SUSPENDED RAILWAYS

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 52, Issue 7, 19 October 1931, Page 6

SUSPENDED RAILWAYS

WORK PROVIDED FOR M,EN. i THE DEPARTMENT'S PLANS. (Special to " The Guardian.") WELLINGTON, October 17. . 'lt has been decided by the Public Works Department that railway construction workers who will shortly lose their usual employment through stoppage of the three railways will be first given the proportion of their paid holidays to which they are entitled. After two years' employment, each worker receives a fortnight's holiday annually on full pay. Tlie clearing-up process is likely to take some weeks and this will be done by married men, who, on the South Island Main Trunk, will probably get two months' work at least. Meanwhile, prompt steps have been taken to provide' alternative employment for the men who are to be out off. The single j men on the north end are to be placed on the Shenandoah Road, in the Maruia Valley, Murchison, where an important deviation will provide an almost level road in place of a climb over a steep saddle. Other single men will find work on the Mahikapawa Hill Road near Havelock. Displaced workers from the Parnassus end of the line are being distributed on road, work on. Banks Peninsula and on the West Coast main road leading from Waihao to Bruce Bay in tlie far soutb. In connection with the Napier-Gis-borne workers, it is fortunate that the Lands Department has had in hand near Puturino the development oi some large blocks, requiring extensive roading, and at least 150 men from the railway works will find employment immediately. Another hundred are to be placed on road construction in Waitotara Valley Road, north of Wanganui, and there are further opportunities for the workers from the northern end of the line in the Opotiki district near Cape Runaway, where a fairly large area of land does not possess good road access.