Minutes of Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers (35, PT. 1)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1873 Excerpt: ...estimated at the miserable rate of one engine and thirty vehicles for every thirteen miles, which the advisers of the Government of India stated to be calculated for, and to be sufficient for, two trains a day each way. Now, he cared not by whose testimony they elected to decide--Mr. Thornton's or General Strachey's--for by either of them he would show that these calculations and arrangements were fallacious, if not almost unfair to the policy and judgment of the late Viceroy, who agreed to the break of gauge, on, they might assume, the plain and obvious understanding that his narrow-gauge line was at least to be able to stand by itself, or, in other words, to be stocked upon such a scale as would meet his estimate of any possible emergency. It had been said by Lord Mayo that, with regard to the power of transport, the resources of the narrow gauge were such, that nearly 20,000 infantry, with baggage, camp equipage, and ammunition could be placed at Eohree from Lahore in one week; and again, he wrote of the possibility of throwing 40,000 men in a fortnight on any point of the frontier from Lahore, which he had not the slightest doubt could be done, provided they had the rolling stock. But how was his Lordship's policy about to be carried out by those to whom that duty had been confided? General Strachey and his colleagues on the Committee, Messrs. Dickens and Kendel, said that 30 vehicles of the standard gauge were equal in carrying capacity to 54 of the narrow gauge. General Strachey explained that their estimate was based upon a 2 ft. 9 in. gauge. Mr. H. Lee Smith acknowledged the correction; but the carriages for the metre gauge were only 6 in. wider, and the length was unchanged. Again, that 200 carriages of the standard gauge were required...