On the modes of designing cad executing the works upon railways. (Organisation.)—It would serve little good purpose to discuss here the question as to whether or not it would be desirable to charge the central administration of a country with the duty of laying out the lines of railway communication ; because the peculiar circumstances of every nation will, generally speaking, render the solution of that question independent of any abstract reasoning. No doubt the absence of anything like administrative control has led in England to a fearful waste of money, and to the establishment of a ruinous com petition in many instances ; but if we had waited until the government had decided upon the merits of railways in the first instance, or until it should have decided the precise routes to be followed by the new lines of intercommunication in the second, it is tolerably certain that we never should have possessed the marvellous instruments of civilisation we actually do. The results of the intervention of the state authorities in other countries do not seem to warrant the belief that, in the end, they manage things better than is done here ; and practically it has been shown that the " laisser eller, laissez faire system conduces the most surely, not only to a nation's greatness, but even to the extent and the perfection of its railways. At any rate our trunk railways are made, and it would be useless now to attempt to retrace our steps. In our colonies there may be reason, and there still is time, for the government to interfere, to guide the efforts of capitalists, and to spare them from the robbery and extortion they certainly have been exposed to in England. But the author of this notice, who has had a long practical experience in foreign countries, feels it at once to be his duty to record his conviction, that no more mischievous course can be adopted than for the government of any country to execute, or to work a railway ; either when the question is considered from a structural and engineering point of view, or from a political, or moral one. Perfect freedom of private industry may lead to abuses ; the creation of a number of places of pay and profit must do so, however honest the chiefs of an administration may be.
However the management of the general system of the railways of a country may be settled, the first questions which require consideration, when it has been determined to execute a line between any two important termini are, whether or not it should be made to deflect a little, in order to accommodate the local traffic ; or whether it would be preferable to serve that traffic by means of branch lines. The relative importance of the intermediate towns and the, so to speak, locomotive habits of their inhabitants, must be taken into account in arriving at the decision on this subject ; as must also be considered the pecuniary circumstances of the local travellers, inasmuch as the latter materially affect the relative proportions of the persons taking the various classes of carriages. On short railways the local traffic will be found to vary between from 60 to 90 per cent. of the whole receipts ; on long railways the through traffic bears a larger proportion to the total receipts, and this probably as much on account of the increased number of first-class passengers, as on account of the increased total number of passengers. The usual relative proportions of the travellers in the various descriptions of carriages is in England as follows : in the first class there are about 13.2 per cent., in the second
there are 31.2 per cent., and in the third per cent. ; in Germany these proportions do not bold, for the first-class passengers are fewer, and the second-class ones have a much greater relative importance ; these differences may to sonic extent be explained by the character of the accommodation given, but the comparative wealth of the popula tion to be served must also influence them. The probable amount of the local goods traffic must be taken into account likewise in estimating the influence of any particular place on the prosperity of a line ; and above all things an estimate of the cost a passage through it would entail must be made. It would appear that the average distance traversed by a ton of goods on lines of considerable length is about double the distance travelled by ordinary passengers, and that goods travel a relatively greater distance on long lines than they do upon short ones. As a general rule, the result of the most careful investigations of the traffic returns of railways has been to show that it is not desirable to sacrifice local traffic to the interests of the termini ; and the history of some of our "direct lines" proves that whenever the communication between the termini is sufficiently important to justify a direct railway, the want will very soon be supplied. There are some curious statistics on this subject in Lardner's Railway Economy,' and in Perdonnet's Traits5 Elementaire des Chemins de Fer.' ? The principal points through which a railway is to pass being thus settled, it is necessary carefully to examine the country to be traversed, its relief, its means of transport for the materials required, its rivers, roads, and canals, both on account of the facilities they may furnish, and of the works they may render necessary, and ita geological struc ture, both superficial and subterranean. If this inquiry should not lead to the discovery of any special necessity for carrying the line in a definite direction, it should, of course, be made as straight and with as near an approach to a dead level, as is possible. In the Carly days of railway making greater importance was attached to the latter condition than is now the case ; and in France, even as late as in 1846, Mr. Locke had great difficulty in persuading the authorities to tolerate inclines of a rise of 1 in 126; but upon the Birmingham and Gloucester lino, the Lickey incline with a gradient of 1 in 37, has been for years in successful work, and in the passage of the Seemering, on the Vienna and Trieste railway, the inclines are sometimes carried for great distances, at the rate of 1 in 40, and the radii admitted in the curves upon the level parts are often not more than 623 feet, whilst upon the inclines of 1 in 40 they are still occasionally of only 934 feet; the length of the arcs in the latter cases does not exceed 1300 feet in round numbers. Of course the speed over lines with inclines of so severe a nature cannot be great, but the introduction of the expansion gear into the locomotive has so much increased what may be called the elasticity of its powers, that at the present day an incline of 1 in 100 would not be regarded as unfavourable, and the former limit of 1 in 200 would not be a matter of a moment's hesitation. Curves of 800 feet radius are often resorted to, when, on account of the approach to a station, the speed of a train must be slackened; but it is hardly safe to admit them of a less radius than of about of a mile on the ordinary parts of the line.