IMPORTED RAILCAR

Otago Daily Times, Issue 24406, 18 September 1940, Page 9

IMPORTED RAILCAR

ARRIVAL FROM ENGLAND FIRST OF TEN ORDERED The first of the 10 railcars ordered in England, a Vulcan Diesel-driven car, is now on a ship in New Zealand waters, and will be discharged at Lyttelton in a day or two. It will be first used on the Christchurch-Grey-mouth-Hokitika run. to replace the present four-wheeled cars and to give better facilities for the large number of passengers offering on this run. It is fitting that the first of the modern imported railcars should be used on the West Coast route, on .which the car service was inaugurated in New Zealand on August 5, 1936. The new cars are bogey-wheeled, and seat up to 60 passengers. Before the car is placed in service, it will have to be fitted out repainted, and run in, and the date of its taking up the run is still indefinite. Although the Railways Department ordered 10 railcars. no advice has been received from England of the shipment of the remaining nine; their arrival in the Dominion must, in present circumstances be a matter of uncertainty. The number of railcars new u, operation is 16. one being retained for departmental inspection only. In addition to placing the order for 10 car? in England, the department also built one in its own workshops last year. The rou'es on which the nine Vulcan cars will be placed on their delivery in New Zealand has yet to be determined. The order was placed with the Vulcan Foundry Company. Lancashire, in May. 1938. and, in ordinary circumstances, the cars would have been placed in traffic in New Zealand about a year later. Requests from members of Parliament for railcar services in both the North and South Islands were made six weeks ago, when the Minister of Railways (Mr D. G Sullivan) told the Hcu?e that the allocation had not been made. He anticipated that ho would be besieged wi'h requests for services.