CASE FOR RAILWAY DEPARTMENT

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 678, 1 June 1929, Page 10 (Supplement)

CASE FOR RAILWAY DEPARTMENT

AN INTERESTING REVIEW VARIATIONS OF TRAFFIC i The Railway Department supply an j interesting graph with a covering ar- ! tide showing the fluctuations in j traffic carried by the Railway Department in the South Island over a period of four years. The arguments used in the article are equally applicable to the North Island. The graph shows the monthly variation in the tonnage carried during four years, and is an illuminating exposition of the difficulties with which the Railway Department has to contend in —*■

meeting public requirements in the matter of trucks. The graph indicates that the minimum quantity carried was during January of 1927, when slightly over 150,0UQ tons were carried in the South Island. The maximum quantity is shown in March of 1929, when 270,000 tons were carried. The difference between these two maximum and minimum points is sufficiently striking, but when the intermediate variations are taken into account it is not surprising that the Railway Department finds difficulty at times in supplying the needs of the commercial community. The graph shows fluctuations as startling in their magnitude as those found in the temperature records of a hospital fever ward. “There have been occasions,’’ states the covering article, “at each of the peak periods, when the department has found difficulty in carrying all the traffic offering at the exact time that the consignor desired to send it, but no business could afford to carry a big proportion of rolling stock which would not be called into action except for a few brief weeks in each year. On the other hand the fluctuations indicated are so great that nothing but a service which was capable of a great deal of expansion could deal with them. In this respect the Railway Department has a definite advantage over the motor for, whereas the maximum load of a motor varies very little from its minimum economic load, the quantity conveyed by any particular train may differ in amount by 200 to 300 tons from that of' another train, yet both be running on an economic basis. The advantage of this elasticity is that the Railway Department, by working long hours and putting on additional trains and arranging for a faster turnover of its wagons, is able to expand its services very extensively for short periods and still be in a position to retain in service its same transport units and staff, throughout even the dull periods of the year, without serious reduction. In other words, with the same staff it is able to handle both the maximum tonnage offering in the Dominion without adding in any way to the employment difficulties which any country, subject to some extent to seasonal fluctuations in its traffic developments, is so apt to be faced with. “Supposing that the traffic which the Railway Department has carried had been in the hands of road hauliers.- it is perfectly clear that either the goods could not have been carried at ail or that, if they had been carried, a large number of vehicles and a large number of men would have had to be employed at the busy seasons of the year and their services entirely dispensed with at the slack | periods. This would have led to an 1 enormous amount of economic waste, j a condition which it is the purpose of I those who have the welfare of the j country at heart to obviate. “The point regarding the relative inelasticity of the motor as compared with the train for pulling the country through times of maximum traffic has not previously been stressed, but it is undoubtedly an extremely important factor and one which more than outbalances for general purposes the movement mobility advantages of motor transport. “The whole effect of the graph produced with this article is to show j very clearly how impossible it would ! be for any service but the railways ; to handle the bulk of the Dominion’s 1 goods traffic. j "It is hoped, too, that its publication will reconcile those who are at j times inconvenienced through the De- ; partment’s inability to supply all the trucks that may be required at any j particular time and place. it