This line, when completed, will prove to be the most expensive in India. Its cost will be more than £20,000 a mile. To cover the interest a large traffic will be required, and such may be reasonably expected. But its capabilities are at present cramped by the want of a good terminal station at the Port of Bombay,[90] and by the imperfect road communications with the stations. This last is a complaint that can truly be made by all the railway companies of India. The railway sustained very serious damage by floods during the Monsoons of 1866. Their destructive character is said to have been unprecedented, and for upwards of a month the traffic was totally suspended on about thirty miles of the line. Nevertheless the growth of the traffic is not unsatisfactory. In 1866 the gross receipts were £407,688, being £85,872 more than in 1865. The gross receipts per train mile in 1865, were 12s. 6¾d. (the highest in India), but the working expenses were also the highest—8s. 1¾d. a mile. The train mileage for the year ending the 30th June, 1866, was 745,961 miles. Very considerable desire exists in India to extend this railway from Baroda, across central India to Delhi, nearly parallel (but at a distance of from 350 to 500 miles during two-thirds of its course) to the main line of the Great Indian Peninsula to Jubbulpore, and thence to Allahabad. The length of this line would be about 570 miles, and surveys are already being carried on with the view of ascertaining the best route and making complete estimates of cost. At present it is assumed that the line will cost about £12,000 a mile, or £6,850,000. If the results of the surveys be satisfactory, arrangements will probably be made for constructing this railway. A main difficulty is that it will, for the most part, be carried through the territories of native princes; negotiations must, therefore, before the works can be commenced, be entered into for the abolition, at all events the relaxation, of the existing onerous transit dues. The tendency of the construction of this extension would be to still further concentrate European traffic at Bombay, as by means of it not only would Delhi and the north-western provinces be accommodated, but there would be a second route from Bombay to Calcutta, a roundabout one to be sure,—but a second route notwithstanding. The next railway we have to refer to is the Scinde Railway, which was incorporated in its present shape in 1857. “Although,” says the editor of _Engineering_, “the affairs of this company are under a single board, the operations of the company, in reality, embrace four separate concerns.” The object of the combined undertaking is to establish railway communication between the port of Kurrachee and the Punjaub, and to connect the chief cities of that province with the East Indian Railway, which has already been mentioned as extending to Delhi.