A ROAD TRAIN

Press, Volume LXX, Issue 21236, 7 August 1934, Page 6

A ROAD TRAIN

to Tins tDiTos o» tss rr.iss. Sir, —In your issue of August 3 i there is a letter from Mr A. Selwyn I Bruce, in which he wishes to correct j | a statement attributed to him by your l reported at a meeting of the Busi- : i ness Men's Club. Mr Bruce is quite ' in error when he states that the trac-; tion engine "was specially imported by live Canterbury Provincial Council." It was not. It was imported by the Otago Provincial Council, and after it had been bogged un the ! Dunedin raeecoui-ie, and proved ]to be utterly worthless, the a.'tute ! Scots of thd southern province were ! able to persuade the Canterbury Pro- j i vincial Council to purchase it as be-1 I ing eminently fitted fur the Canter-1 , bury Plains. When it arrived in j ; Christchurch an order was siiven to; ; John Anderson, Ltd., to build fourj i trucka at a cost o£ £2OO each, the; idea being, not as Mr Erucc states, , "1o connect farms with the Selwyn' railway," but to bring timber irom Oxford to Christchurch. The trial trie up the Riccarton road to Dillowayis ■ , with one truck, in which were the! i Hon. William Rolleston and other j members of the Canterbury Provincial Council, was a huge joke. They were | j fortunate in getting back to Christ- I j church with nothing more serious | j than having their clothes badly burnt I I by the cinders cast out of the funnel, i j Some time after it started on its first ■ ! and last trip to Oxford it did succeed ' in getting there with one truck, but was not so fortunate on the return, : journey with a small load of timber, j j for it got bogged on the road between I the Cust and Moeraki, where it re-1 j rnained for more than a month. ' i Finally, assisted by horses, it reached j i Christchurch, and was run into F. i ; Jenkin's sawmill and timber yard,; i where it remained for several years. I . : What eventually became of it history ' , c'oos not record.—Yours, etc i • H. HEBER CHOLMONDELEY. j j Governor's Bay, August G, 1934. !