Correspondence on New Zealand and Ceylon Government Railways.

Abstract

President, said it appeared to him impossible to inculcate any general laws for the laying out of railways such as those described in the Papers. There were dominantCircumstances which must control them. It was so even in England. On a part of the railway with which he was most intimately concerned, the Midland, there was an incline of 1 in 37 which had been made for many years and had a large traffic over it, and on other parts there were gradients of 1 in 120. The company had been spending large sums of money in improving the gradients on 1 in 120, while they had not felt it necessary to improve the gradient of 1 in 37. That showed that the circumstances of the traffic might regulate such matters as well as the circumstances attending the construction. Correspondence.Mr. Abt. Mr. R. ABT would compare the conditions of the line from Wellington to Woodville with those of two similar lines, one of which was worked by an ordinary tank locomotive, while the other was a rack railway. The first of these, the Uetliberg railway, was fully described in the foreign abstracts.'The second was the Rorschach-Heiden railway. Rorschach was a main station of the 'United Swiss railways, on the shores of the Lake of Constance, 1,320 feet above the sea. Heiden, 2,600 feet above the sea, was a well-known pleasure resort.The railway between the two had to facilitate the journey of visitors to Heiden, and at the same t.ime to serve a good many quarries situate near the middle of its length, at the Wienachten station. It had been open since 1875. The trains were made up on the quay at Rorschach, and first ran for abont 1 mile over the track of the United Swiss railways. This part was nearly level, and had only a few curves, of large radius. The incline was 3 miles 188 yards long. The steepest gradient. was 1 in 11 ; the curves were generally of 600 feet radius. The gauge was 4 feet S& inches, as the goods wagons of the other Swiss and French railways had to pass over the line as far as the quarries at Wienachten. The rails were 3$ inches high, and weighed 40 1bR. per yard. The wooden crosssleepers were spaced 24 feet apart. On the centre line of the railway was a rack, exactly like that on the Rigi.