The line possesses several features of technical interest, and being a single track, is operated upon the staff system, with every device to secure absolute safety in operation in the form of signalling and telegraphing facilities. Moreover, travelling is comfortable, for although the gauge is less than two feet, the cars, designed by the engineer, are built on the bogie principle and have seating accommodation for fifty passengers. A trip over the line certainly constitutes an experience. The complete success which attended the conversion of this railway from equine- to steam-power in 1864 stimulated the wider adoption of the narrow-gauge system, though as a rule this term is somewhat elastic, inasmuch as it signifies that such a railway has a gauge less than the standard width of 4 feet 8½ inches, and is particularly associated with the 39 inch or 42 inch gauge. Still several “two-foot” lines were laid down, especially in France and India, so that the Festiniog experiment has proved a very profitable “toy” to more countries than one. In fact, not far distant from the pioneer toy railway is another--the North Wales Narrow Gauge railway--which connects Dinas, near Carnarvon, with Snowdon Station. These railway systems, however, are of short length, and when one remembers the broken character of the country which they serve, their _raison d’être_ is obvious. But the application of the idea to a trunk line 360 miles in length appears quite impracticable. Yet it has been accomplished, and its realisation has opened up a corner of Africa which formerly was almost impassable, and which, but for its fulfilment, would have left the country traversed in the hands of hostile natives. This “toy” railway upon a large scale is the Otavi Line, which connects Tsumeb, buried 368 miles in the heart of the wilderness of German South-West Africa, with the coast at Swapkomund. To-day it ranks as the longest narrowest gauge line in the world, the metals, as in the case of the Festiniog railway, being laid only 600 millimetres, or approximately two feet apart. In the late ’eighties prospecting parties who had heard of the mineral wealth lying dormant in this inhospitable and inaccessible country, set out to ascertain whether rumour could be verified to a sufficient extent to ensure the riches of the rocks being exploited commercially. They suffered great privations and hardships in their toil across the waterless veldt, but when they gained the Otavi country they found that their journey was more than repaid by enormous discoveries of copper. They collected detailed information concerning the extent of these deposits, and when they returned to Europe it was decided to develop the new “Copperado” without further delay.