Australian Railways

Press, Volume LXXXI, Issue 24546, 20 April 1945, Page 4

Australian Railways

A few months ago the 1 Australian Cabinet affirmed the principle that, in the interests, of defence and national development, the Commonwealth’s railways should be standardised at a gauge of 4ft BJln. The decision was widely welcomed. Whether that support will r'emain as enthusiastic may be doubted now that, as reported this morning, the Commonwealth Director-General of Land Transport, Sir Harold Clapp, has determined the probable cost. The project is extensive. Every railways system in Australia, except that of New South Wales, is affected. Queensland uses three gauges, with all but 100 miles of its 6500 miles gauged at 3ft 6in. The whole of Victoria’s 4765-mile system is gauged either at sft 3in or 2ft 6in. South Australia (2557 miles) uses gauges of sft Sin and 3ft 6in, and both Western Australia (4378 miles) and Tasmania (658 miles) a gauge of 3ft 6in; and little more than half the 2201 miles of Commonwealthowned lines is standard gauge. The cost of conversion will be heavy. Sir Harold Clapp estimates it at £200,000,000; and the Federal Government, in approving his report, has decided to confer with the State Governments so that preliminary works, estimated to cost £67,000,000, may be toegun as soon as the war ends. The negotiations may, however, move slowly. So long ago as 1921 the State and Federal Governments agreed to standardise railway gauges throughout the Commonwealth; but the cost then estimated —little more than onequarter of the figure Sir Harold Clapp gives—was sufficiently frightening to block the project. But the war, meanwhile, ha« emphasised how urgently Australia has needed a unified Tail transport system; for if Australia had lost control of the sea lanes that carry much of her inter-State traffic—a disaster that threatened at one period—the pressure imposed on the rail system might have oeen crippling. The war has, too, changed many notions of the country’s financial capacity. But it is already being argued that

the Federal Government’s plan goes far beyond the' nation’s foreseeable needs; and if the States accept Sir Harold Clapp’s scheme its financial basis remains to be settled. Relations between the States and the Commonwealth Government have seldom been happy whenever State autonomy has been involved. Had the Federal Government won last year’s referendum, some of the uncertainties inherent in the forthcoming negotiations would have vanished. The result of the Federal Government’s approach will therefore be more than usually interesting, for it will help to determine whether Mr Curtin overrated the difficulties of reconstruction under a rigid constitution.