Railway Rolling Stock.

Manawatu Herald, 13 October 1900, Page 2

Railway Rolling Stock.

Owing to the demand for rollingstock for the railway line 3of the colony, the Railway Department has placed orders in other countries #or the construction of iooo waggons and 65 cars. Besides this, the railway

workshops are working at high pressure, and a number of orders have been placed with colonial firms. Altogether, said the Minister for Railways in the House yesterday, there are 2500 waggons in course of construction, and a great deal of conversion is going on, but even so the Department has not been able to overtake the demand, and this it is that necessitated going outside the colony. Mr Ward added that the waggons i~ which were being made in England would cost, if anything, slightly more than if they were manufactured in the colony, and the same remark applied to the carriages which were being imported from America. The trucks were required by Ist January, so as to enable them to cope with the grain and wood trade without inconvenience which had been caused in the past. The sum proposed to be voted (£357,- - was none too large for the re- \ quire ments of the Department, and if traffic went on increasing in the future as it had in the past, another large vote would be required next year. Arrangements, he added.- had been made for equipping the whole of the rolling-stock with the Westinghouse j brake, and attention would first of all j be paid to the trains in the North Island, where the grades were particularly heavy.