South Australian (Adelaide, SA : 1844 - 1851), Friday 12 December 1845, page 3


THE PROPOSED RAILROAD.

SINCE the colonists are now moving the question of railroads, we direct their special attention to the following. A uniform gauge will be of the utmost importance to the internal traffic of the province ; and the time to determine the proper and most convenient width of the rail, is at the

commencement :—

THE BROAD AND NARROW GAUGES.— Her Majesty has been pleased to appoint Sir J. M. F. Smith, Lieut. Colonel

of the Royal Corps of Engineers, late Inspector-General of Railways ; G. B. Airy, Esq., Astronomical Observator

in her Majesty's Observatory at Greenwich ; and P. Barlow,

Esq., Professor of Mathematics in the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich, to be her Majesty's Commissioners for inquiring whether, in future private acts of parliament

for the construction of railways, provision ought to be

made for securing an uniform gauge, and whether it would be expedient and practicable to take measures to bring the railways already constructed, or in progress of construction in Great Britain, into uniformity of gauge ; and to inquire whether any other mode of obviating or mitigating the serious impediments to the internal traffic of the country, which are represented as likely to arise from the want of

an uniform gauge, could be adopted.