MORE ROLLING STOCK.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 59, Issue 47, 5 December 1938, Page 6

MORE ROLLING STOCK.

TO MEET SUMMER DEMANDS. MR SULLIVAN’S STATEMENT. (Per Press Association.) AUCKLAND, December 4. During his visit to Auckland at the week-end, the Minister for Railways (the Hon. D. G. Sullivan) supplied information about the efforts being made by his department to complete the building of rolling stock to make possible more effective handling of the heavy goods and passenger traffic anticipated during the summer months. “The workshops at Otahuhu,” said Mr Sullivan, “are pushing along vigorously their programme of construction of cars and waggons for the North Island traffic. At the department’s other shops, similar signs of activity are in evidence. The Wanganui shops at East Town are building their quota. “The Hutt workshops have already delivered throe standard type rail-cars for the Wellington - New Plymouth run, and the fourth is almost ready. Be fore the Christmas recess the Addington workshops will have delivered for the South Island services a large number of rolling stock. “The totalled figures give 31 cars and 936 waggons extra to the rolling stock available last summer,” Mr Sullivan added. “These should materially assist in satisfying the public demand during the coming season. The work of constructing cars will be carried on steadily after the holidays, for it is recognised that many more vehicles will be required to ensure the effective handling of the centennial exhibition traffic, which will commence before the summer of 1939.”

Mr Sullivan remarked that a large number of waggons and cars regularly passed through the workshops for overhaul, and that many of these required heavy repairs. He then dealt with the subject of locomotive construction, and stated that the Hutt (Wellington) and Hillside (Dunedin) shops were concentrating on the building of 41 modern locomatives of the K Class. These .would be turned out at regular intervals in the coming year, and 20 of them should be available in time for the early exhibition traffic.