Nashville union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1868-1875, 1871-03-14
uNION AND AMERICAN
NARROW GAUGE RAIL
ROADS.

NAhdOW GAOOE RAIL-
@ ROADS.
net, Civil acknowledgment
Cost of Constructing Railroads.
To the Editors Of the Union and American
LEBANON, TENN,, March s, 1S71.-In
reply to your questions in regard to 'tNar-
row Gauge Railroads. which seem now
10 command the attention of newspaper
men and the public, win state, that
wide and narrow gauges for Railroads
have been the subject of discussion among
professional men since many years. Long
ago, in England, the celebrated war of
the gauges ragged for some time, and lately
the question has there again been agitsted
in regard to Railroads in India.
Railroads with UeTy pdTT01O gauges
have been in operation since about twenty
years in Europe and have lately been in
troduced into North America, the ordina-
~ gauge of Railroads varying from to
feet in the United States. Railways
with very narrow gauges have formerly
not been introduced here for the simple
reason, that they were not necessary, as
the country needed main trunk lines first,
to connect important points across i'm
mense, thinly settled territories. The
Railroad has been in America the pio-
neer of population and civilization,
aud not the consequence of the same.
Railways have penetrated the immense
solitudes and deserts of the Great West,
the country west of the Allegheny and
Cumberland Mountains, and have done
more toward introducing population and
creating wealth, its natural consequence,
than the nsvigsble streams, and in fact
more than anything else.
The original settlers, the first white
men here, used the water-courses for ave-
nues of travel and transportation, and
settlement commenced along the streams.
The canoe, the f1atboat and latterly the
steamboat, carried at first the human
tide 10 the West and Northwest, but as
soon as the railroad was introduced it out
stripped sn other means of communica-
ton, and to-day the country is trsversed
by important trunk lines of railway,
along the tracks of which population Is
gradually settling, building villages,
towns and cities. Gradually the wilder
ness is filing up with thriving popula-
tons, although our State, for instance,
could conveniently support population
at least ten time as large as it now holds.
Our main trunk lines are still being built,
but the number yet necessary is gradually
diminishing, partly on account of the
great power acquired by those already
established, which, continually increasing
their power by consolidation, can prevent
the construction of competing lines. With
the gradual completion of all wide gusge
trunk lines, and the gradual increase OF
population and settlement of the country,
of course the era of narrow guage rail-
roads is approaching, which in the thick
ly settled portions of Europe has com
menced loag ago. In many parts of our
State, narrow gagged roads might have
been built and been made profitable in
vestments sometime ago, if the construc-
ton of such roads had not been actually
J0reUe1ted by LdW, as section l, 423 of
the Code, for instance, prescribes q gauge
of five feet as the only lawful gauge,
and as all roads, chartered with the bene-
fits of State aid, are required to be built
with a five foot gauge. This stringent
law in regard to gauge has been repealed,
and all roads which do not calm State
aid can adopt now aDy gauge they choose
under the present law, thanks to the last
Legis AZURE.
The act lately passed in regard to the
chartIring of corporations, is one OF the
most important late laws; will assist the
development of the resources of the State
very materially, and will assist the con.
s,ructIon of narrow gauge roads, as it has
removed the only real obstacle in the
way.
The gauge on railroads ought to be
adapted to the means which can be raised
for their construction, and to the business
which they will command. Trunk lines
demand of course wider gauge thar
branch lines, and must adapt themselves
10 the more or less large through business
and TO tue gauge of connecting roads, as
trunk lines must avoid transfer from one
gauge 10 the other.
The five foot gauge will probably b
some day the universal gauge of trunf
lines in North America; tedious theoreti
cal discussions and practical experience
prove this, although the 4 fit. 81 gaug'
might now do all the business, yet it vii
be too narrow in the future, when thii
country will count millions where it now
,unts hundreds of thousands of inhab
itsnts. The next generation will prob
ably see many trunk lines with steel rail-
aad double track five foot gauges through
out Railways of a more narrow gaug
than the gauge of the main trunk lines
which | understand to be the so-callet
marrow gauge roads" about which w
read and hear so much of late, can o
course not all be of the same marrow
gauge, that is, they are subject Z
classification. Narrow gauge roads ough
generally TO be branch roads of trunl
lines for local traffic only; of cours
some independent roads can be built upol
the narrow gauge principle until the in
crease Of business and profits demand an
4 can afford wider gauge.
Z Such road, for instance, might be tn
Louisville and Ohio Valley Railroad, ad
vocated by Gen. Boyle, from Louisville
running between the EliZabethtown an
Psducah Railroad and the Ohio River
and for which he advocates gauge of
feet inches; and such a road might per
haps be built through the country be
tween the Nashville and Chattsnoog
Railroad and the Nashville and Decatu
Railroad, from Nashville by Nolensville
Triune, CoTnersville, to Huntsville, Ala.
depending on local business mainly.
Whenever a railroad is built only 70
local business, 90 general rule can be es
tablished in REGARD TO gauge, which ca
vary from 2 feet upwards, in proportion