The engineering difficulties and the high rate of interest upon loans retarded the work of railway building, so that in twenty years after the opening of the first line only four hundred and six miles had been completed; but in more recent times the enterprise has been rapidly pushed, the mountains having been passed, and the construction upon the great plains of the interior being comparatively easy. In September, 1886, no less than 1831 miles of railway were in operation in New South Wales, and the Colonial Parliament had authorized 1590 miles in addition, of which a part is now under construction.
The railways of New South Wales are divided into the Southern, Western, and Northern systems. The Southern stretches from Sydney to Albury, on the frontier of Victoria, three hundred and eighty-six miles; at Junee the South-western line branches from the Southern, and runs to Hay, four hundred and fifty-four miles from Sydney, on the Murrumbidgee River, and one of the most important towns in the Riverina district. The Western line runs in the direction indicated by its name, and terminates at Bourke, on the Darling River, five hundred and three miles from Sydney. These are the longest railway-lines now in operation in any part of Australia, though not equal to some that are projected in Queensland and South Australia. The Northern line extends to the frontier of Queensland, as already described.
In round figures, Australia has at present about ten thousand miles of railway in operation, with another ten thousand miles—and perhaps more—in contemplation. The completed lines have cost not less than two hundred millions of dollars, and there are about thirty thousand miles of telegraph in working order.
The up-country journey of our friends, in which they took part in a kangaroo hunt and witnessed a corroboree, was made over the Western line. "We have rarely seen finer engineering work on a railway anywhere else in the world than on this line," said Frank in his journal. "It reminds us of the Brenner line over the Alps, the Central Pacific in the Sierra Nevada mountains, and the ride from Colombo to Kandy, in Ceylon. It was an uninterrupted succession of magnificent views of mountain scenery, with deep gorges and snowy water-falls at frequent intervals. We advise those who may follow us to note particularly the Katoomba and Wentworth Falls and Govett's Leap; and if they have an interest in engineering, they will be much attracted by the Lapstone Hill and Lithgow Valley Zigzags, where the railway climbs the steep sides of the mountains. There is a fine bridge over the Nepean River at Penrith, and a tunnel, called the Clarence, three thousand seven hundred feet above sea-level, and five hundred and thirty-eight yards in length."
There is also some fine engineering on the Southern line; and for a long time, when the railway was first proposed, many doubters predicted that it would never be able to pass the Blue Mountains to the plains beyond. The longest tunnel in Australia—five hundred and seventy-two yards—is near Picton, on the Southern line; and the zigzags, bridges, cuts, and fillings are well calculated to excite the admiration of the professional railway man. As for the scenery, it fully justifies the praises which Australians bestow upon it, and the ride over the Blue Mountains is one that everybody who visits the country should take in the daytime.
ZIGZAG RAILWAY IN THE BLUE MOUNTAINS.
The engineers of this line claim to have succeeded in solving a problem which has been pronounced impossible by many experienced men, and has been tried elsewhere occasionally, and always with disastrous results—that of having two trains pass each other on a single-track railway. It is done in this way: At the end of each zigzag there is a piece of level track sufficiently long to hold two trains. The engineer of a descending train sees an ascending one on the zigzag below; he runs his train out to the end of a level, and there waits until the ascending one has entered the same level, reversed its course, and gone on its way upward. One of the railway managers said to Doctor Bronson, "There isn't any double track here at all, and yet, you see, two trains can pass each other without the least difficulty. The ends of our zigzags serve as switches, that's all."