647 
LIGHT RAILWAYS 
Now that the Board of Trade has held a Conference, and a com- 
mittee has been nominated to inquire into the whole question of 
light railways, we may assume that the subject is fairly before 
the public, and that we shall hear a great deal of it in all direc- 
tions in the immediate future. And, indeed, the more discussion 
the better, for at present the public ideas are distinctly hazy on 
the subject, and few people seem to have any idea of what a light 
railway is and does. For example, it is not uncommon to read 
in the press a complaint that no one defines what a light railway 
is, whereas such a definition is, in the nature of things, obviously 
impossible. You cannot define a slow train, except by reference, 
implicit or explicit, to a fast one, and a slow train in England 
would be an express in Bavaria. Similarly you can only define 
a light railway by reference to railways which are not light. A 
light railway must be something simpler and cheaper .than an 
ordinary railway ; but the simplest and cheapest railway, prac- 
tically possible in an old, settled, and rich country like this, may 
well be found, necessarily and rightly, more expensive and more 
elaborate than a railway of normal type in Texas or Mexico. 
One definition, then, of a light railway may be said to be 
a railway of second or third class standard. This is looking 
at the subject from the practical side ; but there is also a legal 
and administrative point of view, and it is rather from this 
point of view that a definition would usually be given on the 
Continent. For example, in Belgium a vicinal railway, as it is 
there called, is a line belonging to, and worked by, the Societe 
Nationale des Chemins-de-fer Vicinaux (National Light Rail- 
way Society), and not directly by the State or the great railway 
companies. In France a chemin de fer d’interet local (rail- 
way of local interest) is one which is exempt from the code of 
laws and regulations applying to ordinary lines, and the control 
of which is entrusted, not to the Staff of the Minister of Public 
Works, but to the Prefects of the several departments. In 
Prussia, again, the Kleinbahnen (literally, little railways) are 
lines belonging, not to the State, but to private companies or 
local authorities ; controlled, not from Berlin, but from the 
county centre, and subsidised — if subsidised at all— not by the 
the nation, but by the local population directly concerned. Our 
definition, therefore, is a purely negative one. A light railway 
is one which, from whatever point of view it be regarded, 
whether of importance, of speed, of expense, or what not, is 
inferior to the ordinary railway. 
