RAILWAY SCRAPPED

Wairarapa Times-Age, 6 January 1942, Page 6

RAILWAY SCRAPPED

RAILS PROVIDE 384.000 RIFLES. Britain is throwing a whole railway into the mobilisation of iron and steel for the war. Although it is an old railway, its rails alone will add to the resources of Britain enough steel for no fewer than 384,000 rifles. Until 1937 the trains of the Welsh Highland Railway chugged over some of the loveliest scenery in the Principality. But in that year it ceased to function, and the grass began to grow along its 28 miles of permanent way. Now the rails, which arc modern, are being taken up, 1200 tons of them. They will be relaid elsewhere on sidings needed for the war effort, so setting free steel-making capacity for armament manufacture. The two old locomotives are for the dismantles' yard, and metal from the rolling stock is for the same destination. The railway is but an item in a nat-ion-wide hunt for metal to turn into rifles, Tommy guns and tanks, into ar-mour-plate for battleships and armoured coastal defences.

A Doomsday Book of park, street and house railings, of ancient steam rollers, engines and boiler-house plant is being prepared, and already on walls bills have been posted proclaiming the Government’s requisitioning of them. Among the first to respond has been the King himself with many tons of the railings of Buckingham Palace for the collection.