SHAG POINT RAILWAY.

Globe, Volume XXIII, Issue 2195, 9 March 1881, Page 3

SHAG POINT RAILWAY.

[BT TBLB(JBAPH.] [FEOM THE own COBEESPONDBNT OF THB WELLINGTON, March 8. The “Post" gives the following information, i apparently on authority, relative to the absorption of the Shag Point branch into the Oamaru , section of the southern main trunk line, explaining that this branch was nsed almost exclusively as a coal siding for the supply of the 1 main line with fuel, for which important service 1 it received no credit in tho accounts. The actual 1 cost of working is not large, being only about .£325 per mile annually. It is only relatively . that the cost seems heavy when reckoned by its percentage to the actual receipts. These latter may be taken at about .£3OO per annum, and the expenditure at about .£650, but then, in addition to the work for which £3OO or so is paid in the year by the public using the line, some 15,000 tons of coal have been hauled over it for the use of the railways. If this work were done for the 1 public, and paid for, it would represent an addition of fully £750 per annum to the earnings of the branch. In that case, the receipts would be about £IOSO, with an expenditure of £650, a little more than 60 per cent., thus leaving £U)O net profit. The public ia also a largo gainer in another way, as the Shag Point coal is purchased for railway use at I3s, while Newcastle coal would cost 30». Consequently, the Shag Point branch is really one of the moat profitable bits of road in tho colony, through the great facilities it offers for tho supply of coal at a cost enormously cheaper than that at which it conld be obtained elsewhere. Unfortunately, tho same cannot be said of the Eyreton, Waimate, Outram, Lawrence, Riverton, and Mount Somers branches, which are veritable “ suckers’ of thei main lino profits.