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New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 5288, 7 March 1878, Page 2

It will be a matter of congratulation among the settlers of the Wanganui-Manawatu. districts that the rails have now been linked in along the whole of the railway line between Foxton and Wanganui. The first through train was run yesterday, conveying a party of excursionists from Fettling to Wanganui. : We may therefore confidently expect that this line will be opened for regular traffic not later than the middle of April. The importance of this connection of the Manawatu District with Kaiigitikei and Wanganui can hardly be overestimated. . The immediate result will be that both the Kangitikei, Wanganui, and Waitotara districts will draw their supplies of timber of all kinds, both sawn and split, from the forest lands of Feilding, Halcombe, and Palmerston. From the two first-mentioned stations, a brisk trade in: firewood with Marton, Turakina, and even with Wanganui, will be established during the coming winter, and will employ a.large number of hands both in Halcombe and Feilding, which places will ih return receive their supplies of flour and other produce from the iwell-established farms along, the route to Wanganui. The opening of this new line will, indeed, be the commencement of a new era to these districts, and we confidently anticipate a far larger traffic on the FoxtonWanganui railway than on any line of equal length in the North Island. This branch is, however, but the commencement of an i improved communication between the West Coast country and the capital. : Neither the inhabitants of Wellington nor the settlers of \ the great agricultural and pastoral districts south of Taranaki should cease to agitate,: by every constitutional means in their power, for the completion of direct communication by railway between Palmerston and the capital. Whatever maybe done with regard to the formation of a railway through the gorge of the Manawatu to connect with Masterton, it is manifest to anyone acquainted I with’ the country, and with the productive power of the West Coast districts that the enormous traffic which is daily, developing in that direction, would not long consent to be taken more than fifty miles out of the way, and by so difficult a’ route as the Rimutaka Range. : The projected line via the Upper Hutt and Waikanae is short and easy, and it is daily becoming more obvious that the formation of a West Coast railway line by this route must be undertaken without any further delay.