port. 
‘There was no analogy whatever in this to New South Wales 
branch lines generally, and the reference only showed the mistakes 
which might be made by founding arguments on conditions 
essentially different. The paper was not on light railways 
generally, but on light railways for New South Wales. 
The remarks of Mr. Thow, from his experience as head of the 
Locomotive Department in New South Wales, and formerly in 
South Australia, carried great weight. There was no difficulty 
as regards the engine question for the flatter country. It was 
where heavy grades and sharp curves occur, to obtain light con- 
struction that locomotive engineers hesitated about meeting them. 
Mr. Thow would see, on looking at the paper again p. 59, that 
Mr. Burge did not ignore, as he thought, the difficulty of combin- 
ing flexibility and adhesive length, nor, in the previous page, that 
extra complication of parts and increased expenditure for repairs 
would have to be faced. The question was not between good and 
