Wheeling Register

VERY NARROW NARROW-GAUGE

The Preston county Journal calls attention in its last issue to the building of two-feet gauge railroads in Maine, and suggests the propriety of an investigation into their merits with a view of adopting such a gauge for the projected road from Kingwood to Tunnelton.

We have had some interest and curiosity in this direction. Our attention was attracted some time ago to a description of a two-feet gauge railroad that was being operated in one of the New England States, the name and locality having escaped our memory, that was represented to be a most successful and attractive line of railroad. It read like a fairy-tale, but the accuracy of the statements were well vouched for, and the beauty of the road, its bridges and the scenery were not less grandly portrayed than its wonderful business capacity.

When the project was first mooted, of building the road it was ridiculed by the knowing ones, but the practical results were so satisfactory that everybody was in glee at witnessing its wonders. We had expected to hear of a boom in 2-feet gauge railroads before this, but the reference made by the Journal is the only one we have seen since the first. But we agree with the Journal in believing that an investigation into the merits of these roads will pay, and might suggest many short lines through our mountainous State.

The road to which the Journal refers was recently built in Maine, called the Bridgton and Saco River Railroad, and is 16 miles long. The president of the road writes to a gentleman in Kingwood about it, as follows: "It is a 2-foot gauge. It works well; capacity of freight cars, 6 to 8 tons. Passenger cars, 30 seats (30 passengers.) Weight of locomotives, 15 tons; speed, 16 to 25 miles per hour. Thirty pound steel rails are used; and 2 locomotives, 2 passenger cars, one baggage and express car, six box cars, 10 flats and hand and push cars are the rolling stock. The maximum grade is 180 feet to the mile, over which the locomotive draws 40 tons of freight."