1. Whether the break of gauge was an inconvenience of so much importance as to demand the interference of the legislature.
2. What means could be adopted for obviating or mitigating such inconvenience.
3. Considerations on the general policy of establishing a uniformity of gauge throughout the country.
The general conclusions arrived at on these points were thus summed up by the Commissioners:—
1. That, as regards the safety, accommodation and convenience of the passengers, no decided preference is due to either gauge, but that on the broad gauge the motion is generally more easy at high velocities.
2. That, in respect of speed, we consider that the advantages are with the broad gauge; but we think the public safety would be endangered in employing the greater capabilities of the broad gauge much beyond their present use, except on roads more consolidated, and more substantially and perfectly formed, than those of the existing lines.
3. That, in the commercial case of the transport of goods, we believe the narrow gauge to possess the greater convenience, and to be the more suited to the general traffic of the country.
4. That the broad gauge involves the greater outlay, and that we have not been able to discover, either in the maintenance of way, in the cost of locomotive power, or in the other annual expenses, any adequate reduction to compensate for the additional first cost.
Therefore, esteeming the importance of the highest speed on express trains for the accommodation of a comparatively small number of persons, however desirable that may be to them, as of far less moment than affording increased convenience to the general commercial traffic of the country, we are inclined to consider the narrow gauge as that which should be preferred for general convenience, and therefore, if it were imperative to produce uniformity, we should recommend that uniformity to be produced by an alteration of the broad to the narrow gauge....
Guided by the foregoing considerations, the Commissioners recommended that 4 feet 8½ inches should be fixed by law as the standard gauge of the country; and that as to the existing broad gauge lines, either they should be altered to the narrow gauge, or some course adopted which would admit of narrow gauge carriages passing along them.[57]