EAST COAST LINE

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 2, Issue 169, 5 June 1940, Page 8

EAST COAST LINE

■ <0. RAILWAY TO THE RANGITAIKI HOW THE ROUTE WAS CHOSEN 10 YEARS TO COMPLETE TASK. Forty years ago i:>eople were beginning to talk about the East railway that would link. Auckland with Tauranga, Te Puke, \\ hakatane and Opotiki, and eventually with Gisborne and Napier. How the rails came to the rich Rangitailu Plains will be described in a series of articles to be publishJd in the Beacon. A Red Letter Day. Wednesday, March 28, 1928, was i red letter day for the Bay of Plenty. The East Coast Railway >vas on that date officially opened xt Taneatua, and the Railway Department announced that regular passenger trains would run. daily x Trom Auckland to Taneatua. Actu-j illy the line had been complet'6df >ome time earlier, for in 1926 pas--;engers and goods were being car'ied to Taneatua. In 1898 the East Coast Railway vas nothing but an embryo idea in :he minds of one or two enthusiasts To the settler on the land and thenan in the town it was a mere fignent of the imagination, a dream;oo illusive -to be bothered about in heir generation. Ministries were committed to nothing,"and the great illuvial plains of the Bay of Plenty, potentially fertile and wealthy;, vere stra,ngers to the tramp of the ■.urveyor. Auckland at the close of last cenury was a town of 75,000 people,, learly a third of its present popnation. Its civic fathers and Parlianentary representatives had no bought of the East Coast's needs is long as the city was still isolat;d from the capital and only beginning to reap the benefit of th;.* lew line to Thames. Even when, n 1899, Parliament authorised the construction of thie branch linerom Paeroa to Waihi, no other ;ignificance was attached to the rote than a commendable deter-* nination to bring civilisation to ajackward mining town. Neither vas more than local importance ittaclied to the appearance on theiarae year's Estimates of 'a sum of 16000 to make a commencement of" i new line penetrating into theimber country from Gisborne. Result of the First Survey. The first survey of the East Coast or railway purposes broke loose :he agitation which raged for years., )ver the question of routes. The joverninent's plan, at *ar as it was lot entirely nebulous, was to push)n in stages the line begun at Gtisjorne so as to link eventually with* :he railway at Rotorua, and with :his idea vaguely in view Mr J. stewart, civil engineer, was sent nto the bush country of the Ursvere to explore a convenient lis report, if it had been strictly'ollowed, would have meant the leath knell of the East Coast Rail,vay as we know it, for, while he 'ound against the early proposal to;arry the line through the heairt >f the Urewera, past Rua"s stronglold at Maungapohatu and thenceda Galatea to the thermal town;hip, his pronouncement in favour >f the line Motu-Opotiki-Rotoma-voukl have neglected , the greater jart of the rich Bay of Plent3* ana vould have left Tauranga out of :he running completely. Early Procrastination. Still philandering with the Roto■ua sclieme, the Government iiT= L 905 had a trial survey made of 3 ine from Te Puke to Mamaku, oit he Rotorua railway, and it was iven suggested that a preferable ionnection might be made with the jxisting line at Oltoroirc or Mor■insville. But these meanderings ind vacillations aroused many of" :hc settlers from their lethargy and steps were taken to infuse some legree of energy into an easy-going Administration. Consistent advocacy continued over a period of a quarter of a century, and the articles of Mr F. Carr Roilett, whonade repeated incursions into the -oadless territory from Waihi on the one side of the Urewera on the 3ther, did much to proclaim the urgent needs of the neglected regio.i. (To be continued)