TRIP TO WINTON.

Evening Star, Volume VIII, Issue 2455, 29 December 1870, Page 2

TRIP TO WINTON.

By a Recent Visitor. It was fortunate that we were in Invercargill just in time to receive an invitation to go in the Government train to Winton. The Railway Engineer had commanded the train for that morning to convey himself and assistants over the line for the purpose of ascertaining if it had been completed so as to be opened to the public, the contractors having reported it finished. It was a beautiful morning when wo embarked. I say icc, for several others were of the party. Mr Haughton, M.H.R., was there, on his way to address his constituents, the first time he has traversed forty miles on a New Zealand railway to do so. A Dunedin brewer was there, examining the country with regard to its malt-producing characteristics ; and there were also present several of the Invercargill celebrities, now prosperous inhabitants of the extended Province of Otago. The train started at S a.m. The country was level and the line straight. Wo could have gone safely at the rate of sixty miles an hour over it. But we nid not; the Engineer desired to inspect the work. We reached Winton in one hour and a quarter : a distance of about twenty miles, through the lovliest country in New Zealand —sometimes bush, now studded on both sides with highly cultivated farms, some of them growing barley (when the brewer exclaimed, “What splendid soil!”); several times passing over rivers capitally adapted as homes for the salmon. (I forgot to mention the secretary for the Acclimatisation Society accompanied the Engineer.) When wo reached "Winton, and while we were riding over the line, the unanimous opinion of us uuprofessiunals was that the line was the straightest, the firmest, aud the leveled we had ever ridden over. One could write in the train, so smoothly do the carriages run over the rails. We were calculating that forty miles of such railway, running into the interior of such a productive country, was in reality worth about LIO,OOO per mile, nearly enough to cover Southland’s debt. Not a bad bargain for Otago. I may mention, for the benefit of investors, that about the pleasant site of the township of Winton, the terminus of the railway, there are some very desirable sections of land for sale. After two hours’ stay, aud tasting the Winton barley, we returned to Invercargill more rapidly than the upward trip had been performed ; and we expected, on our return, to hear the proclamation of the Engineer, declaring the line opened to the public. Visions of a banquet and ball to follow in the evening flitted before us. But we were doomed to disappointment. The work was not pronounced good. The draymen were still to drag their wool over the boggy road. We could see them as we sat in the comfortable car, tugging along their freights, which if brought in the train would amount to a hundred pounds per week, and the damage these heavy loads do to the soft road, would require two hundred more per week to repair. Why this delay in opening? every one asked. Some attributed it to the the Secretary for Laud and Works, whose time just now is occupied by the new election. Others said the Engineer had been engaged for a special work, and when that was finished, he would “ have no more work to do.” From what I can learn, I believe it will be necessary to raise the whole line half an inch, so that wo can expect to have it opened for the benefit of the settlers about the tirre the present “wait and delay” administration will have built the Clutha Railway.