A FOOT BRIDGE AT AORANGI

Feilding Star, Volume III, Issue 90, 12 April 1883, Page 2

A FOOT BRIDGE AT AORANGI

In another column appears a letter from a correspondent signing himself "Bunnythorpe," complaiming that the gangers employed on the railway line have received instructions to prevent persons trespassing on the line. As it is contrary to law for persons to use the railway line as a public road the instructions are perfectly in accordance with rule. Where the railway authorities have been wrong was by allowing the line to be used by foot passengers for a number of years, and then, without any apparent special cause, putting a sudden stop to the practice.

If the law, as it stands, had been enforced from the oppning of the line, the settlers on the south side of the river would have felt the inconvenience so much that not only a foot bridge, but a bridge suitable for waggon traffic would now be in existence. It is a well-known fact that if such a bridge were over the Oroua River near Feilding, large quantities of timber would be sent from the sawmills on the south side of the river, and that goods from the storekeepers in Feilding to (he settlers at Aorangi, Taonui, and Bunnythorpe, would be conveyed in drays and other vehicles. In fact, the trade would be more than doubled. The railway authorities should think of this, and, with a view to keeping the carriage of timber and goods on the six or seven miles of railway between Bunnythorpe and Feilding in their own hands, they should make a small concession, and attach a foot bridge without further delay to the present railway bridge. Otherwise the settlers will have to avail themselves of the facilities offered under the Roads and Bridges Construction Act, and put up a substantial traffic bridge for themselves. This would cost the Government about £1000 a year by decrease of railway revenue.