Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 5.djvu/129

 similar views, and it resulted that the metre (3 ft. 6 in.) gauge was chosen. Some fitful efforts made in later years to change the system proved unsuccessful, and there is now little reason to foresee any departure from the metre gauge. The lines, too, are single, for the most part: only 250 miles of double track exist out of the 3,639 miles of road that have been built; and as the embankments, the cuttings, the culverts, and the bridge-piers have not been constructed for a double line, any change now would be very costly. The average speed of passenger trains in Japan is 18 miles an hour, the corresponding figure over the metre-gauge roads in India being 16 miles, and the figure for English parliamentary trains, from 19 to 28 miles. British engineers surveyed the routes for the first lines, and superintended the work of construction, but within a few years the Japanese were able to dispense with foreign aid altogether, both in building and managing their railroads. They also construct carriages and wagons, but not locomotives, for though one was successfully built at the Kobe workshops under the superintendence of a British engineer, the enterprise did not continue. The lines are well ballasted, but the carriages are not comfortable, and the points and signal arrangements are of old patterns. Nevertheless there is tolerable immunity from accidents and irregularities, and seeing that the working expenses average only 49 per cent of the gross earnings, whereas