Five Days a Week, Trainless!

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 566, 19 January 1929, Page 24

Five Days a Week, Trainless!

NEWFOUNDLAND !S VERY PROUD OF ITS RAILWAY SYSTEM—IN SPITE OF WINTER . SETBACKS ■HEN Newfoundland is mentioned, its railroad invariably is. To the Newfoundlanders it is something unique, colossal, as the one and only nerve of Newfoundland’s transportation system. It is just that, with the exception of the road system on the Avalon Peninsula of the east coast, a certain amount of inland travel by small boats on rivers, and the sea that surrounds the island. It is a narrow gauge railroad and it is Government owned, its main function is to connect the east coast with the west coast. St. Johns, the capital and principal town of the island, is situated in the Avalon Peninsula on the east coast. The road runs from there to Port aux Basques on the west coast, a distance of 548 miles. Spurs, especially on the east coast, run the total mileage up to 1,000 miles. On the whole west coast there are only about 25 motor-cars, because there are practically no roads to run them over, there are less than 2,000 cars on the island, and they are almost entirely in St. Johns and its nearby “outports.” The longest car trip possible on the west coast is a distance of 21 miles. Government Management All settlement is on the coasts, except for a few very small villages on the railroad, and the two larger places of Grand Falls where the Lord Rothermere paper interests are located, and the Buchan’s Mines. Except for that the territory between the districts immediately adjoining St. Johns and Corner Brook is a howling wilderness of unexploited water power, pulp-wood and minerals. And between Corner Brook and Port aux Basque is another smaller wilderness except that it is relieved by the presence of a few fairsized towns, fair-sized by Newfoundland standards, and the additional fact

that this area Includes the best sal mon and sea trout fishing on tn® island. That should give some idea of wn* l its railroad system means to Ne* foundland. It is all the main water, rail and road arteries of the country rolled into one, and there is notninc like it anywhere except where enterprise has laid rails through hundred? of miles of wilderness to reach ana exploit some rich island of opportunity in the interior of a continent i Africa. Proud of Winter Trains The Government of Premier Monroe instituted many improvements in foundland. It undertook the tas ® laying heavier rails throughout roailroad system, and this work is no over half completed. Besides i proving travel and reducing upkeep, that improvement means that narrow gauge railroad with its o like trains is fastened on the coun . indefinitely, for permanent impro ments of this nature further puany possibility of the system • r changed. . In the winter the railroad bee a road; it serves the dual purpose * railroad and winter trail, and people travel it on snowshoes • trainless days; there are five of t y; a week in the winter. In the = the “Express,” the trans-island P senger train, goes over the r three times a week, and is usually ' for varying periods. There is no c plaint about that; it is recognised an integral part of condit • Freights wander back and fort regularly on the other days. The two trains a week in winter a source of constant pride to people on the line; they are P of the fact that the train **f l * e all, and proudly point out ' few days were missed la.st *i _ ‘ And it does mean something; is so light and snow is so deep, people of Newfoundland are extre • proud of their little railroad, tainly under tremendously ad ' circumstances, it fills a great n e their lives, and its service has ■ improved since the Government it over.