PROPOSED RAILWAY ROUTE.

Taranaki Daily News, 15 January 1920, Page 5

PROPOSED RAILWAY ROUTE.

(To the Editor.) Sir—l read w.'th interest the article in your paper on the proposed Waitara to It Kuiti railway, and desire to add a few important points that have been missed. The clerk for the Awakino 'Jcun'y Council seems to sum the ma'Aef u;i in a fair and sensible way, and J don't think there can be any doubt that bridging the Mokau River and metalling the preesnt stretch of mud road from near Uruti to Awakino is one of the first Importance. Things are very different here now from what they used to be in the Manawatu, which is essentially a close-settlement district, when the railway was put through there by a dividend paying company. In the first place, the line cannot have presented anywhere near the difficulties that that portion of the proposed railway between Uruti and Awakino will afford, and expense, even when the "Government pays" is a point that really should be considered, and especially now when we are supposed to be retrenching. iVoin Uruti .to Mokau the line would just be one long succession of tunnels, bridges, cuttings, and fillings, with hardly a straight run anywhere, and in country very subject to slips the maintenance would bo most expensive, and the increased production would not make up for the enormous initial expense. 'J'he second point is the motor lorry, which has entered into competition with the railways, and any casual observer can see there are gradually more and more lorries on the road to the detriment in many cases of the profits on the railways, and the motor lorry is coming into prominence more and more where there are good roads. I think that the district, from Uruti to Awakino, would be much better served by motor lorries than by a railway, especially when we consider that there must be a road in any case, and in the future it is quite possible that concrete roads will largely supersede railways, and a well-metalled road will not be a waste but will be a big help towards constructing a concrete road if it is eventually found to be an economical proposition, and tho lorry can frequently only load and, unload once compared to three tiinse when goods have to be conveyed to a railway Btation, and then conveyed from the railway to their destination. It is quite possible that a light railway might be a very good thing from Waitara to Uruti, and from Te Kuiti to Awakino, Where the difficulties of construction are no so great, but for many years to come the intervening stretch of the route will have to be served by a road, and a good metalled road will satisfy the needs of the people, in a "better" manner than a railway would, considering the scattered nature of the settlements, for scattered settlement is undoubtedly better served by motor lorry than by' railway. The bridge across the Mokau River is mentioned as a necessary work by the clerk of the Awakino County Council, and that little Item has not been thought worthy of mention any more by the railway advocates, though a more expensive bridge will be required for a railway, unless it is a light railway and light enough to float across the Mokau River on its own. I have no knowledge of Hie country from Awakino to Te Kuiti, but imagine it to be easy enough to make the construction of a light railway a paying proposition, but to talk of 'putting a railway from Uruti to Mokau or Awakino seems to indicate a total absence of knowledge of the great difficulties that would have to he surmounted in thjs stretch of the work.— I am, etc., _^