RAILWAY DEVIATION.

Clutha Leader, Volume I, Issue 20, 26 November 1874, Page 6

RAILWAY DEVIATION.

To the Editor of the Clutha Leader.

Sir, — I notice in your last issue a letter from the Minister of Public Works in reply to the requisition lately sent him regarding deviation in Clutha and Mataura line. It appears that the Engineer-in-Chief is to be sent down to report as to the respective merits of the tvvo routes. I trust that this gentleman will not look on the matter in dispute entirely from an engineering point of view. Let him take a large view of the question ; let him consider the route that will best suit public convenience, and which will therefore pay best, and there can be no fear of the j result. It may be that even in an I engineering point of view the route by way of Waitepeka is the better of the tvvo ; indeed, every person I have met who is at all acquainted with the two routes, gives it as his opinion that the route by way of Waitepeka, in addition to being the most convenient for the public is more favorable for railway, construction than that by. the other route. It will be recollected that the principal reason Mr. Brunton gave for abandoning the surveyed route by the Waitepeka was that the .earthworks would cost L 12,500 additional. . It has all along been maintained by persons acquainted with the two routes that Mr. Brunton must be in error in his calculations. I should not have troubled you at this time were it not to ,point out a matter that has happened recently which seems to support this view. I refer to the tender recently accepted by the Government for the -earthworks of the other half of the line, extending from Clinton to the Mataura." The contract price for these works amounts to only L 19,500. Mr. Brunton would, have us believe that the extra cost of earthworks by taking the line by way of Waitepeka would be Ll 2,500. This is nearly two-thirds of the contract j price for the earthworks of the other half of the line. The thing is so very unlikely — especially as there is no engineering difficulty of any consequence — that one cannot but conclude that Mr. Brunton has fallen into a mistake, it might be well — especially, as the two lines have been accurarefv sirveyed — that the Government should call for tenders lor both lines, re.s-ei'vino* to themselves the right .of selecting whichever route they think proper. If the line by way of Waitepeka is to cost a very much larger sum than that by the Four-mile, then let it go by the latter stream; but if the Waitepeka line can be made as cheap as the other, or at a cost not much in excess, then hy* all means let the railway . be • taken by the route which is admitted on all hands to be most convenient for the public, viz., by the valley of the Waitepeka. — I am, &c, Observer.