Sect. 1. The Troy and Greenfield Railroad Company shall forthwith make and file in the proper offices a location of their entire road and tunnel, which location shall be made on that side or sides of the Deerfield River which will afford the most direct and eligible route between the village of Shelburne Falls and a suitable terminus in the town of Deerfield or Greenfield, to be determined by the state engineer appointed as hereinafter provided.
The grades of any part of the road hereafter to be constructed shall not exceed forty feet to the mile ascending eastward, and fifty feet to the mile ascending westward; and the limits of grade and curvature of said road, included within said location; and not graded, shall be such that the maximum resistance to the passage of trains, in either direction, shall not exceed the maximum resistance in the same direction on the Fitchburg and Vermont and Massachusetts Railroads; and before any location made by the chief engineer of the Troy and Greenfield Railroad Company shall be filed, a copy of the alignment and a table of grades, verified by the oath of said engineer, shall be submitted to a state engineer appointed as hereinafter provided, who shall certify that the limits of grade and curvature herein before prescribed have not been exceeded, and the said table of grades so certified shall be filed with the location.
Sect. 2. No further deliveries of scrip shall be made to said company upon the conditions authorized in former acts, but the undelivered portions of the loan of two millions of dollars authorized by chapter two hundred and twenty-six of the acts of eighteen hundred and fifty-four, amounting to one million seven hundred and seventy thousand dollars, shall be divided and apportioned between the railroad and tunnel, and for the construction of each, respectively; six hundred and fifty thousand dollars for the completion of the unfinished portion of railroad extending from the eastern terminus of said road near Greenfield to within half a mile of the eastern-end of Hoosac Tunnel, and one million one hundred and twenty thousand dollars for the completion of the tunnel, which shall be delivered upon the conditions and in the manner hereinafter declared, subject however to the provisions of the third section of chapter one hundred and seventeen of the acts of eighteen hundred and fifty-nine.
No delivery of any portion of said scrip shall be made until said company shall, at a special meeting duly authorized for the purpose, have assented to the provisions of this act, nor until said company shall have duly made and located their line of road as aforesaid, and shall have executed to the Commonwealth such further bond and mortgage, or other assurances of title on their franchise, railroad, or other property, as the attorney-general shall prescribe, for the further security of the Commonwealth; and said bond and mortgage, and other assurances, and all bonds, mortgages, or other assurances heretofore made to the Commonwealth by said company, shall have priority to and be preferred before any and all attachments or levies on execution heretofore or hereafter made.
Sect. 3. The governor and council shall annually appoint a state engineer for the purpose of examining and determining monthly the amount and value of the work done, and materials delivered on the railroad and tunnel of the Troy and Greenfield Railroad Company, who shall receive an annual salary of one thousand dollars, payable quarterly. The state engineer shall forthwith fix permanent marks in each end of the Hoosac Tunnel, marking the progress of the work up to February twenty-fourth, eighteen hundred and sixty, from which to determine the progress subsequently made. He shall also determine by suitable notes, marks, or observations, the amount and value of all grading, bridging, masonry, or other work done, or iron, or other materials delivered on the road east of the Hoosac Tunnel prior to December twenty-second, eighteen hundred and fifty-nine, and fix data from which to determine the value of any work, or materials delivered subsequent to the date last named. He shall monthly, immediately after the first day of each month, estimate the proportion which the work done upon the road, since the preceding estimate, bears to the whole of the work required to be done in the graduation, masonry, bridging, and superstructure of said railroad east of the Hoosac Tunnel, and also the work done in the excavation of said tunnel, which he shall certify separately to the governor, together with the amount of state scrip to which the company is entitled under the provisions of this act. Such monthly estimates shall be based upon a width of road-bed at grade of fifteen feet, on embankments, seventeen and a half feet in side-cuts, and twenty feet in thorough-cuts; in the heading of the tunnel, upon dimensions fourteen feet wide and six feet high in the middle, and in the finished excavation of the tunnel of fourteen feet wide and eighteen feet high in the middle.
The deliveries of scrip shall be at the rate of fifty dollars for each lineal foot of tunnel, divided between heading and full sized tunnel, in the proportion' of thirty dollars for each lineal foot of heading and twenty dollars per lineal foot for the remaining excavation; and of six hundred and fifty thousand dollars for the whole of the graduation, masonry, bridging and superstructure of the unfinished portion of the road east of the tunnel.
The scrip shall be delivered on the road in the proportion which the value of the work done and the materials delivered each month bears to the estimated cost of the whole work and materials required on the portion of road aforesaid.
No expenditures shall be required merely for the purposes of ornament, but the work shall be substantially performed, and the rails shall weigh not less than fifty-six pounds to the lineal yard; for any defective materials or work, a proportionate amount of scrip shall be withheld.
The governor and council shall have a general supervision of the work, and for that purpose shall visit and inspect the same at least once in each year, and as much oftener as they may deem expedient; and they shall have power to correct abuses, remedy defects, and enforce requirements, by withholding scrip or imposing new requirements in such manner as the interest of the Commonwealth shall in their judgment require.