fifty tons nett of goods; so that the freight from England may be calculated—

Cost of Ten Miles of Line.

Rails, Sleepers, one Engine, and Twenty Vehicles, in England ...... 14,000
Freight, Insurance Charges, Unloading and Shipping Rails and Sleepers, &c. ................................... 2,500
Ballasting and Boxing, £300 per mile ................................... 3,000
Laying Permanent Way, including Haulage of Materials, &c. .......... 2,000
£21,500

Or, say £2,200 per mile, including rolling stock complete, if laid down along the side of existing roads.

If laid down in a locality where there are no roads in existence, forming and levelling for a width of sixteen feet, and draining and bridging, fencing, &c., would be required, and the expense per mile added to the above estimate.

The trains being adapted to sharp curves of four to five chains radius, inclinations of one foot in twenty capable of being ascended, and the heaviest portion of the train not exceeding 10 cwt. per foot run, the substructure for the line will not, except in very exceptional cases, exceed £1,000 to £1,500 per mile, exclusive of purchase of land and fencing.

As compared with the cost of Rail Railways (of £30,000 to £40,000 per mile), the foregoing estimate seems ridiculously low; yet the writer is able to state, from actual experience of Railway construction in Europe, America, Ceylon, and New Zealand, that a line of the description given can be constructed and equipped for the estimate mentioned.

The writer has been for some time engaged in the setting out, and in the construction of a Railroad (the route for which was selected by Mr. Doyne) for the Dun Mountain Copper Mining Company (limited), from the port of Nelson, New Zealand, to the Company’s mines in the interior.

Eleven miles of this line are constructed through a most difficult country, the rise in that distance being about 2,800 feet. Five miles of the line have a gradient of one foot in eighteen, succeeded by four and a half miles having a gradient of one foot in twenty. The curves range from one chain to ten chains radius; and of the eleven miles not more than half a mile in the aggregate is straight.

The line is, at present, but six feet wide at formation level, and is cut out of the mountain sides the entire way, which are very steep, having an average inclination to the horizon of thirty-three degrees.

About two thirds of the excavation is in rock, the remainder clay.

The gauge of the line is three feet, with a rail of 30lbs. to the yard, fished at the joints, supported by transverse sleepers of black birch timber, 8in. by 4¼in., placed three feet apart. The sleepers rest on eight inches in thickness of broken stone ballast, and the spaces between the sleepers is filled up with similar material, which, having two inches of gravel on top, forms a most excellent roadway for the horses which work the traffic.

The cost of this line, as it is, including permanent way and rolling stock imported from England (say two wagons to the mile), has not exceeded £2,000 per mile.

Tenders have been received for widening the road bed of the line to ten feet, for £600 per mile; and if £400 per mile additional were expended in easing the curves, so that they should not be less than three chains radius, and £400 per mile in replacing the dry masonry in some of the culverts with rubble masonry in mortar, we should have, at a cost not exceeding £3,600 per mile, a very substantial and good line, up which a traction engine might work, or a team of two horses could take a nett load of two tons with ease; the nett load now taken up by such a team being one and a quarter tons, at two miles per hour.

Considering the results which have been attained under unusual difficulties, upon the Dun Mountain Railroad, with a country to traverse somewhat similar to the Semering Pass in Austria, the Bore Ghat near Bombay, or to the Kandian range in Ceylon, and with ordinary labour at ten shillings for eight hours’ work; it is assumed that an estimate which has been found sufficient for railroad construction at Nelson, will more than suffice for localities where the difficulties of country are not so great, nor the state of the labour market and other conditions so unfavourable and so exceptional.

Wherever, after laying down the description of permanent way referred to, the traffic so increases as to necessitate the use of more powerful and heavier engines and vehicles, a heavier kind of permanent way can be substituted, and that taken up can be relaid in extension of the main line, and used as a feeder thereto, or for branch lines.

In many localities, where stone suitable for metalling ordinary roads, and timber for bridges are difficult to procure, and where labour and haulage is expensive, the improved railroad will be cheaper in first cost, and in after cost of upkeep, than a macadamised road.

It may further be remarked, that mineral and other regions, such, for instance, as that through which the Dun Mountain Railway passes, presenting such difficulties of country as to put the construction of ordinary roads for any useful purpose out of the question, may be traversed, easily and inexpensively, by lines of Railroad made on the improved system described; and so districts abounding in mineral and other wealth may be opened up, which, otherwise, are practically inaccessible.

Moreover, the Railroad can be used in conveying material for forming, bridging, and metalling the macadamised road, wherever it may be desirable to construct such alongside the Railroad; the road being used for the purely local purposes required by an agricultural community, and the Railroad used for the through traffic between the various settlements upon its route.

American experience proves that many advantages are gained by having an ordinary road alongside a Railroad; while the inconveniences sometimes supposed to result from having locomotive engines running alongside ordinary roads traversed by horses and vehicles are found to be more imaginary than real.

One of the chief advantages, however, of the improved Railroad is, that it can be worked either by engine or horse power at pleasure, or by both.

A. C. FITZGIBBON, C.E.,
Engineer and Manager to the Dun Mountain Copper Mining Company, Nelson, New Zealand.
October, 1861.

Printed under the Authority of the Government of the Province of Wellington by Thomas McKenzie and James Muir, Printers for the time being to such Government.