PRIVATE RAILWAY HELPED TO DEVELOP MANAWATU

Press, Volume XCVII, Issue 28766, 11 December 1958, Page 25

PRIVATE RAILWAY HELPED TO DEVELOP MANAWATU

This week marks the fiftieth ; anniversary of the purchase by the Government of the Wellington and Manawatu Hailway Company’s 84-mile Wellington-Long-burn line and its equipment Opened for traffic throughout fa 1888, when it completed the rail link between New Plymouth and ■ Wellington, this railway was successfully operated by the company for 22 year*. It was the potent force that led to settlement and development of the Manawatu district and its purchase in 1908 was the last step in completion of the Main Trunk railway between Wellingtoa and Auckland. Construction of the railway by private aiterprise came about as a result of a depression. In 1878 • construction of a Government railway from Wellington to Foxton was authorised and work began in a small way the next year. However, the country was finding it increasingly difficult io borrow money to build new railways, and a Royal Commission, committed to a policy of reducing public expenditure recommended that construction of a railway from Wellington to the Manawatu was not justified. Work on the railway was promptly stopped. The people of Wellington did not take this decision lightly and merchants looking hopefully towards a new avenue of trade were indignant. To authorise the construction of railways by joint stock companies, and empower the Government to make grants of Crown lands to offset construction costs, the Railways Construction and Land Act became law in September, 1881. The Wellington and Manawatu Railway Company had been registered on August 23, and fa 1882, work began on the line. Gift of Crown Land In return for completion of the line within five years, the company was promised 210,500 acres of Crown land valued at more than £96,000. Construction of the railway, which had been resurveyed to connect with the Government system at Longburn instead of Foxton, was not easy. All told, along the whole line, one high viaduct (between Johnsonville and Tawa Flat) and five major bridges were necessary. The first section of 18 miles, from Wellington to Paremata, was opened in September 1885, and three months later the last spike was driven at Otaihanga, half way between Paraparaumu and Waikanae, by the Governor of the Colony, Sir William Jervois. Regular services were inaugurated on December 1, 1888, and settlement of the Manawatu district began in earnest American Equipment Both in equipment and in operation, the Manawatu line developed its individual characteristics. Although the first eight locomotives were built in England, American-built equipment

t was subsequently favoured. Most ■ of the early passenger cars, too, «?™ e from America, but later • the company constructed its own ' £ars to similar designs. The k freight stock was also largely of r American type and the box cars and cattle cars were complete with ladders, roof-top Cat-walks • and brake wheels of typical American style. Methods of train operation were also influenced by Ameri- . can ideas, but the Company was . modernistic in its use of telet phones instead of the telegraph for transmitting train orders and , operating instructions from Wel- . lington. i At a time when the kerosene , lamp was universal, and travel ; was distinctly leisurely, com- . pared with today's hustle and . bustle, the Company was unusually progressive. From 1896, . its trains were illuminated by . electricity supplied by huge t storage batteries in the guard’s . van. I The . company introduced the j first dining car in New Zealand rin 1888. This was little more i than a travelling piecart—it sold . refreshments only at station stops—but three more pretentious I ' diners" were built between I 1890 and 1902. ■ Today, little remains of the old s Manawatu Railway other than a few bridges and wayside stations. I The locomotives have long since . been scrapped, the rolling stock > has been reduced to a handful > of mobile tool stores and dormi- ■ tories for track workers, and the ‘ most junior of the 324 Company ■ employees who transferred to the > Government system in 1908 has 1 long since retired.