RAILWAY OUTLOOK.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLV, Issue 2658, 13 November 1923, Page 4

RAILWAY OUTLOOK.

COMPETITION OF ROADS. SHOULD SPUR LINES BE CLOSED? (Concluded from Page 1). es. Over dong distances, both for passengers and probably for freight, also, the railway still holds its own. Suppose, however, there is a great improvement in the roads of the Dominion, snppose that they are brought up to the Taranaki standard. The cost of motor haulage will be reduced accordingly per ton-mile and long-distance traffic, on the railways will be affected.

That, however, is for the future. In the meantime, and for Ihe present, certain things are quite clear. First, spur lines —the so-called feeder lines of the Minister and General Manager —do not pay and are never likely to pay, unless they form as with the Palmerston-Foxton line, a prospective link with other lines.-

This, is of course, when the Lev-in-Mnrton deviation is built, as it should be built within the next ten years. The only other exception to existing spur lines is when they tap difficult country, where road transport would always be costly and limited and where, at the same time there is traffic to warrant the existence of such a line. This would cover some of the Central Otago and Southland lines. Nearly all the Canterbury spur lines come under the category of useless non-payable railways. In the Wairarapa there is the Woodside-Greytown line as a minor example of the spur line which is quite unnecessary to-day. It is doubtful whether the Opunake branch line still incomplete, would ever have been started if Taranaki had had then the splendid roads it has to-dav.

The conclusion one must arrive at. is that it would pay to scrap all such spur lines in easy, well -runded country suitable for motor traffic. They are not really feeders; rather are they in the nature of suckers bleeding instead of feeding' the main railway system. , SOME SUGGESTIONS.

The second point is that, if the mnin Inmk line* five In hold I heir

own in long-distance traffic in the face of improved roads, these main lines of railway must themselves be improved. Most of their length was constructed in the days when money was even shorter than it is to-day, and railways were made, something like roads, in the cheapest manner possible. There is also the bad old story of political influence which accounts for some of the worst sections in the main lines. Unless these main lines are improved freight and passenger traffic will continue to go over to the roads. The Palmerston-Wangaimi motor passenger service is an instance, and the Wellington-Manawatu motor freight service. The final conclusions that one would draw are that, wherever the countrv is suitable, the road should precede the railway to build up settlement, for good roads make far more for settlement than an odd line of railway, especially the North Island Main Trunk system, should be straightened, shortened, and levelled wherever possible to make for eeonimieal hauling of trains and much faster running than at present; that the existing spur lines should he scrapped wherever they come under the category described above, and no more should be lmilt as feeders unless they tap a coal held or some other natural source that will give a regular volume of payable traffic. Our railway problem is admittedly !( very difficult one, and its difficulties are increased by parochial influences. Whatever conclusions the heads of our railway system come to, they ought not to let themselves be swayed by any such considerations of local pull and political influence. The ordinary folk that travel by the trains and Urn business people, including farmers, who use the railway for the transport. of goods, are (lie people who matter.