STANDARD GAUGE

Evening Post, Volume XCIX, Issue 123, 25 May 1920, Page 7

STANDARD GAUGE

FOR AUSTRALIAN RAILWAYS

TO CONNECT THE CAPITALS

(UNITED PR'JSS ASSOCIATION.—COPTMOHT.}

.MELBOURNE, 24th May.

Details of the proposals submitted by Mr. W. M. Hughes (Federal Premier) to the Premiers' Conference for a uniform railway gauge show that it is intended to connect the capitals from Brisbane to Perth with a 4ffc Biin gauge, the mainland States to. contribute to the cost on a per capita basis, the Commonwealth also contributing a quota, the Commonwealth to make . arrangements for raising the money by, issuing nonnegotiable bonds for a fixed period.

In 1913 the chief engineers of the different Stats Railway Departments, after a conference in Melbourne, recommended that the 4ft S^in gauge line which exists in,, New South Wales should be adopted as the standard for tlie lines of all the* other States, and that the conversion of the lines which differed from that gauge should be undertaken as soon as possible. The estimated cost of this work was £37,164,000. The report set out the different sums which would have to be expended for the adoption of any of the gauges which already exist in the different States. To convert the 3ft 6in andsthe. 4ft Biin lines of Queensland,. New South Wales, and. Western Australia to the Victorian gauge of sft' 3in would cost, according to. the calculations of the conference, £51,659,000. The cost of creating a uniform gauge of 4ft B£in was, however, put down at £37,164,000. If the work were undertaken it was estimated that the expenditure entailed in the different States would be : —New South.. Wales £126,000, Victoria £'6.117,000, Queensland £12,578.000, South Australia £6,228,000, West Australia £10,840,000, Commonwealth £1,281,000. In each .instance the figures given include the cost of -the alteration which would be necessary to rolling stock, a.nd the report pointed out that the difference in cost in favour of th^ conversion to 4ft B£in, as against conversion to sft 3in,' would be £14,495,000. The conversion of the New South Wales lines to the gauge adopted by Victoria would, it was estimated, coftt £19.319,000, while to. adopt the 4ft Bjin gauge in the States which now possess the sft 3in gauge, Victoria and South Australia, would. necessitate the expenditure of but £7,295,000.