REPAIR WORK

Auckland Star, Volume LXXVI, Issue 166, 16 July 1945, Page 3

REPAIR WORK

BIGGER EXPENDITURE

AUCKLAND'S TRAMWAYS

An increase over last year's expenditure of more than £15,000 for reconditioning the permanent way and of over £9000 for building maintenance is provided for in the estimates for the year ending March 31, 1946, adopted at this morning's meeting of the Auckland Transport Board. Total receipts are estimated at £913,550 and expenditure at £819,823, with allocations to reserves of £93,727.

"Tthe traffic receipts have been based on the sections as they now exist and on the present scale of fares, running conditions and shopping hours," said the engineer and manager, Mr. A. E. Ford. The mileage was estimated at 7,197,138 and the traffic receipts therefrom at £900,000. Advertising and other receipts were estimated at £13,550.

The amount provided for the permanent way was that necessary, with some augmentation of staff, to bring the tracks back to reasonably good condition, said the report. Considerable deterioration had taken place in the track structure during the war years, due to the impossibility of obtaining the necessary manpower and material to keep it up to the usual standard, and this deferred maintenance would have to be undertaken before the permanent way as a whole was in good order again.

No major works were included in the programme, but provision was made for reconditioning rail and joint repairs, paving repairs, track repairs to sections all over the system as and when required, and repairs to railway bridges. Expenditure for the current year was estimated at £36,764, compared with £21,467 last year.

The £12,485 set aside for building maintenance, included provision for ordinary building maintenance, for renewing part Qr whole of the roofs at the workshops, Epsom depot and Mortimer Pass depot, and for a new main drain outlet at Epsom. "The need for the renewals is urgent and provision was made for them in last year's estimates,' but it did not prove practicable to carry them out," Mr. Ford said. "This work should be put in hand as soon as the necessary material and labour are available." Expenditure on building maintenance last year was £3247.

An expenditre of £104,000 as against £96,227 last year, is provided for rolling stock—maintenance of electrical equipment, motors and controllers, trolley poles and lights, mechanical equipment and bodies, paint for the present fleet of tramcars, and maintenance of the trolley buses on the Wyndham Street service.

"It must be pointed out," Mr. Ford said, "that the older trams have now been in service for a long while and during the last few years have been driven beyond their reasonable capacity. This state of affairs is now resulting in the development of many cases of potential breakdown. It can therefore be anticipated that additional maintenance will be required on these vehicles during the . forthcoming year."

Other items are:—Distribution system, £14,704 (as against £12,508 last year); , power consumption, £63,951 (£63,157); running, £424,347 (£412,206) and administration . and general £24,625 (£23,838).

Attention was drawn to the fact that the whole of the estimates had been prepared on the basis of existing rates of wages and conditions of work.