IDLE TRUCKS

Auckland Star, Volume LXXVI, Issue 84, 10 April 1945, Page 3

IDLE TRUCKS

FERTILISER NOT UNLOADED SERIOUSNESS STRESSED "We have sufficient wagons in this district to transport all the goods offering, provided we could turn round 200 more wagons a day," said Mr. G. E. Roberts, railway transport liaison officer, when addressing members of the Auckland District Council of Primary Production on the need for a quick discharge of railway trucks loaded with fertiliser and lime. During the 12 working days preceding Christmas, he said, 75 per cent of the rail wagons were under load, which meant that 91,000 wagon hours were lost.

Mr. Roberts said the Department had found it necessary to threaten the imposition of demurrage charges, not as a penalty, but to bring the need for a quick discharge to the notice of farmery Many people had the idea that railway wagons and goods sheds were storage places. Ip some goods sheds the fertiliser had been stored as long as six months, and as the owners could riot be located, had eventually been sold by arrangement with the Department of Agriculture. The railway could handle all goods offering without resort to road transport if wagons were unloaded quickly.

In view of the serious position regarding the delivery of fertiliser, owing to the delay in wagons, the council decided to support the Department in its action to charge demurrage and storage in goods sheds. It was also decided to request the fertiliser merchants' association and dairy companies to notify farmers by telegram of the dispatch of fertiliser, to as to facilitate unloading and to [ spread deliveries.