New-York tribune., 1901-04-21
A TRANS-AU AUSTRALIAN RAILWAY.
GREAT SCHEME OF THE NEW FEDERAL
GOVERNMENT.
From The London Express.

From The London Express
Among the most important of the many practical
projects projects which will engage the attention of the
days OF its existence will be that of the Trans
The scheme which in some respects bearing in
nina the smalness of the Australian population, is
ern railway development' Is To to ' bring the extreme
west OF the Commonwealth into communication
upward Of thousand miles in length, skirting the
Srs rsnt australian Blight along region as yet prac-
Under the existing railway systems Western
Of he is S ssr @ FS s 5 es sftr Of
way connecting Fremante and Perth with Albany
County and line $50 miles in length connectiDg
c Thene sso subsidiary and ne
bringing the total mileage up to 1Ss2. From the
an unbroken tract of country thousand miles niles in in
extent to Port augusta, at the head of spencers
Though the railway mileage of the Southern
S G7 ] fss han han fna. that OF
served to open up the country to much better effect
Port Augusta is the starting point of the Great
Northern line; which stretches up away through
ouorh, extends eastward to Broken Hlli and runs rs
Sf MnDra to adeade and to by
Geelong, clear run of a little over five hundred
Victoria has some thirty-two hundred miles of
railways which radate from the capital in all di-
innumerable shorter lines ali the State. From
% Bsnas to s1ne is rH Of @ mes by
The New South Wales Railway connects at Al
bury with that of Victoria, and comprises 2,S1l
miles divided into three large systems-the South
from Granville to Bourke a distance OF sos miles,
and the North Coast line which runs through the
a height Of All feet above sea level at Ben Lo,
Jennings. 4sl miles from sydney. while the whole
run from Sydney to Brisbane is some 72o miles;
ssryIss possessing does thirteen distinct
systems comprising an an aggregate OF ZSa mes s OF
m ion and IS miles in Carpentara are short detacned
TENS - '''''''''''''''" "''''
Thus, the Cooktown Railway runs inland some some
sixty seven miles as far as Laura. while the the
Townsville line takes southwesterly direction for
lated. except so far as sea communication is con-
OF railway eommunieation OPEN but as each colony
Individual resources, without paying much heed
the Federal Government has obviously some very
large problems to consider In respect OF the Ink
The first and largest and most important Of these
eferenes Is Sa the bsa @ & TO H
rest Premier of Western Australia and now Fed
this important undertaking which stands every
chance SIe, OF being adopted when the Federal Gov
IT The 1 proposal is to to run ma line from Kagoorlie in
western terminus Of the South Australian Aust
and II is estimated that the 1000 mile of the
600 to e. 5ooOO the latter being outside estimate
Sir John has personally inspected the ground, and
he reports IL to be level table land. presenting
serious engineering obstacles 1t is proposed that
the line should be constructed on the standard
gauge feet Sig inches, since in order to derive the
greatest possible benefit from the line il will be
necessary TO The trains at considerable speed.
The gauge question is important for the
future OF Australia. In Westralia, South Australia
and Queensland the existing lines practically
all on the feet inches gauge while in Victoria
they feet inches gauge, New South
Wales being the only State which uses the stand
ard gauge.
That the traffic the projected line would be
doubt. matter OF
the mails alone 1t would effect saving of three
days. while very large proportion OF passengers
would probably prefer the shorter train journey
the continent 20 the frequent unpleasant
ness OF the passage across the Great Australian
Blight There is also the great question of the
opening up OF enormous new tracts OF country 10
aler