Rambles on Railways

by Sir Cusack P. Roney

The Indian railway capital is well diffused all over Great Britain, as, on the 31st December, 1866, there were 34,849 shareholders, and 8,170 debenture holders. In India, there were at that date 816 shareholders, of which 396 were Europeans, and 420 natives. Neither Europeans in, nor natives of India were debenture holders at that date.

The total amount of guaranteed interest on railways which has been paid by the Government of India from the year 1849, to the 31st of December, 1866, has been £18,929,576; of course during the early period of the Indian railways, it was all expenditure and no profit, for, although guaranteed interest commenced in 1849, the first length of Indian railways was not opened for traffic until 1853, and then the length was only 22 miles. In 1854, the miles opened were 55; in 1855, 98; in 1856, 102; in 1857, 145; in 1858, 145; in 1859, 75; in 1860, 208. In 1861, 759, which is the largest number of miles opened in any one year; the following year, 1862, was nearly as much, being 747. Since then, the amount has been increased at the average annual rate of about 300 miles, and the total mileage now is 4,070.

The companies have repaid to the Government, out of net earnings, about £7,000,000; making the present debt of the railways to the Government nearly £12,000,000. Their net earnings for 1865 were £1,341,550, and for 1866 they were about £2,170,000. The amount paid by the Government for guaranteed interest during 1865 was £2,796,676, consequently the net amount of money which the Government had to find, and to debit against the companies was £1,455,126; but, in 1866, whilst the amount paid in guaranteed interest was £2,964,073, as the net earnings were £2,170,000, the Government had only to debit the companies with about £800,000. It is expected that the sum deficient this year will not be more than £600,000, notwithstanding that the amount of interest for which the Government is responsible will be about £3,300,000.

In 1866, for the first time, the net receipts of the East Indian, and of the Great Indian Peninsular Railway Companies exceeded the 5 per cent. guarantee. The excess of the first named was £108,073; of the second, £75,878. In accordance with agreement, half these amounts, or £91,976, were retained by the Government towards repayment of guaranteed interest which it has already advanced. Mr. Juland Danvers notices, as a very satisfactory circumstance, that “the guaranteed interest which was exceeded by the receipts, was paid on account of capital greater than that which produced those receipts, a large portion having been expended upon unfinished works or lines not opened for traffic, and consequently unprofitable.” How long it will take to extinguish the debt against the companies on this account is difficult to say. Some no doubt will be able to do so in the course of the next twenty to twenty-five years, some very probably never. It will be seen, by referring to page 255, that the surplus profits of the Great Indian Peninsular Company, for the first half-year of 1867, were £132,116; half of this will go in diminution of its interest debt due to the Government.

It is quite clear that the guarantee system—without which experience has shown it is impossible to obtain the construction of railways in India—is not to stop at 5,644 miles, involving an expenditure of £88,000,000 sterling. We have already referred to the extension of the line proposed from Baroda to Delhi, called the Rajpootana Line, and that of the Indus Valley. Their lengths (jointly) are about 1,070 miles, and the capital required for their construction—the works for them being, on the whole, not of a difficult character—would be under £13,000,000, or about £12,000 a mile. The construction of these lines, with the guarantee on the capital, will, no doubt, be commenced before long; and there is a third, the capital for which, whenever constructed, can only be raised on the same system—the line to connect Lahore and Peshawer together. This railway has been the subject of a great deal of discussion and debate, both within the walls of the British Parliament, and outside them. Whenever made, it can hardly be looked upon other than as a military and political line, for its commercial importance is very trifling indeed. It will also be very expensive in its construction. Besides the Indus,[99] there are three rivers, the Ravee, the Chenab, and the Shelum, great hurling and devastating torrents at the period when the rains set in, and when the Himalayan snows are melting; but with almost dry beds for at least six months every year. These three rivers must each be transversed by a long and costly bridge. The length of the line would be about 250 miles, and the cost about £20,000 a mile, or a total of £5,000,000. It has been decided that, at all events for the present, the construction of this line shall not take place, and that the two other railways seeking the guarantee shall have precedence over it. Mr. Ayrton, M.P., whose opinion is entitled to much consideration, from his knowledge of India, is decidedly adverse to its construction at all; whilst, on the other hand, Mr. Laing, M.P., laments that the Governor in Council has come to the determination of not recommending the work to be proceeded with at once. As these three railways progress, they will add to the guaranteed capital about £18,000,000, making its total £106,000,000, and the amount of interest for which the Government of India will be annually responsible, £5,300,000, against which will be the net incomes of the railway companies up to 5 per cent. on the capital invested in each. We have just seen, that even with increased responsibility in the shape of guaranteed interest for the present year, the net amount will be less by £200,000 than it was last year. Nevertheless, on the £88,000,000 guarantee, when it shall have all been expended, the Government may, we think, look to being liable on balance for at least a million per annum for some years to come, and to still more during the construction, and subsequent to the opening of the lines likely to obtain the guarantee that is to raise its total amount to about £106,000,000.

We now come to speak of the very important subject of working expenses. On these working expenses depends, in fact, the fate of the Indian railway system, and in considering them we must bear in mind that there are three elements of outlay of a character to which railways are, at most, very partially subjected in England—terrific inundations, destruction of materials, and cost of fuel. As regards the first, it would almost seem as if scarcely any provision that the engineer may make is sufficient to counteract their devastating effects upon the railway. Nor can this be wondered at when we read of rivers rising twenty—thirty—fifty feet in a few hours, as also that in places where there was a dry river bed one afternoon there is an impetuous torrent, hurling villages along in its devastating course next morning. On the Indus at Attock, on the high road between Lahore and Peshawer, the floods of 1858 appear to have risen 80 feet above the usual cold weather level of the river. In 1841 they were 92 feet above it, and from the nature of the river at this time it is possible that they may rise even higher. It is the same, though not to the same degree, at other places, and even if railway bridges and viaducts be not carried away, the ordinary permanent road suffers to an extent such as we know nothing of in this country.[100] No doubt experience will in process of time suggest means of protection as regards both construction and maintenance. Still, let man do what he may, there is no foe that he has ever faced on earth, or that he is likely to face, equal to the elements in anger. It is God’s will that they should be so, and although He places in our hands means to resist them, He has never given, and for His own wise purposes probably never will give us complete power to control and subdue them.

No matter how highly timber used for sleepers on Indian railways may be saturated with creosote, or any other analogous preparation, they are all powerless to resist the ravages of the red ant. Iron “pot” sleepers have therefore been generally adopted, and they have been found very serviceable, especially on lines where the speed is not high. Some of the engineers are in their favour, even where trains are run at high velocities. Thus the District Engineer and the Locomotive Superintendent of the Punjaub Railway report strongly in recommendation of them. “I have never,” says the latter, “travelled over a finer piece of road, than the seventy to eighty miles of pot sleepers road laid between Montgomery and Mooltan. Our speed does not exceed thirty-five miles per hour, and I have never heard of breakages to permanent way resulting from this rate.” The agent to the Madras Railway Company says, “I have all along strongly advocated the use of cast-iron pot sleepers upon our lines of railway, believing that a road laid with iron was more easily and economically maintained, insured greater safety from accidents, and from its smoothness of surface, less prejudicial in its effects upon our rolling stock than any other form of roadway.”

In 1862 Mr. Henry Rouse, the Chief Resident Engineer to the Egyptian Railway, in the course of a report upon the use of these sleepers, says, “I may assert with unerring confidence, that after ten years’ use of them, had a system of permanent way to be again selected for adoption on the fine alluvial soil of Egypt, no more fitting choice could be made than was, in fact, made by Mr. Robert Stephenson in 1851, when he determined on the adoption of Greaves’s cast-iron pot sleeper road.”

Captain Sherard Osborn, R.N., the late agent to the Great Indian Peninsular Railway, quotes the report of Mr. Rouse, and confirms it with the recommendations of Mr. Hardcastle, Mr. Perry, and Abul Meyd Effendi, Civil Engineers, each in charge of portions of the Egyptian Railway. On the other hand, the Chief Engineer of the East India Line says, “I do not consider these sleepers would be suitable for the through roads of this railway, although they might be used with advantage on sidings and in station yards. From general knowledge I am of opinion that, with small ballast, iron pot sleepers would answer well in countries where rainfall is not excessive, and is evenly distributed over many months in every year, but that they are not adapted to large ballast under any circumstances, more particularly when the road is liable to much periodical injury from rain. They might be used with advantage on long lengths of bank in dry districts with very considerable economy in ballast. In rock cuttings, however, where the jar is at all times great, iron pot sleepers would be liable to much damage from trains at high speed.” It may here perhaps be incidentally noticed that the use of cast-iron sleepers has not been adopted in the construction of Peruvian railways. In Brazil, with one exception, they have been used on all the railways in that country. The running speed of the trains there is, however, not more than twenty miles an hour. They have also been adopted in the construction of the railways of the Argentine Republic.

Upon the whole, the balance of opinion seems decidedly in favour of the general adoption of iron sleepers. They are certainly preferable to stone blocks; and timber is impossible[101] upon Indian Railways.