The Buffalo Express says: Mr. R.N. Brown, of this city, chief engineer of the Erie Railway Company, has just completed and submitted to the board of directors a special report upon the subject of changing the gauge of that road to correspond with the ordinary gauge.
The report recommends laying of a third rail, and the use of both gauges until the present rolling stock is worn out. Mr. Brown advises this as a matter of economy, and as avoiding a great inconvenience, if not serious embarrassment to the road. The Ohio & Mississippi and the Grand Trunk have taken a different view of the subject. The former a year ago change its gauge in less than one day’s time, by the employment of an extra force, and the latter is now engaged in a similar work.
Mr. Brown argues that the immense cost of reducing the rolling stock to the narrow gauge will not justify the Erie to adopt this plan. One great objection to doing so is that the boilers of the locomotives are so large that they could no well be used on the narrow gauge, and therefore, would become a total loss.
The report advises that in addition to laying the third rail, that two hundred locomotives and four thousand cars be constructed for the narrow gauge, and that the old rolling stock be thrown aside without repair as fast as it becomes useless. In this manner the road will be gradually transformed into a narrow gauge.
The estimated cost of laying the extra rail and building the proposed rolling stock is placed at $21 million. It is understood that the directors approve of the views of the engineer and will at once undertake to carry them out. It has clearly been demonstrated that the is an actual expected cost of operating a broad over a narrow gauge of at least 20 percent. It is believed that $4 million annually might have been saved if the road had been constructed upon a narrow gauge at first.
Source: Utica Morning Herald. November 21, 1872. Provided by Richard Palmer.