TRAMS IN NEW PLYMOUTH.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVI, Issue 220, 17 March 1914, Page 2

TRAMS IN NEW PLYMOUTH.

A FINE PROPOSITION. NAPIER t'fS/TOR'S VIEWS. Mr. J. P. Williamson, a member of the Napier Borough Council, thinks that New Plymouth is an ideal town for trams. Mr. Williamson is spending a short holiday in New Plymouth, and his opinion, given to a News representative yesterday, is based on his own knowledge of the tramway system which was installed in Napier not quite six months ago.

"I was at Fitzroy this morning," he remarked, and was much struck with tin; fine tramway route leading from that subutl) right through the heart of | the town. I understand your main route to the breakwater is about five miles in length. Why, it's an ideal route. Our present tramline in Napier is only 2% miles long, and we have never taken less than £l9O per week since the trams started to run. Your source of revenue is as good as ours. We have no industries to speak of. None that make any difference to the tramway revenue, at any rate, and we have only about 4000 more of a population than New Plymouth. Westown appears to me to be a splendid objective for a tramway extension. You have in New Plymouth what we have none of in Napier, namely, flourishing suburbs which can be conveniently fed fronr a long stretch of main line." "Hills?" echoed Mr. Williamson. "Why, you don't know what lulls are. Our trams have to climb a hill on the main line which has a grade of from one in eleven and a half to one m seventeen, and they have no trouble in doing it either. Then again, the shape of Napier is against trams. Our line has to curve right round, and the -extensions which we propose to make to Taradale, for instance, will have to run away through the hills and gullies. This fact more than counter-balances the excess in our population over that of New Plymouth. (Set the trams, and they will get the population. "Yes, we are after extensions already, and we are going to push them on as soon as possible." TRAMS OU MOTOR BUSSES?.

Mr. Williamson remarked that the Napier Borough Council considered the question of a motor 'bus service, and turned it down. Personally, he was satisfied that the motor 'bus was, gen* orally speaking, no use for New Zealand roads. There were . some motor busses in Napier, run by private enterprise, but they were not regarded with much favor. In Palmerston North, he remarked, they were considering th« storage hattery car, but personally he thought the overhead trolley system was the best, although the storage battery car would come. Questioned as to the upkeep of the Napier trauis, Mr. Williamson said that at the end of the six months running, it was anticipated that the tramway accounts would be about square. This, would be without allowing for interest 011 the loan, which would not be taken into account for the first year lie considered New Plymouth fortunate in having so good a supply 0 f electric power. In Napier they used a gas producing plant, and were actually producing more gas than they required because the most important item in the contract, an accumulator, had been left out. This would soon be installed. The gas plant was used for the trams, for the sewer pumps and for the pumps from the artesian wells which formed the water supply. "We talked about trains so long," he remarked in conclusion, "that I got sick of it. After the work was once started, however, it only took about six months to open the line, but of course we had all the material on the ground."