Narrow gauge railway

“ The permanent way should be made a thoroughly sound job, as it will then cost but little for repairs. Particulars of what is recommended will be found in Sections III. and IV. I am no advocate of portable railways, which may be well enough for hand trains, or even for horse traction, but a locomotive requires a solid and clean road if it is to work to advantage.
It is often possible to carry a narrow gauge railway by the roadside or, as at Eaton, over pasture lands without the necessity of fencing the line in. ”

“ There is a capital run of railway between York and Darlington, forty-four miles, almost level, and nearly straight. It was on this line that, just twenty years ago, most of the experiments and trials were made, instituted to vindicate the narrow gauge as the best for carrying on the traffic of the country. These trials formed one of the many phases of the great battle of the gauges, fought so vigorously by its champions on each side; yet, in the short space of the fifth of a century, how many of these then active and doughty men have passed away from us for ever. ”

“ A rail should be made not only strong enough to carry well the engines that have to pass over it, but it should also be heavy enough to stand the wear of several years. Narrow-gauge engines must be heavy in conformity with the loads they have to haul. The same amount of power must be exerted to haul a hundred tons on a given gradient, whether the gauge be narrow or broad. In some cases of narrow-gauge railways the original rails, which weighed only 45 lbs. ”

“ When considering the cost of construction and working of a narrow-gauge railway as compared with one of the standard gauge, there are certain items which are common to both, and in which the narrow gauge could not be expected to obtain any advantage over the standard gauge. ”

“ From the fact that nearly 2,000 miles of Railway are already made or sanctioned on the narrow gauge, while not more than 300 are sanctioned on the wide gauge, a disproportion which will be still more largely increased by the new Railways now in contemplation, an inference might be drawn in favour of confining the gauge which is in such a decided minority within the narrowest possible limits ”

“ It is probable that a traffic of 5,000 tons annually over a mile of line is the smallest amount that would repay the construction of a narrow gauge railway, for the estimate has been based upon the narrowest line which can profitably be employed. ”

“ For main trunk lines, however, where a large, heavy, and fast passenger traffic will have to be worked, and where goods of all kinds, many of them bulky without being heavy, will have to be carried, an ample gauge must be selected to ensure convenience and safety. A liberal gauge permits the use of commodious rolling-stock without any great amount of lateral overhanging weight outside the wheels; whereas with a narrow gauge there is the tendency—if not the necessity—to use vehicles which [Pg 38] have too great a lateral overhang for proper stability, except at very moderate speeds. ”

“ Some persons have odd notions of the speed of railway trains. Some few years ago, a jockey who had missed the express to Newmarket, was anxious to have a special train, but on being informed of the cost, he earnestly asked an officer of the Company “if he did not think the express might be overtaken if he followed it in a cab!” The express train was running on the Eastern Counties.
[47] The “narrow” gauge, the gauge all but universal through England, Scotland, Wales, and Europe generally, is 4 feet 81⁄2 inches; the “broad,” or Great Western gauge, is 7 feet. ”

“ To the light railway regiments were assigned the construction, operation, and maintenance of the light railroads of 60-centimeter gauge (about 24-inch gauge) . A great quantity of such trackage was used during the war. These narrow-gauge railroads, capable of being operated under extreme conditions of grade and curvature, and powered with light steam and gasoline locomotives, were essential to the proper supply of a stabilized sector. They were the lines of communication between the railheads of the broad-gauge system and the dumps and depots within the front sectors. ”

“ He considered that an exceptional gauge should be confined to a district of country where break of gauge is unimportant by reason of non-interchange of traffic, and even then he preferred to adopt a light railway on the standard gauge, except under very peculiar circumstances, which must be very rare indeed, when the narrow gauge would have some special advantages. ”

“ Braithwaite, the engineer, being of opinion that an increase of three and a half inches in the width of the line would afford better space for the machinery of the locomotive. But when the northern and eastern extension of the same line was formed, which was to work into the narrow-gauge system of the Midland Railway, Robert Stephenson, its new engineer, strongly recommended the directors of the Eastern Counties Line to alter their gauge accordingly, for the purpose of securing uniformity, and they adopted his recommendation. ”

“ The comparative narrow flange places the spikes at great disadvantage in point of leverage for holding down, and this weakness is soon made manifest, particularly on curves, where additional crab bolts or other devices are rendered necessary to counteract the tendency of the rail to rock and tilt over sideways. When the head of the rail cannot be kept in its proper position, the gauge becomes widened, and an irregular sinuous motion takes place in the running of the train. ”

“ The chief railways of most European countries are on the same gauge as that originally adopted in Great Britain, namely, 4 ft. 81⁄2 in. Irish railways are, however, on the gauge of 5 ft. 3 in. The standard gauge in Russia is 5 ft., that of Spain and Portugal about 5 ft. 6 in. The still isolated railway system of Greece is upon a narrow gauge. The very general use of a common gauge obviously greatly facilitates international trade. ”

“ Drifting snow often fills the cuttings to a depth of 35 feet or so. Two locomotives harnessed to one of these snow-clearers generally contrive to force a clean open passage through the fleecy mass, however. It may be pointed out that this railway possesses the largest type of narrow-gauge engines in the world, the engine and tender in working order turning the scale at 106 tons. Travel from our point of view appears somewhat expensive, since it averages 1s. ”

“ It was quite clear that 4 feet 81⁄2 inches was too narrow. Brunel, seizing on this mistake, proposed at once to make the gauge 7 feet [419] from centre to centre of the rails for the Great Western Railway. This was as evidently too much as Stephenson’s was too little. The power of a locomotive engine is in proportion to its weight, and the greater the weight the greater the power, acting as it does by its adhesion to the rails; and to increase the power of an engine upon the narrow gauge could only be done with safety by increasing its length ”

“ The narrow gauge is entirely in its right place in countries where, as notably in the case of the colonies, the traffic is not sufficiently extensive to warrant the capitalization of the expenses of construction of a normal gauge railway. ”

“ Whether the object is to organize a supply line, to transfer reinforcements, or to carry heavy material to its destination, it may be of service to provide for the absence of normal lines by laying down rails along the road. Both the Germans and ourselves have done this very frequently. A narrow gauge of sixty centimeters is generally used. A team of skilled sappers takes about three hours to lay down about one kilometer of railway. ”

“ Another most important error has been committed by a too narrow gauge having been adopted. My brother and myself, when we carried the Bill for the Manchester and Liverpool through Parliament, in the year 1826—and this may be considered almost the very commencement of the railway system—after investigating the width between all the various carriage wheels, whether for goods or passengers, we decided that the width of gauge from centre to centre of the rails should be 5 feet 6 inches or 6 feet. ”

“ With a narrow-gauge type there would, of course, always be the time and expense of transhipment to or from the ordinary railway trucks in the same way as with the road carts, but the time and expense may be lessened by so constructing the little narrow-gauge trucks that the bodies may be readily lifted off the frames and wheels, and be placed like packing-cases in the railway waggons.
It is natural to look to the railways of the first rank for the latest advances in construction, appliances, and equipment, and it is generally there they are found. ”

“ It must be understood that I do not here attempt to enter upon the comparative merits of narrow gauge railways generally, but merely to give particulars of what has come within my own experience. To facilitate a comprehension of the conditions under which I have worked, it will be well to explain that I make no pretension to be considered a professional engineer, and that I speak rather as a self-taught mechanic and surveyor. ”

“ No one but an enthusiast would dare to contend that a two-foot gauge was the ideal width for a line employing twenty-ton locomotives and hauling about 100,000 passengers and some 150,000 tons of minerals and goods per annum. If this development could have been foreseen, the selected gauge would doubtless have been wider. Such a traffic, however, is quite outside the scope of this pamphlet, the logic of which is directed to shewing how a much smaller annual tonnage than has been hitherto deemed worthy of a railway may be profitably thus conveyed. ”

“ Hawthorne & Co., of Newcastle.
The locomotive of to-day is not the invention of any one man. Hundreds of able engineers and draughtsmen have improved it step by step since 1825, and many controversies have turned around every section of its structure. Failures contributed as vitally as successes in those early days to show the way. The opening of the Great Western Railway (broad gauge) in 1837 opened "The battle of the gauges," which continued for fifteen years afterwards, and the rivalry itself assisted the development of the engine. ”

“ I go so far as to think that, without getting rid of a depending fire-box, no really satisfactory tank engine can be constructed for a small gauge railway unless idle wheels are introduced, a proceeding that cannot too strongly be deprecated. ”

“ It is very doubtful how far the addition of a single rail only would be consistent with safety, as in this case the centre of gravity of the carriages of different gauge in the same train would not be in the same straight line. If a complete double set of rails were laid down the expense would be very considerable. ”

“ Certes narrow-gauge railways need an apology. Their raison d'être is, at the best, that they are better than nothing. "If you won't have us, you can have nothing else." And in such a mountainous region as we were about to visit, the difficulties and expense connected with a broad-gauge line would have been enormous, if indeed it could be constructed at all. ”

“ For several years it held a unique position among the great systems of the world as the narrowest gauge line in operation. The metals are laid only 231⁄4 inches apart—less than half the distance between the rails forming the roads of the greater proportion of steel highways bounding the globe—and yet it has a traffic which many a more important railway would have just cause to envy. ”

“ It is nevertheless evident that it is impossible to construct cheap railways on the normal gauge system, as the maintenance of such would-be light railways is in proportion far more costly than that of standard railways. ”

“ A 6-foot gauge was introduced on the Erie Railway and retained long after the standard gauge had become general in the United States. As time passes, however, the 4 foot 81⁄2 inch gauge is becoming more common all over the world. The method of fastening rails to the ties varies. In America hook-headed spikes are almost universally used; the bull-headed rail used in England is wedged into cast-iron chairs which are bolted to the ties; in Europe considerable use is made of bolts; and when steel ties are employed various forms of clamping devices tightened by means of bolts or wedges are used. ”

“ By its adoption the use of existing rolling-stock is secured, transhipment is avoided, and the line can be subsequently and without difficulty transformed, if necessary, into a railway of standard construction—advantages for which much may be sacrificed. But as it would be almost invariably essential to build a light railway of sufficient strength to carry the 15 tons gross weight of a standard coal wagon, the permanent way would be of a somewhat costly character, and, in the case of severe gradients, considerable difficulty would arise in providing suitable locomotive power. ”

“ The speed of the train on the straight portions of the line is six miles an hour, but it is considerably less on the curves at either end, which are twenty-six feet in diameter. The contractors experienced a great deal of difficulty in getting the curves exactly right, as the six-inch gauge of the railway, no other line being of any assistance in this particular, introduced an entirely new problem in railroad construction. The engine can travel six times round the entire length of the system without its being necessary to renew the charcoal fire. ”