TANEATUA-MOTUHORA LINE

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 7, Issue 60, 28 March 1944, Page 5

TANEATUA-MOTUHORA LINE

FURTHER RAILWAY DISCUSSION SUPPORT FROM AUCKLAND The question of the completion, of the rail eon nee lion between'Gis.borne and Auckland, again came up for discussion at the 'meeting of the (.JLsborne Chamber of Commerce,.held on Tuesday. The, secretary* Mr W. J. White, read a series of letters which had passed between the (lisborne :md Auckland chambers,' in the course of which the Auckland chamber asserted its warm interest in the proposed completion of the Taneatua-Motuhora '"gup"' on the East Coa.st Main Trunk line. The northern chamber asked for any •information which might help in putting the, case for completion o£ the line before, the. Government. One letter contained a copy of a communication from the Engineec-in-Chief of the Public Works Department, Mr \V. T. Newnham. to the effect that the survey of the proposed route had been well in hand prior to the war. A further comment, from a civil engineer resident in this district, was that the most suitable route for the railway would leave the present line at Malawai and pass through the Waiocka Valley to Opotiki. Mr H. 11. Barker suggested that it would be a routine matter to collect the 'information required by the Auckland chamber. He reeom-. mended strongly, however, that the chamber should not let itself be involved in a "battle of routes." The district "had ha.l one experience of the results of this type of campaign, and did not want another. The meeting appointed Messrs W. E. Mcllwaine (president), B. S. Bree, H. H. Barker and J. E. Gardner to make the necessary investigation.