RAILWAY CONSTRUCTION.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXIV, Issue 4596, 3 September 1923, Page 4

RAILWAY CONSTRUCTION.

PAEROA-POKENO LINE. SOUTH ISLAND CRITICISM. In criticising the Public Works statement, the following leading article appears in the Lyttelton Times of Tuesday last : — “ Exactly half ithe space devoted by the Minister in the Public Works Statement to the outlining of a programme of railway works to be put in hand during the next two years was devoted to an explanation of what; he intended to -do in Auckland Province. The rest of the space was devoted to works in other North Island provinces, and after that there was a brief reference to certain otfier works which stood next in importance—one line in Westland Province and two in Wellington Province. It appeared to us that Auckland was getting its usual good innings, but we had reckoned without Auckland. Auckland is annoyed at being left out of the programme of the next best things, and the ‘New Zealand Herald ’ last Friday told the Minister very pointedly that he should not be talking about a railway to link ip Westport coal with the South Island railway system' while such tremendously important projects as the Paeroa-Pokeno lopp were overlooked. We are not ashamed to confess that while,, in common with the rest; of the civilised world, we know something about Westport and its adjoining coalfields, we have only the haziest of notions concerning the significance of the hamlets of Paeroa and Pokeno. We gather from the ‘ Herald’s ’ own presentation of the case that .this particular loop will not be of very much use to anybody until the Waihi-Tauranga section is completed, whereas it appears to us that the actual completion of the East and West Coast railway in this island brings a line from Westport to Inangahua well into logical sequence. However, it may be that in these masters human nature incb’nes us to look at such projects from a parochial standpoint. We can see clearly enough that a railway, system linking the coalfields of the West Coast with the ports of the East Ccast .of the South Island might; conceivably be of considerable importance not. only to New Zealand, but to the whole Empire, in the event of war, and that in any case there is a good economic reason for its construction. Possibly Auckland can put forward equally weighty grounds for preference being given to the Paeroa-Pokeno loop, but we have not heard them, nor can we imagine how such grounds could be substantiated. Of the three lines mentioned by the Minister in his ‘ next best ’ schedule, we are inclined, taking a Dominion view of the matter, to favour his choice (after Westpor.t-Inangahua, which we know most about) of the Rimutaka deviation. There have been, we believe, no fewer than seven alternatives proposed to the present line on this route, and the Public Works Department considers the improvement’ of the line of such importance that it has proposed an eighth scheme — a Napoleonic suggestion to cut a tunnel right through the Rimutakas, five miles and eightteen chains in length, just seven chains shorter than the Arthur’s Pass tunnel. Without professing any knowledge of the engineering problems involved, we are impressed by ,the fact that this tunnel would cut out practically the whole of the mountaineering difficulties in this appallingly mountainous section, the grade of the tunnel being only 1 in 132, as against a grade in the Arthur’s Pass tunnel of 1 in 33. The cost of the Rimutaka tunnel is estimated at £875,000, which does not seem a very large ranson to pay in order to rescue one of the most important main lines of the North Island from the dangers and disabilities which the present route over the Rimuakas imposes. jMr Coates in a statement delivered in the House yesterday, gave Auckland an assurance that the Paeroa-Pokeno loop would be given consideration, and he is reported to have made a rather obscure remark to the effect that the heavy expenditure involved in the construction of the '-three most important lines * would end in three years’ time, when it would be possible to switch men, material, and plant to a further series of important lines. Obviously lines included in Mr Coates’s ‘next best’ schedule.cannot be included in that reference—the Rimutaka tunnel would take at least five years to construct—and the general impression which is given is that an Auckland Minister is preparing the way once again to alter his plans in order ro obey the master’s voice.”

lii reply to the above Mr Thos. E. McMillan, o£ Leeston, penned ithe following on ’August 28 “Sir,—As a reader of influential newspapers of the North and South Islands, I am often amused at the varying views expressed in regard to this or that public work, but I think a more fail- statement, of the merits of the several projects would reduce parochialism and be better for the Dominion as. a whole. We must never lose sight of the fact that New Zealand is primarily a primary producing country, and every road and railway must be viewed largely in the light of their Likelihood of forwarding settlement and increasing the production from the land, for otherwise the balance of exports and imports will not be in our favour. “You naively admit that you do not know anything about ‘the hamlets of Paeroa and Pokeno.’ With your permission I propose to tell you something .about the Borough of Paeroa and t,he hamlet of Pokeno in their relationship to the railway system and the advancement of settlement of the North Island. “From a. railway point of view Paeroa is one of the most important centres in the North Island, on account of its geographical position. From Paeroa the ways of communication lead north to Thames and the Coromandel Peninsula, south to the Waikato, Hamilton, and Auckland, east to the East Coast and the Bay of Plenty,, and wast across the famous

Hauraki Plains to Auckland. The place is at present the junction of the Thames and Waihi (East, Coast) lines,, and when the East Coast line is linked up with Waihi the line must then be continued through Paeroa and across the Hauraki Plains to Auckland. This is the only means of obviating a costly duplication of the Frankton Junction-Auckland line, which is already overtaxed; moreover, such duplication would not bring a single further acre of land int.p cultivation. On the dthei; hand, the 'line across the Plains from Paeroa to Auckland would save duplication, shorten the haulage to the port of Auckland by over forty miles, run 'almost entirely on levefi, country, and hasten closer settlement bn the 100, 000 acres comprising the Hauraki Plains. Mr “h. M. Skeet, who was Commissioner of Crown Lands, informed me that some 12,000 acres of the Hauraki Plains was nor, only as rich land as any in the Dominion, but that it could not be surpassed in the world. The Department of Agriculture is credited with the statement that this particular area could be cropped for 43 successive years without requiring the application of artificial manures. Up to the present this valuable country has merely been ‘scratched,’ but .the Hauraki plains County, nevertheless, fe valued at over three millions, so you see that there is tremendous scope for development there. •‘Just what t,he Railway Department thinks of the importance of Paeroa as a railway centre may be gauged from the fact that the de partment has plans for railway yaids at Paeroa covering some thirty acres —a tidy little ‘hamlet’ in itself; the junction is expected to exceed even Frankton Junction in point of the traffic to be handled there.

‘•Now a word about the hamlet of Pokeno. This station is the recognised point for the junctioning of the line across the Plains with the main line to Auckland, and already there are motor services along the approximate route of the railway, connecting Auckland with the East Coast by a shorter and speedier route than the long wind around the present line. Had it, not been for the difficulty of securing a water supply (since overcome by the existence of a high-pres-sure supply in Pukekohe borough), Pokeno would originally have taken the place of Mercer as a railway centre, the reason being that Mercer, while it contains an ample water supply in the magnificent Waikato River, possesses soil of too peaty and unstable a nature to carry unlimited weight and stress of rolling stock ou a line.

“From the. above you will see that while the South Island has its just and well-substantiated claims, the case for the North cannot be dismissed in the cavalier fashion attempted in your leader of Tuesday. Railway construction is, °r should be, very, largely a national master, and ought ,to be examined in the light of its importance to the development o£ the Dominion as a whole,, but I regret tb note that in the leading journals of both the North and the South Islands comment, is almost invariably tinge! with parochialism.”