Strong steel shovels of the form shown in Fig. 372 are the most suitable for platelayers’ general use when working with gravel, sand, or broken stones. For driving iron spikes and wooden keys in cast-iron chairs a long-handled hammer is the most convenient for work, and its long swinging action produces considerable force without much actual labour. Road-gauges, nut-wrenches, short straight-edges, spirit-levels, ratchet-drills, augurs, and cold setts of well-tempered steel for cutting rails, are all required by the men engaged in laying permanent way. The following summaries give the estimated cost of materials alone for one mile of steel bull-head rail and steel flange rail permanent way of different weights. The 90-lb. steel bull-head rail is at present the heaviest of that section laid down to any extent on our home railways, and the chairs and fastenings are made heavy to correspond to the rail and the traffic for which it is intended. As the rails in the summaries become lighter, the weights of the chairs and fastenings are decreased. As yet there are not many samples of the 100-lb. steel flange rail; but in those places where it has been laid down it has been supported with a liberal supply of sleepers, to obtain increased bearing surface. With a 5½-inch flange, and a rectangular sleeper 10 inches wide, the bearing surface on the wood is only about 55 square inches, as compared with about 100 square inches, the bearing surface of a large cast-iron chair for a heavy bull-head rail. As previously explained, a small bearing surface on a sleeper tends to the cutting down into the wood, and rendering the sleeper unsafe and useless even before it has become unserviceable from decay: hence the reason for ample bearing surface on the sleeper. The last two summaries refer to 3-foot narrow-gauge lines. In more than one instance the 45-lb. rails first laid down have been found much too light for the engines required to work the traffic, and when making extensions of the system 242 65-lb. rails have been adopted. Indeed, when taking into consideration the weight of most of the narrow-gauge engines, generally from 24 to 28 tons in working order, and their short wheel-base, it would appear that a 65-lb. rail is the minimum which should be used both for stability and economy in maintenance.