ee wale a oak 
260 DISCUSSION ON 
bad types of engines, as to which no one in the Colony was such 
an excellent practical authority as Mr. Thow, but what would 
‘make the best balance sheet on the whole Government expenditure 
in the matter; in fine, was it not better to incur extra annual 
repairs on special type locomotives, than to pay more than that 
annually in interest on expensive construction, to accommodate 
superior engines? It was a matter for calculation, and he had no 
fear of the result, and others would, he thought, agree when they 
considered it in this way ; on the Western main line, mountain 
section, for instance, which had excessive curvature, there was 
probably twenty-five to thirty engines passing daily over every 
mile. It was obvious that large expenditure was justified there, 
in making things easy for them, and cutting out curves, every 
curve telling on that number of engines daily. In the lines now 
considered, probably two engines would be the daily average, 
whereas the cost of such improvement to a main and branch line 
would, ceteris paribus, be the same. Again, one of the helps 
against curve resistance—superelevation—could only be fixed for 
one average speed, and on the main line great varieties of speed 
were unavoidable, from slow goods to fast expresses. On the light 
branch, the one or two mixed trains daily could be at uniform 
speed generally, and superelevation could be fixed to that speed. 
The English locomotive was oneof the most magnificent machines 
the world had yet seen, and he quite understood the reluctance 
with which one, ike Mr. Thow who knew them so well, would 
see admittedly inferior types in one respect—complication—pre- 
ferred, but he did not think the development of the country by 
light lines should be retarded, because, by a transfer of expenditure 
favourable on the whole to the Government, it should fall on one 
branch rather than on another. Mr. Thow, he was sure, had no 
such narrow view, though he might not agree with Mr. Burge in 
expecting the results to be as favourable as he did. 
‘ 
Professor Warren quoted from Professor Bowes that it was a 
safer plan to make a line light at first, strengthening gradually 
_ as might be required, rather than to make it equal to a standard, — 
\ 
5 
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