T.T.T. RAILWAY.

Putaruru Press, Volume VI, Issue 253, 6 September 1928, Page 5

T.T.T. RAILWAY.

(To the Editor) Sir,—l note from your report of Mr. Dalziel’s addresses at Tokoroa and Putaruru last week that Mr. Dalziel still maintains the “ Yes—No ” attitude that the T.T.T. Company has invariably -offered to proposals that its railway should become a public line or be run primarily as a public railway. Now, sir, this attitude brought to nought many months of work and the expenditure of much money by the Putaruru-Taupo Railway Board and thereby it has robbed the district of what settlers and resi-

dents might otherwise have been enjoying long since, namely, a publiclyowned railway operated at perhaps something near Government freights.

With years of effort thus nullified and with the prospects of a through railway from Putaruru to Taupo becoming more and more remote the time for parleying appears to me to be well past. One definite and immedi-ately-attainable measure of progress would be the resumption by the Government of the five miles of line to Lichfield. This would mean the ex-

tension of the Government railhead at least five miles south from Putaruru and would also put the company in the position of having to use part of a publicly-operated railway to transport its timber to Putaruru. If the company then found this was no detriment to its business the settlers and residents would have every justification for asking that the Government or the local Railway Board acquire such further lengths of the line as could be brought up to Government standard without extra heavy expense and thus give Government railway facilities to the extensive area south of Putaruru, which is as fully entitled to such facilities as the area south of Rotorua.—l am, etc., G. E. MARTIN.