88

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 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 Ari ant-usual
Railways (of £30,000 in £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 4½in., placed three feet apart.
The sleepers rest on eight inches in thickness
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 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.

However, 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 incon-
veniences 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
McKinnie and James Muir, Printers for the time being to such Government.