THE RAILWAYS OF THE FUTURE.

Lyttelton Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 2930, 31 May 1870, Page 3

THE RAILWAYS OF THE FUTURE.

(From the Times Feb, 18.) Many persona in England are apt to suppose that we have coma to the end of railway extension. The country is so well furnished with railways, and their financial results are so disappointing, that people are natural y loth to contemplate any further experiments on the established system. We are most grateful to the shareholders who have been so good as to supply us with these admirable roads, which have gone far to change the character of our civilization ; but there are not many of us who care to follow tl .'® lr ex ’ ample, and we cannot be surprised if they should themselves be unwilling to continue the sacrifice of their fortunes for our benefit. Still, those who are acquainted with the nemand for railways in foreign lands, in our colonies, and even in many parts of our own country, must be aware that we are speaking literally when we say that railways are as yet but in their infancy. There is an enormous demand for them in India, ror instance; and yet every man of common sense must admit that, judging from all Englishmanspies, it is perfect madness to construct them on the received system, which means ruinous expenditure and dead lose. So thoroughly is need of a great revolution in rai way construction perceived that some months ago we had to make the startling announcementthat the Governor-General of India, dissatisfied with the slow progress and excesßive cost ot railways in his dominion, had actuary sent to the United States for engineers who might confer with him as to the introduction of a more effectual and economicalsystem-« this were beyond the capacity of Engl sn engineers; and we propose now to give some account of further most importantinvesti eations tending to the same result as that so earnestly desirfd by Lord.Mayo,whose«m----elusions, it may bo mentioned in passing, coincided substantially with those formed independently by the Dnlce of Argyll at home.

It may be well to begin by reminding our readers that in October last (the 19 th and SOih) we gave a pretty full account of what is known as the Fairlie system of railway working—a system by which lines of the lightest construction and very narrow gauge may accomplish work hitherto deemed within the means only of lines of ponderous construction and broad gauge, and by which also the established 1 nes of standard gauge may either partly diminish expenses, or, without additional cost, well nigh double their carrying capacity. The characteristics of the system will appear in the sequel; for the present we proceed to state that Mr Power, the vice-chairman of the Poti and Tiflis Railway Company (a railway of 300 versta in the Caucasus), and Mr Crawley, the contractor for its construction, were so struck with the merits of the Fairlie system, that they strongly recommended its adoption to the Russian Government, not only for the line prepared in the Caucasus, but also for all lines throughout that vast empire, where railways are of prime necessity, and where now, according to the new plan, five miles can be provided at a cost which was swallowed up in three miles according to the old one. The recommendation carried the greater weight, inasmuch as the works of the Poti and Tiflis Railway were far advanced, and on a length of 15 versts the rails are actually laid down. The proposition, therefore, was that the Russian Government would find their advantage, even on these conditions, of changing the plans on which so much work had been expended, (akii'g up the rails which have been laid down, and constructing the line on a gauge of 2ft. 6in., or exactly half the standard Russian gauge. The Minister for Public Works, Fount Bobrinskoy, seized upon the idea. Mr Fairlie went to St. Petersburg to explain hit scheme in detail; and the result of all is that an Imperial Commission has been sent over to this country to inspect the actual working of the system in various places, but chiefly on a wonderful little railway of two foot gauge in Wales.

The chief of the Commission is Count Alexis BrobrinsKoy, cousin to the Minister of Public Works. He is accompanied by a considerable staff of engineers, foremost among whom may be mentioned Professor Saioff, of the Russian Imperial Institute; and Mr Roehrberg, the manager of the most successful railway in Rus ia; and by personal friends, as Count Zamoyski and Count Alexander Berg, who take an interest in the question of railways. At the same time Mr Fairlie offered to the Indian Government the opportunity of witnessing the experiments to be instituted for the Russian Commissioners; and they, being themselves anxious for the means of improving and economising their own railway system, at once resolved to take advantage of the offer. They appointed a Commission, consisting of Lieu-tenant-General Sir William Baker, R.E., and a member of the Council of India ; Mr Thornton, Secretary of the Public Works Department in the India-office; and Mr Danvers, Government Director of Indian Railway Companies, to accompany the party. Captain Tyler also, the Government Inspector of Railways, who has already reported favourably on the Festiniog Railway of twofoot gauge, attended on behalf of the Board of Trade, and Mr Pihl, Chief Engineer of Railways in Norway, was present on the part of the Norwegian Government. Besides these gentlemen, who went to witness the trials officially, others took an interest in the various proceedings in a private capacity; chief among them being the Duke of Sutherland and Count Be.a Szcchecyi, son of the Hungarian patriot of that name, who was well known in England some 30 years ago. The Duke took an especial interest in the inquiry, as he is not only a director of the North-Western Railway Company, but is himself the proprietor of a considerable length of railway on his Sutherlandshire estates. The party thus constituted started off on Thursday morning last in a special train of saloon carriages, and halting at Crewe to view the magnificent works of the NorthWestern Railway—the largest in Europe, with the exception of those at Greuzot, in France proceeded by Shrewsbury into Wales. At Welshpool they entered upon the Cambrian Railway system, and, with the advantage of brilliant weather, were conducted by Mr Elias through the very picturesque country, up hill and down dale, and round curves of hill sides, by which the line passes to Portmadoo. At Portmadoc is the terminus of the line known as the Festiniog Railway, of two-foot guage (really one foot ll£ inches), which was the principal subject of investigation.

The Festiniog Railway, which is pronounced by no less an authority than Captain Tyler, the Inspector of Railways, to be the most instructive line in the three kingdoms, and which seems destined by its success to give a new impulse to railway engineering, is itself one of the oldest in existence. The Act for it was obtained in 1832, but in the first instance it was constructed only for horse traction. It is a single line, 13$ miles in length, with a branch of one mile connecting the slate quarries of Festiniog with the quays of Portmadoc. The terminus at Festiniog has 700 feet of elevation above that at Portmadoc, the average gradient being one in 92, which is enough to secure the descent of the trains on the return journey from Festiniog to I’ortmadocby the impetus of gravitation—or, as the Welshman puts it, " by its own irapittence.” The line runs through a rude, rocky country, and has to adapt itself to an endless variety of curves along the contour of the hills, so that a train of any length has frequently to wriggle in serpentine fashion along two or three reverse curves, some of them sharp enough—the radius being if chains. On these curves the cant or superelevation of the outer rails is never more ttian three inches. The line, in the old days when it was worked by horses, was originally laid with rails of 16ib. to the yard. When, about eight years ago, it was adapted to the locomotive, it was fitted with rails of 30lb to the yard, most of which have been in use ever since. These, however, were found too light for the work, and are now being replaced by double-headed rails of 48Jlb. to the yard. The wheels of the carriages being less than 2 feet apart, it is found convenient to arrange most of those for passengers after the fashion of an Irish car, with footboard overhanging the wheels. In this way the carriages are so low hung, and even carriages of the ordinary build are so near the ground in consequence of the small diameter of the wheels, that the expense of platforms at the stations is avoided. The whole expense of constructing and reconstructing the line, including tunnels, one of them 700 yards in length, with branch lines to the slate company’s inclined planes and the quays at Portmadoc —in all 14 miles, has been £75,000, or at the rate of £5378 a mile. The value of the rolling stock on the line is £28.000, or at the rate of £2OOO a mile. And now comes the most important point of all. which is that the original capital of the company is £36,185, and that all the extra money which has been laid out upon the line has been taken from revenue. In this sense, therefore, as the net revenue of the company is £10,622,it appears that the line yields a dividend of 29J per cent, on the original capital. A sum of £50,000, however, paid out of revenue for improvements and reconstructions, has been capitalized—making the total capital £86,185. In this sense the net revenue of the line yields a dividend of 12J per cent. Whichever way the fact is to be stated, it is a most remarkable one, and must fill many a shareholder’s heart with envy. The chief cause of this wonderful result is the narrowness of the gauge, which has enabled the Festiniog Company to economise in many ways. Thus, for example, the trucks for goods or minerals, even when fully loaded, have less of dead weight on a narrow than on a broad gauge. The best waggons on the atandard gauge of 4 ft. 8J in. are reckoned to weigh about 7ciwt, and to carry 124 cwt of pig iron or coal for every foot of their length, the dead weight being in the proportion of 56 to 100 of the maximum paying load, or 36 per cent, of the entire load. On the other hand, the waggon for a three-feet gauge is calculated to weigh 2icwt, and to carry Bcwt for every foot of its length, the dead weight in this case being a very little oyer the proportion of 31 to 100 of the maximum paying load, and under 24 per cent, of the entire load. But there ia "till «»-

other point of view from which it can be shown that the waggon* for geode and minerals on a line of narrow gauge are not ao disproportionate in weight to the weight carried at they are on the broad gauge. In goods traffic it is well known that the dead weight of a train is enormous—something like 70 or 80 per cent, of the total weight hauled. If goods are to be delivered on a long line of railway,'(hey arc in this country arranged in many more waggons than are necessary to hold them, because a goods waggon cannot, like a passenger carriage, unload itself, and the train cannot wait til I the unloading at a particular station is finished. It ha* to pass on, leaving the waggon of goods for that station behind ; and it is mure than probable that for (his purpose the waggon has been but half or a quarter loaded. This becomes rerious when waggons that weigh several tons carry but a fraction, often a small fraction, of their own weight. Such a source of expense disappears to a large extent on a narrow-gauge line, where the waggons are comparatively small, and it is but one example of the saving whicli may be effected in the working of such a line in addition to the saving of cost of construction in the first instance. This remark would hold good of the narrow gauge in itself and worked according to the ordinary system; but it is in the working of the Fairlie system that the greatest saving of all is effected, and is mainly, indeed almost entirely, in consideration of the economy, the increased power, and the diminished wear and tear which this system implies that a much narrower gauge than that now in general use has begun to find favour in the eyes of practical men. It was long before the Festiniog Railway Company could get an engineering firm to build a locomotive for a line of such steep gradients, combined with sharp curves, which they could guarantee. At last Messrs George England and Co, undertook the task, and supplied engines which worked with perfect success, and then people began to believe in a railway of narrow gauge. One of Mr Fair Me’s engines has now been built for the line—it is called the Little Wonder, as the other engines which have preceded it have been called the Welsh Pony, the Little Giant, as well as by other diminutive names—and the result has so surpassed expectation in the power it exerts, in its gentleness of aciion, in its economy of fuel, in its saving of the rails, and in its adaptation to troublesome curves and gradients, that for the first time practical men have discovered that a gauge of 2ft 6in, or of 3ft at the very utmost, is enough for the heaviest traffic. It is no secret that two engineers of eminence, Mr Fowler and Mr F airlie, have pronounced a 3ft gauge to be ample for all the requirements of India, and there were men of position in the party whicli went down to Wales, men with characters to lose, who made what seems to us the hazardous statement that on a gauge of even 2ft 6in they would undertake with the Fairlie engine, to work the heaviest traffic in the world—that of the London and NorthWestern Railway. Be that as it may, it must be strange for those who can remember the battle of the gauges to find that what was then known as the narrow gauge is now in its turn attacked as being much too broad, and is even described in the terms which have been applied to more than one scheme of the Brunels as a gigantic folly. Our 4ft gauge is now established in so many countries —it is used not only in Great Britain, but also in France, Belgium, Switzerland, Italy, Austria, Prussia, Denmark, Egypt, the Cape of Good Hope, Australia, the United 81*169, and Central America—that we seem to think of it as a standard of perfection. In some countries there will be found a still broader gauge—as in England itself, in Ireland, in the United States,in Canada,in Australia, in India, in South America, in Fortugal, in Spain, in Russia ; but in very few will a narrower gauge be found. In England we hav« 14 miles on a 2ft gauge, and a few more on a slightly, broader gauge ; in Belgium th re is a 3ft Sin gauge ; in France, a 3ft 4in gauge ; in India may be found a 4ft gauge; and in Norway and Sweden one of 3f c Bin ; on the Mont Cenis Railway there is a 3ft 7 Jin gauge; and in Queensland one of 3ft Bin ; and now we have opinion tending towards a gauge of 2ft Bin., or of 3ft., as the standard for the future.

It ia eaay to determine on light railways of narrow gauge, and to construct them. The difficulty is to work them, and to work them in such a manner that their capacity and their economy shall bear comparison with railways of larger design and more elaborate construction. Hitherto railways of light construction and narrow gauge—that is, narrower than 4ft BJin —' ave been in little favour, because of the limitel power and destructive effects of the locomotive. Take, for example, the oscillation. This is very destructive on the standard gauge; it is, indeed, the chief cause of destruction to the permanent way a fearful item of expense. But it is still worse on a narrow gauge, and necessitates diminished speed or battered rails. Therefore, practically, a narrow gauge was but of limited application to ordinary traffic until a locomotive, such as that of Mr Fairlie, could be invented, free, or nearly free, from oscillation. And again, since a narrow gauge generally implies lightness of construction, and since lightness of construction implies sometimes roughness of workmanship, and nearly always such an adaptation of the railway to a surface of the country that it mast dispense to a great extent with cuttings, viaducts, and other works, and must be ready to accept to the fullest extent possible a line of sharp curves and heavy gradients, it was necessary to devise a locomotive for it capable of good and safe speed on these conditions ; and there was none such of sufficient note in existence until the double bogie engine of Mr Fairlie was produced, which combined great size and power with freedom from oscillation and with a short wheel base that could be worked round curves of 60ft, radius and even less. We must reserve for a day or two a full description of the performances of Mr Fairlie’s engines in Wales, because it is desirable to give the results of all the experiments, with their success and their failure, together. The last of the experiments is made to-day, and we shall state all when we know all; but in the meantime we cannot be wrong in saying that there was an absolute unanimity of opinion among all those who witnessed the working of that narrow gauge railway at Festinlog that the standard gauge of 4ft 8 Jin is far beyond all ordinary requirements. There may be some difference of opinion as to the precise gauge which is best. Mr Spooner, the engineer of the Festiniog Railway, strongly advocated a gauge of 2ft 6in, and be was supported in this view by practical men of great experience ; others seemed to hold that a gauge of 3ft, giving greater freedom of space, would be best, but all appeared to be convinced that a gauge much narrower than that now in general use is capable of work which is at present little imagined in the railway world. If this view be correct, it involves some most important results. Thus, let us take an ordinary line costing £15,000 a mile, and compare it with one of narrow gauge worked on the new system, with power of carrying equal paying loads, and costing, as we have already indicated, three-fifths of the price of the other—namely, £9OOO. With a traffic return of &i 0 every week for every mile, and, deducting 50 per cent, for working expenses, the one railway would yield a dividend of about 3J per cent., while the other would yitld very nearly 6 per cent.j and this ca'eulation makes no allowance for the more economical working of the narrow gauge, which is one of the main features of the system. If such a result be possible it implies for public lines not a little encouragement to carry the railway system into every nook and corner of the kingdom where a moderate traffic may be obtained; and for Government lines the reduction of tariff to the lowest point. There seemed to be a unanimity of opinion also as to the success of Mr Fairlie’s engine adapted to the narrow gauge, and also on the broad gauge; hut it remains to be seen, from the reports which will be furnished to the various Governments, how far this unanimity extends. That the engine did some extraordinary work is |clear, as we shall have to show in a future article; but whether it ia or is not to be recommended for adoption as a means of making the narrow gauge available to the uthqost is a point on which .we have no information