THE NEW ZEALAND GAZETTE. 205

The sleepers may be laid upon six inches in
depth of ballast; and, by proper attention to
the drainage, the permanent way can be kept
in perfect order at a small expense, as compared
with the cost of upkeep of that of an ordinary
Railroad.

In economising traction, it is important so
to construct the vehicles that they may be
convertible to various uses; as, for example, the
conveyance of wool, cotton, passengers, &c.

It is also important that the weight of the
vehicles should not exceed one-half the weight
of the load.

The vehicles, on this system, weigh one ton
and a-quarter, and the load is two tons and
a-half.

Movable seats are provided, so that the
waggon becomes an open carriage, capable also
of being covered in, and, by a peculiar con-
struction of springs, it will carry a few pas-
sengers as easily as a heavy load of goods, the
power of the springs varying with the load,
and saving the road from damage. The axles
run loose in their boxes, and the wheels of the
carriages run independently upon their axles.

One carriage will carry forty passengers. If
required, first class bodies can be mounted on
the same frames. With a 3ft. 6in. gauge, the
carriage bodies are seven feet wide. The
weight of ten miles of line, including one
engine, twenty carriages, rails, sleepers, and
fastenings, will not exceed 800 tons; equal to
the transit, in one train, of 800 passengers, or
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, Un-
loading and Stacking 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 Australian
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 tranverse sleepers of black birch
timber, 8in. by 4 in., placed three feet apart.

The sleepers rest on eight inches in thick-
ness of broken stone ballast, and the space
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 Ghauts near Bom-
bay, 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