Report of the Railway Department of the Board of Trade on the London, Worcester, and Wolverhampton, | Page 5

regards coal, iron, salt, corn, and every description of heavy goods, they consider as amounting to a virtual prohibition.
The question may be raised how far it is possible to obviate the inconvenience of two different gauges by mechanical arrangements? These arrangements may consist either--
1. Of contrivances for transferring the bodies of waggons from the wheels and axles adapted for one gauge to those adapted for the other; or--
2. The laying down of additional rails, so as to permit trains of either gauge to run on without interruption.
With regard to the first, it is stated that the experiment has been repeatedly tried on the Liverpool and Manchester, the Newcastle and Darlington, the Leicester and Swannington, and other Railways, where crossed by local coal Railways of a narrower gauge, and has never succeeded. The practical difficulties also are obvious, of securing with waggons constructed with moveable bodies, the rigidity and solidity requisite for safety, and to prevent excessive wear and tear, and damage to the articles conveyed. Even if we were to suppose, however, all mechanical difficulties overcome, the serious objection would still remain, that in addition to the expense of transfer, a large additional stock would require to be kept by all Railway Companies, owners of mines, and other parties who had occasion to send traffic sometimes in the direction where the gauge was uninterrupted, and sometimes in the direction where waggons of a special construction were required. This consideration is the more important as, under the system of the clearing- house, the whole stock of the narrow-gauge Railways of the country may be considered as becoming more and more common property, available wherever there may be a press of business, and for as great distances as may be required, in order to avoid the inconvenience of unloading.
The second arrangement, of laying down additional rails, may be practicable under peculiar circumstances, and to a limited extent, but it is open to great objections.
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.
The complication of switches and crossings that would be necessary would involve considerable additional risk and great expense. The difficulty and expense of maintaining the permanent way, and of keeping the double set of rails in proper adjustment, would be greatly increased; and on the whole, the expense, inconvenience, and risk, would probably be so great as to prevent the experiment from being tried to any extent.
We cannot therefore consider the plan of laying down additional rails as applicable, unless perhaps to a limited extent and under special circumstances, such as enabling, for instance, mineral waggons constructed for the narrow gauge to pass for a short distance and at a slow speed over a wide-gauge Railway; with which view alone it is proposed to lay down extra rails upon the Oxford, Worcester, and Wolverhampton line, for a few miles south of Wolverhampton.
On the whole, therefore, we cannot consider any of the mechanical arrangements which have been proposed for obviating the inconvenience of a meeting of different gauges (even if we could assume their practicability, which in the present state of experience we should not be warranted in doing,) as anything better than partial and imperfect palliatives of a great evil.
Assuming this to be the case, and assuming also, as we are compelled to do, that an interruption of gauge must exist somewhere, the question is reduced to this: to ascertain at what points such interruption should be fixed in order to occasion the least inconvenience to the traffic and commerce of the country. 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; and this inference might be strengthened by referring to the obvious fact that the wide gauge has not realized those decided advantages over the narrow gauge which were at one time anticipated. The actual speed of trains upon the Great Western Railway, as shown by the published time-tables, and by official returns, is not so high as upon some narrow-gauge Railways, and notwithstanding the excellence of its gradients, very slightly higher than the average speed of other great Railways on the narrow gauge. In respect of safety, it is manifest that both gauges are alike unobjectionable, with due precaution