RAILWAY BUILDING

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 3, Issue 720, 21 December 1933, Page 5

RAILWAY BUILDING

("Post" Special Correspondent.)

english company to spend two million in 1934 ENGINE CONSTRUCTION

London, Nov. 11. As a further indication of confidence in the revival of British trade, the Gfeat Western Railway announces a £2,000,000 programme of building and development for 1934. The plan includes the construction of 90 locomotives, including 10 engines of the four-C'ylinder Castle class, 10' and the two-cylinder Hall class (both for use on express passenger trains), 30 engines for local services, 25 engines of the 0-6-0 tank class, and 15 auto-engines. Two hundred passenger vehicles, including 140 corridor coaches, 50 coaehes for local services, and 10 trailers for branch services. Ten eight-wheel passenger brake vans. Eight hundred and fifty vacuum fitted vans for express freight services, and 1,080 12-tons vans, not vacuum fitted. In addition to this construction work, 401 miles of line will be laid involving the use of 30,000 tons of rails, more than 600,000 sleepers, and 185,000 cubic yards of ballast. "The carrying out of this scheme, necessitating the placing of many very large orders, should increase employment in many branches of British industry ," an ofiicial of the railway said to a Daily Mail reporter. Further encouraging trade news came from South Wales, where it was announced that since a tax had been placed on foreign steel there had been a heavy reduetion im steel imports, re'sulting in a distinct stimulus to the local trade. While imports of iron ore into South Wales for the first ten months of the year have increased hy nearly 200,000 tons, imports of foreign iron and steel have decreased by 232,000 tons.