Tenders Being Called For Railway Rolling Stock

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 15, Issue 100, 25 September 1950, Page 7

Tenders Being Called For Railway Rolling Stock

Tenders are being called in Britain for 3805 wagons at an estimated cost of £3,952,000, said the Minister of Railways, Mr Goosman, in the Railways Statement presented in the House of Representatives.

These, together with 1075 wagons of an earlier order which were commencing to arrive and the construction of 900 wagons in the department’s own workshops, would make good the present deficiencies and provide a reasonable margin for expected expansion in goods traffic during the next three years, he continued.

New railcars, electric multipleunit passenger stock, electric locomotives and Diesel shunting engines (some of which were on hand) were also on order from England. To meet requirements substantial sums must be spent on the railways each year during the next decade. Since 1938-39, net tonnage of revenue gods carried had increased from 7,539,102 to 9,948,261 tons, the” average length of haul from 76 to 103 miles, and revenue from £5,694,936, to £12,434,487. Departmental traffic, principally coal, increased the net tonnage considerably, that for 1950 being 1,050,130 tons. Because of the view he held on the importance of the railways, said Mr Goosman, he believed their stability and progress must not be impaired by unnecessary, wasteful competition. The country was dependent on the railways for services which could not or would not, for various reasons, be performed by any other form of transport. The ability of the railways to perform the overall services required in the public interest, depended on the retention by the railways of the more lucrative lines of traffic, which were those generally sought by competitors.

This statement involved the principle that where the railways were able to provide such service as might reasonably be required of them, they should not in the public interest be subjected to. uneconomic competition.

Under provisions of the Fulbright Act, passed by the U.S. Congress, exchanges are financed by the sale of U.S. surplus property .in other countries. XXX A 35-ton truck, said to be the largest in the world, is operating in a strip coal mine in the United States. The 28-cubic-yard dump unit can be lifted and dumped in less than half a minute. Powered by a 325 horse power diesel engine, it has speeds up to 32 miles an hour.