The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1871-05-20
Ba NARRow-GAUGE RAILROADS.

F: NARROw-GAUGE RAILROADS.
From the N. Y. SUn
Many of our readers doubtless remember
the great contest waged in England twenty
years or more ago over what were then called
respectively the broad and narrow gauges
for railroads. The broad-gauge roads we're
built with their rails six and seven feet apart,
while the narrow-gauge roads, following the
ordinary width of wagons in use when rail
roads were first introduced, had them but
four feet 81 inches apart. Inasmuch as cars
and locomotives adapted to the one gauge
could not be used on the other, there could
be no transfer of trains from one to the other,
and consequently it was important, in order
to avoid unloading and loading again at con-
Meeting points, that as far as possible one of
the two gauges should give way TO the other.
The result was that the narrow gauge was
victorious, notwithstanding the strenuous
opposition of great engineers, such as the
late lamented Brunei; and now, with slight
variations, it prevails almost universally
wherever railroads are known.
Latterly, however, new rival to this old
narrow gauge has arisen in the form of
still narrower one. The experiment has been
tried in Europe of constructing railroads with
their rails as close together as one foot III
inches, and from that up to three feet, and
the results have been SO encouraging as to
secure for this principle of extreme narrow
ness many advocates among both engineers
and capitalists. Besides those in use in Eu-
rope, road with gauge of % feet has been
for some time in operation near Cleveland,
Ohio; and one S75 miles long, from Denver
in Colorado Territory to and along the Rio
Grande river to FL Paso, on the Mexican
boundary, is now building with a gauge of
three feet. The English Government in
India, after spending millions in building
roads of the old gauge, have adopted three
feet three inches as the standard gauge for
the whole Indian railway system. Indeed, it
is confidently predicted that the new gauge
will eventually drive the old one out of use
for all but passenger traffic.
The advantage claimed for the new gauge
is the important one of vastly greater cheap
ness. In mountainous regions, espe cially
1t has been shown that a road of two feet
gauge can be built for one-eighth of the cost
af road of four feet eight and a half inches
gauge. This is owing both to the diminished
width required for cuttings, embankments,
and bridges, and to the fact that much
sharper curves are practicable, permitting the
road to follow more nearly the natural con-
formation of the country. On level plains,
even, the cost is only one.half; so that the
same expenditure of money will build there
two miles of the new gauge for one of the
old. The same difference extends, of course,
to the locomotives and cars.
Furthermore, this saving does not stop
with the construction and equipment of the
road, but is found in its operation. 1t is well
known to persons conversant with railroad
affairs that one of the most serious causes of
expense in transporting both freight and
passengers on railroads, is the excessive
weight of the cars as compared with the loads
they carry. In freight trains, for every ton
of paying weight two tons of non-paying or
dead weight have to be moved, in the form
of the iron and timber of which the cars are
composed; while in passenger trains the pro-
portion of paying weight to dead
weight is as twenty-nine to one. On
the new narrow gauge roads all this is
to be moved for three tons of paying weight,
and the running expenses are reduced accord
ingly. To put the comparison in a more
striking light, the London and Northwestern
Railway, with gauge of four feet 81 inches,
moves one hundred and sixty million tons
weight annually, of which but seventeen mil
lions pay; while the Festiniog Railway, il
Wales, with gauge of one foot 119 inches
moves two hundred and fifty thousand tom
annually, of which one hundred and seventy
five thousand pay. That is, in the forme
case the gross weight carried is to the payin,
weight as nine to one, while in the latter 1t i
as ten to seven.
Should these results be verified by tn
working of the Denver and Rio Grand
Road, it would seem that a new era in rail
road building is opening upon us. If b
reducing the gauge railroads can be bull
which will answer every practical purpose TO
$1,000 per mile, instead of $4,000, an
after they are built can be run for one-thir
the cost of roads of the present usual gauge
we may look for a rami6cation of track
over the entire country compared wit
which those now in existence will be 6
nothing