TRANSPORT COSTS.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 227, 25 September 1928, Page 9

TRANSPORT COSTS.

RAILWAY STILL LOWEST.

IMPROVEMENTS IN SYSTEM.

REVIEW BY MR. COATES

(By Telegraph. — Own Correspondent.)

WELLINGTON, Monday.

"Our railways in the past have been made a sort of Cinderella. The tendency has been to say the railways are going and the roads are coming. That will not do, because the railways can serve the country at a cost that the loads can never touch," said the Minister of Railways, Mr. Coates, to members of the Railway Officers' Institute.

Some very Important changes had been made in the service and the change in accounting had been one of the most important. Mr. Coates believed that this was essential. Now they would make comparisons with the most up-to-date railway systems in the world. The new method of accounting gave a clear line of check up with other systems.

The railways were really the arteries of the country. Last year the railways had earned 2.41 d per ton mile, and were down £291,000. If they had increased these earnings to 3d per ton mile they would have brought in another £l,OtX>,000. They had also ascertained the cost per ton mile by road was not less than 1/, and was much nearer 1/6. It did not require very much thinking to show that they must have an increased yield per! ton mile on the railways or a mush more expensive method of transportation by road.

Once they had reached the conclusion that the railways were essential to the community they would also see that it was essential that they should be kept up to date in track, grade easements, and rolling stock, which should be a credit to the country. The Department had had no alternative but to go into the bus business. Another feature he felt would make for good was the policy of decentralisation. By this authority had been thrown upon men so that they felt that they had a job and were masters of it.