RAILWAY TRUCKS

Dominion, Volume 37, Issue 202, 24 May 1944, Page 6

RAILWAY TRUCKS

Shortage In Wellington

Tlte shortage of railway trucks, which had been causing intermittent embarrassment to the commercial community for ininiy months, had shown no signs of recent improvement, said the manager of a Wellington carrying linn yesterday. .Neither on Monday, nor yesterday, lie said, were any trucks available for the transportation of bulk goods, hundreds of tons of which were lying on the wharves at a storage cost to the owners of Rd. a ton a night. A few trucks only were available for snail lines. Merchants were urged to clear goods promptly, to avoid wharf congestion, but that was impossible without an adequate supply of trucks.

The shortage became acute each time coal boats, which had trucking priority, wore in port.

The Railways Department had endeavoured to co-operate by using boxwagons for work that would noi-iiially be done with open trucks, but that was not a satisfactory solution as the box-wagons presented loading difficulties. Repeated appeals had been made to farmers to keep trucks moving, but. he thought, they had not been heeded-as well as they might. lie suggested that the Railways Department might investigate the possibility of obtaining additional trucks from the South Island, where, lie understood, pressure was not so great. The secretary of the Cargo Control Committee, Mr. E. M. Bardsley. confirmed the statement, that the shortage of trucks had been acute in the last few days.

When a plane crashed through the roof of a house in Cnrslialton, Surrey, parts of the machine came to rest on a bed occupied by a man and his wife. The occupants were uninjured. The pilot died in hospital. Several houses were damaged by the crash.