MR HOPE ON RAILWAY

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29366, 19 November 1960, Page 14

MR HOPE ON RAILWAY

New Line Seen As Necessity

(From Our Own Reporter) BLENHEIM, November 18 Having decided that the provision of a railway between Nelson and Blenheim was an undoubted necessity, the Government had examined nine alternative routes costing between £l6 million and £lO 5 million, and had decided to take the shortest one. said Mr R. W Hope, Labour candidate for Marlborough, at an election meeting near Blenheim tonight

Some people have a funny idea of unwarranted expenditure.” said Mr Hope. "They say that money spent in a railway in Nelson and Marlborough is waste —but they are quite happy to put one in at Mount Maunganui. There is a great clamour for a railway from Sockbum to Styx, so the big boys can put factories on either side of it I did not notice any Christchurch cry about railways being out of date when “ le 7 that new railway station

Mr Hope said it seemed the fashion to emphasise how expensive the railways were. Overseas experience proved that only New Zealand would dare to carry such loads on such sealing. In America b ¥ l,ding expressways —but the cost was £5 million a m.le, and the surface would have

to be done again in five years' time.

Against such expense, railways were far from finished. Canada was building a 700-mile railway into the Yukon. Communist China had started 55 new railways. The road system in the Argentine had collapsed, and the commission which examined the position had recommended railways.