State’s Heavy Task

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 604, 5 March 1929, Page 10

State’s Heavy Task

Completion of Railways Promised

IN settling the route of the East Coast railway, the Prime Minister, Sir Joseph Ward, has given his, promise that approximately 5510,000,000 will be spent within the next three or four years in finishing all incomplete railways in New Zealand. Several of these lines in the North Island, although promising the State a heavy annual loss, have only a short distance to go to join important trunks serving fertile and rapidly expanding districts. Railway construction in the South Island is practically at a standstill.

rpHE Reform Government has been

spending around about £1,000,000 a year in the construction of new railway lines, the majority of which are designed eventually to join trunk services through the North and South Islands respectively. Some of the first sods, however, were turned over 20 years ago, even before the advent of the Reform Government, and left turned for the grass to grow undisturbed on the other'side, while the people of the districts to be served wonderd hopefully when the first locomotive would come puffing along their way.

Many of them were still wondering at the week-end, when Sir Joseph

& % sk & » Ward, while speaking at Gisborne, expressed the determination of his Government to complete all lines in three or four years, so that the State might get hack some of the money which had been sunk in them. The only way to see the jobs through, the Prime Minister said, was to set a time limit and see that it was adhered to. This colossal task, which Sir Joseph estimated to cost about £10,000,000, will embrace four important projects in the North Island and two in the South, as well as taking in a multitude of constructional difficulties with which engineers have battled for over a score of years. Approximately £200,000 is being spent by the Public Works Department during the current financial year in the completion of the Stratford Main Tmnk line, of which there is a span of only about ten miles to make. At the present time the rail reaches to Tahora on the one side and Ohura at the other end of the

igap, and when completed it will join 1 the North Island Main Trunk at Okaihukura, south of Taumarunui. This will materially shorten the rail journey from Auckland to New Plymouth, and will mean reduced freights to the people in the intermediate districts. The North Auckland trunk route is being pushed steadily forward, and is now only a few miles from Rangiahua, on the edge of the Hokianga River, where construction will stop. This is the furthermost railway terminus in the Dominion —175 miles north of Auckland. Almost next door geographically, the engineers are still fighting the menace of slips and cuttings on the Dargaville-Kiriko-puni line, the cost of which is increased by the slippery nature of the country, and upon which £120,000 is being spent this year. The East Coast line from Wairoa to Gisborne, upon which the Prime Minister has particularly concentrated his attention, presents problems of viaduct building and tunnelling which have retarded the job. substantially. In addition a fierce battle of routes has been fought within the district itself, one section of the people seeking an inland line and the remainder advocating a rail to follow closely the contour of the coast. The coastal route, which has been adopted is the less costly, though settlers claim that the advantages of the inland rail, would offset th extra money. Two comments of more than passing interest have been made in respect to the Gisborne-Wairoa line. One was made by the Rt. Hon. J. G. Coates when he was Minister of Public Works, who said to tile people of Gisborne: “A railway line through here will not pay. I will undertake to give you a tar-sealed road in three years, so motor transport might be developed.” This promise was carried out.-

The other comment was made by Professor B. Murphy, one of New Zealand’s leading economists, who, in an exclusive interview with The Sun some time ago, said of the East Coast line: “The construction of railways at a cost of £20,000 or £30,000 a mile simply to absorb men seems uneconomic in a high degree, because owing to the competition of motor transport it is probable that they will involve a loss of something like £D,OOO a mile per annum.” Beyond a little work on the West-port-Inangahua section there is no new line construction in progress in the South Island, although the bridging of the two big gaps in the network of lines is consistently asked for by Southern interests. The South Island Main Trunk Is now constructed as far as Parnassus, and when the stretch of about eighty miles to Ward is covered, through rail connection will be possible from the southernmost portions of the island.

On the opposite Coast politicians and people are urging a completion of the Inangahua-Glenhope railway, which is declared to be of necessity to serve the Nelson and West Coast districts.