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Show THE GAUGES. Salt Lake City, February 24th, 1875.. Editor Salt Lake Herald: Your 'correspondent, "Engineer,' appears to be no less an eccentri than he ia a misreprefientcr. Hi first advocates the laying of a thin: ) rail from this city to Ogden, in plac of building an independent line 0 narrow gauge, but fails to show wha1 advantage is to be derived from suet an arrangement; and after being informed in-formed that it won't answer, he abandons the subject and resorts to ; luiiK'Oiiilie as a Bubtcrfuge. Jiy quoting sentences without their contexts, and maliciously transposing iIih language I used in referring to Iub third rail arrangements, he misrepresents mis-represents me as condemning the use of safety switches; whereas, I referred re-ferred to them only as an appendage to his third rail arrangements. He wants it distinctly understood that he is not advocating any particular particu-lar eauee. Then whv sav anvthine about the matter ? as, to use his own language, the question was settled that it was to be a narrow gauge. Why discourage tho building 0 s narrow gaugo and recommend a third rail if not an advocate of such arrangements? He appeared ap-peared as unwilling to let it remain a settled question as he now appears incapable oi again settling it. As an apology for his digression ho refers to the Bristol and Gloucester railway on which road a third rail was operated for fifteen years, at the expiration of which timo it was discovered that such an arrangement ar-rangement would not answer, and also that the economical narrow gauge was capable of doing the business, busi-ness, previously supposed to require the combined paraphernalia of two road 9. My object is not to induce debate, but is, as I befjre stated, and as "Engineer" "after carctully reading discovered," to simply state a lew facts, and as I desire to state only facts any inaccuracies which "Engineer" "Engin-eer" may have detected will be corrected cor-rected with pleasure on his pointing them out. As an example of what "one horse" railways are capable of doing, according to good authoiity, I quote from a paper read before the British Association, at Liverpool, in 1870, by Robert F. Fairley : Evory iach ndded to the width of gftune beyond whut ia absolutely ncccs- ' jury for tae trailic adde to ihe coit of construction, iDCruntoa tho proportion of ; duad weight, increases tho co-t of working work-ing and in consequence increases the Ur fid to tho public and by so much reduces re-duces tho useful effect of tho railway. I ihsll now procead to show thai if ihe gauae of the London ana Northw-sterD railway was 3 feet instead of 4 feftgj inches, its goods trivdic could be hauled at half the present cost with half tho pro-son pro-son t motive power, and in such a way as ' to reduce the pre-ont tonnage over the road by a half. Capt. Tyler, government inspector of railways in Great Britain, says: " A system of narrow-gauge lines can be built costing but two-thirds those now constructed and maintained for three-fourths the expense." A committee appointed by the legislative leg-islative assembly of Massachusetts in 1871, to examine the merits of the narrow-gaugo system, report as follows: fol-lows: "Where cheap roada aro practicable, the u-eof the nflrrow-gaufre may reduce tho cost about ono-half without reducing the necessary efficiency. Tho COBt of hauling a toa of goods over a narrow gauge road may bu safoly reckoned at loci than ono-bulf lha cost of hauling tbe st me goods over a road of common gauge. a 3 a "Whore a railtt of braad-gaugo can be built for 1'J,310, a milo of narrow -gauge can be built for $12,304. The biowd-giugo oiuipment yar milo co;ts $4,004, while thij narrow-gnugQ equipment equip-ment costs only 1,393 por milo. Mr. J. Fowler, ono of a committee appointed by the government of India In-dia to examine the existing system of railways, recommends a 3 feet 6 inch gauge for the future Indian lines, while Colonels Strachey and Dickers, also members of tho committee, com-mittee, recommend a gauge of only 2 feet 9 inches. M. Pihl, a distinguished Norwegian engineer, has introduced a guage of 3 feet 6 inches into Norway and Sweden, Swe-den, and advocates a guage ol 2 feet 9 inches, on the grounds of economy, with sufficient capacity for the ordinary ordi-nary business. And thus broad guage extravagance is being superceded by narrow guage economy the world over, and in the course of another quarter century the 3 feet will rank as the standard guage, while third rail arrangements will be remembered only as an obsolete makeshift. make-shift. Civil Engikeer. |