COAL FROM WEST COAST

Press, Volume LXXXVII, Issue 26409, 1 May 1951, Page 5

COAL FROM WEST COAST

TRANSPORT BY RAIL TO KOWAI BUSH EMERGENCY SERVICE STARTED (From Our Own Reporter) GREYMOUTH, April 30. The emergency rail service from the West Coast to Canterbury was started to-day when urgently-needed coal to maintain rail services in Canterbury was taken through the Otira tunnel. This was the first consignment to leave Greymouth for almost two weeks. The coal will be unloaded at Kowai Bush and then taken about five miles by motor-trucks by way of a secondary road to Springfield or Sheffield, six miles further on, where there is a high loading bank. To-day’s train was the forerunner of a relief service which is to operate regularly later in the week. A schedule for the service is being prepared. A train will also run from Christchurch to Springfield and urgent goods for the West Coast, such as vegetables and other perishable commodities, will be taken by road from there to Kowai Bush to be backloaded to Greymouth. There was no backloading to-day. Goods such as meat, however, will continue to come by road by way of the Lewis Pass. No passenger service will operate on the Midland line in the meantime. It is expected that a passenger service on the same basis as the goods service will operate some time before the reconstruction of the damaged rail bridge is completed.