MAGAZINE OF SCIENCE AND ART. 
65 
American lines, when it has been difficult to procure ballast, 
a ditch has been dug at each side of the road, the soil 
from which has been booked up so as to cover 
the centre of the sleeper, but sloped ofFon each side leaving 
the ends of the sleepers exposed In order to allow the rain 
to draw off rapidly. Looking, therefore, at the difference 
above stated, between the railroad for locomotive and that 
for horse power, the cost of ballast may be merged into that 
of the horse track—the material required for which will on 
a length of 2000 yards, allowing a depth of 12 inches and a 
width of six feet, amount to 1380 cube yards, and taking 
this at an average of 6s. per yard, the cost will be £357 per 
mile. 
Summing up these various items, viz.:— 
£ s. d. 
Rails and Chains.1,000 0 0 
Sleepers or Blocks . 500 0 0 
Labour, fixing... 500 0 0 
Ballast or road. 340 q 0 
■£d 00 per mile, and if these last eight years the annual 
charge for renewals will be £62 10 s.—should stone 
blocks be used, this charge would almost vanish. I 
have not made any allowance for the maintenance of 
the horse track between the rails, as I consider the 
amount of labour allotted is amply sufficient to make 
good the very slight damage which* would be done by 
the feet of the horses. The total charge for mainte¬ 
nance of way on the horse railway will be, as follows : 
£ s. d. 
Rene wal of rails . 50 0 0 
Ditto sleepers. 62 10 0 
Labour . 66 13 4 
Would give.£2,140 0 0 
as the cost of forming the track fora railway, while that of 
macadamizing the turnpike road would amount to £1613. 
The difference, or about £527, would be the excess of the’ 
cost of the railway above that of the macadamized road, 
and if the cost of the latter be put at £3,000 per mile, 
that of the railroad may be taken at £3,500. 
Having thus arrived at an approximation to the cost of 
the turnpike road, and the horse railroad, it only remains 
to determine the cost of a railway for locomotives. For 
this we have a variety of data. We have the average cost 
ot English and American railway • and we have the actual 
cost of railways already executed in this colony. And if 
the comparatively easy line between Liverpool and Parra¬ 
matta has cost upwards of D 1,000 per mile, we may feel 
sure that in the more difficult countty. where the cuttings 
must be deeper, the embankments higher, the bridges more 
numerous. £12,000 will be a very moderate estimate. 
n T r e . com P ar lson, then, between the different modes 
alluded to in the former part of this paper, of remedying 
the evil arising from the miserable condition of our present 
lines of communication, bo far as the first cost of each is 
concerned, will stand as follows:— 
First cost Annual charge for 
_ per mile. Interest per mile. 
Turnpike Road. .£3<t00 £15 I 
Horse Railroad. 3500 175 
Locomotive Railroad 12000 600 
The next matter for consideration will be the annual cost 
of maintenance of way, a. it is termed, namely, that of 
keeping the road in a proper state of repair, by applying 
labour when it is needed, and by renewing the materials as 
they decay. 
In all cases the outlay for these purposes must depend to 
a certain extent on the amount of traffic, but if we assume 
this to be such as to require the renewal of the metal upon 
a macadamized road every ten years, and that of the iron 
rails of the ra.lway every twenty years, while the wooden 
sleepers may be taken to last eight years, the relative out 
lay may be roughly estimated as follows: 
On the turnpiko road a single station man will, on 
an average, with light traffic, take charge of four miles 
of road, and his wages mil amount to £100 per annum, 
at Iffi?? ? Th / ;°. ,al cost of metal ^ 
^ I 13 1 V 10th , of thls ’ or ■ £161 '"'ill be the 
annual cost ot metal, so that the total annual charge 
br£186 6 f s riUamt<!DanCe W ‘ ll, 0n the tum P>ke road, 
On the horse rail the labour would be trifling in com- 
SyT 1 ’ “ station man would only be calfed upon 
W t k HP ‘ e e “ eral drainage, and would never 
Idail . 1 ln ruts ’ &c - H° wevar , to make ample pro- 
oTvcvd t "'?.“ en “rajr *>0 allowed to every three miles 
rive £«’m Cl 'af <he 0, .dr»ary rate of labour, would 
gi\e £b0 10s. 4d. pur nuio. The charge for rails and 
chans has been taken at £1,000 per mile, and, as these 
wdll S cmt° S ?5o’ h T ty yearS ’ the annual renewals 
1 cost £a 0 . Tha .charge for sleepers was put at 
n , , . 179 3 4 
On the locomotive railroad the charge for renewals, 
assuming therails and sleepers to last as long as on the 
horse road, will bo 2000 - 20 , £100 per annum per mile 
for rails, and say 150-8, £18 10s. for sleepers. For 
the cast of labour we must be dependent upon the data 
afforded by the returns from the English railroads, and 
tlm experience which the Parramatta railway will 
afford. From the returns which have been furnished, 
I find that the contract price for labour only was £16 
per mile per fortnight, or £416 per mile per annum, or 
Is. lOd. per train mile. In America the cost is about 
half of this, amounting to ll£d. per train mile, while 
m England the cost varies from 13*92 to 3 072, and the 
average may be put at 7*66 per train mile. The greater 
the amount of traffic upon the road, the greater of course 
wall be the absolute cost of maintenance of wav, but the 
less will be the rate per train mile, as there are several 
items which are almost constant, or which, at all events, 
do not vary with the amount of traffic. Under these 
circumstances, if the charge per mile of road is put at 
£*250 annually—that is, at £166 less than is now ac¬ 
tually paid on the Parramatta line; and if to this be 
added the cost of replacing rails and sleepers before 
estimated at £118 10 s. per mile, the total charge for 
maintenance of way mil be £368 10s. The propor¬ 
tionate cost, therefore, of the maintenance of way on 
these three descriptions of road will be as follows: 
. *£ s. d. 
Turnpike road . 186 6 0 
Horse railroad . 179 3 4 
Locomotive road . 368 10 0 
Having thus established an approximation at all 
e T vei \ts to the two great items of permanent charge on 
the different kinds of roads, the only question which 
remains to be investigated is the actual cost of trans¬ 
port—I mean the cost of the power employed in haul¬ 
age; including in such cost all incidental and contin¬ 
gent expenses, such as the repair and renewal of rolling 
stock, coaching, traffic, and station charges, &c. 
Tn enteriug upon this investigation, I will commence 
with the locomotive railway ; for, with regard to this, 
we have not only the experience of the English and 
American railways to guide us, but we are also in pos¬ 
session qf the returns of the cost of working the lino of 
ra !pJ va - v * 10171 Sydney to Parramatta and Liverpool. 
The actual cost of locomotive power may be classified 
under the following heads : 
1 st. Interest of purchase money of rolling stock. 
2nd. Repair and renewal of ditto. 
3rd. Cost ot working, including wages of engineers, 
drivers, foremen, &c., and charge for fuel, oil, &c. 
4th. Station expenses, that is, the wages of persons 
employed in various capacities, but not actually en¬ 
gaged in working the locomotives. 
Iho whole of these charges arc (with the exception 
perhaps of No. 4) directly proportional to the amount 
of the traffic upon the road, In order, therefore, to 
estimate their amount, some specific number of pas¬ 
sengers, and of tons of goods, must be assumed as like! v 
to pass over the railway. The total tonnage passing u*p 
and down the Southern road between Goulburn and 
Sydney is shewn by the annexed return to amount to 
30,543. Of this, however, 10,000 tons passes down the 
railway from Liverpool, and an additional 10,000 tons 
