RAILWAYS’COMMISSION.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 29 December 1924, Page 8

RAILWAYS’COMMISSION.

REPORT RELEASED. A COMPREHENSIVE DOCUMENT. . The report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the New Zealand Railway service by Sir Sain Fay and Sir Vincent Raven, is a very lengthy document from which we make the following extracts. The Commissioners state: “We arrived in Wellington on the 13th October, and, having had the advantage of previously perusing detailed information relative to railway practice in the Dominion,.; this being supplied in reply to a questonnaire of ninety-four items submitted by us from Sydney, th&jugli the Minister of Railways, we were generally familiar with the nature of the problem to be faced. It was, therefore, decided to comriience inspection tours over the whole main lines and, with few exceptions, the branch lines, of the New Zealand Government railways. We left Wellington on the 15th October to traverse the North Island system, and returned on the 24th October, after covering some 2,500 miles. We left Wellington again on the 27th October for the South Island, and between that date and 15th November, covered some 3,200 miles. During the two tours we traversed 4,850 miles by railway and 750 miles by motor, the latter being in part to inspect projected connectinglinks, -and for the rest to reach isolated sections of the railway. ‘.‘ln the course of our tours’ we inspected the track locomotives, workshops, stores, stations, etc., of the system, acquainted ourselves with the traffic conditions of the various lines, took evidence from representative bodies desiring to tender views on railway matters, and generally obtained personal knowledge of the railway system in New Zealand,” ..

The report sets out railway development in New Zealand since 1860, when the building of the line from Christchurch to Lyttelton was started. On March 31, 1924, the Government railways represented a capital of £48,738,821 9s 3d. The system comprises 3,053 route miles of line, of which, at ihe 31st March, 1924, only 43 miles were double, track, Sidings account for 835 miles, so the double mileage reduced to single track is 3,942. This compares with 2,854 route miles and 3.079 single track miles at 31st March, 1914.