RAIL LINK

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 11, Issue 53, 14 July 1947, Page 3

RAIL LINK

TANEATUA-MATAWAI VALUE NOT YET REALISED “The recent advocacy of the comI pie lion of the rail link between I Taneatua and Matawai prompts a review of the project in connection with the railway system of the I North Island as a whole,” writes a I correspondent to a nearby conI temporary. “The great development of mechanical road transport during the past two or three de- | cades has greatly restricted the usefulness of the railway, and short spur lines or lines leading to sparse-ly-settled points would now be uneconomical, but where traffi of a regular and heavy nature can be expected railways still have an essential part to play.”

Link Between Cities

I ■ Such could always be expected between two large centres of population and a- railway through the Bay of Plenty district would perhaps not be economically warranted except as a link between such centies as Auckland at one end and Gisborne at the other. The full value of the one railway now ending at Taneatua and another ending at Matawai could never be realised as long as the link between them remained uncompleted.

| The ideal service of a railway network adequately covering a country was for communication to be possible between any two points in the system, be they but a few or hundreds of miles apart. Railways being suited for the large scale movement of heavy traffic should be employed for the, transport of timber, cement, fertiliser, coal, livestock and machinery, and for the cheap mass transport of passengers, leaving only local delivery to motor transport.

The cost of construction in preI sent conditions was put forward as a handicap to the completion of the link, but this was merely a reflection of the general rise in the level of wages and costs affecting the whole economy of the country, stated the correspondent, who signs himself “Railway Advocate.” Further, it could never be expected that all mileage of a railway should be approximately equal in cost. Where deep cuttings and high embankj ments were required the cost must be more than construction on level land, and still higher mileage costs, were incurred where it was necessary to construct a bridge or to bore a tunnel. A stretch of difficult country, as involved in this case, came under this category and the realisation of connection between two large centres, not to mention the value of lesser disadvantage of difficult construction of a comparatively short stretch. The long-distance transport of production of all kinds should have priority of construction as it was this that was processed and consumed in the large centres and was the cause and reason of their existence. Alternative Route Viewing the. North Island rail system as a whole, the completion of the Taneatua-Matawai link gave it a striking picture of completeness, it affording an alternative route between the Dominion’s two largest centres. There would be *a west coast route and an east coast route serving entirely different areas and permitting a round trip covering most of the country.

The proposed link had a strong bearing on the whole North Island system which made its cost of little significance as that of any of the tunnels, bridges and cuttings that already existed. In considering this, there must be added the strong probability that in due time the produce available in the link itself, such as timber, whether native or afforested, the discovery of mineral deposits and increase in stock raising would very largely justify its own < - con duded the correspondent. i .