CONGESTION OF CARGO

Press, Volume C, Issue 29599, 23 August 1961, Page 6

CONGESTION OF CARGO

Rail Waggons Short A shortage of railway waggons is again causing cargo congestion at Lyttelton. Yesterday morning there were 921 waggons waiting to be unloaded and this number will probably rise to more than 1000 today. “We will be hard pressed to meet our commitments in the next few days,” said the district traffic manager (Mr E C. Brlttenden) yesterday. “There is no sign of the flow of inward cargo easing We have no reserve of waggons.” he said.

At the week-end 359 waggons were cleared but the net gain was only 253 as 106 of these had to be reloaded to distribute goods to South Island stations.

More than 200 at the 921 waggons under load are being used to distribute some of the shipment of 100.000 railway sleepers at present being unloaded from the Cape Wrath. The sleepers will be used for line maintenance. In spite of the shortage of trucks at Lyttelton yesterday it was possible for discharging vessels to work overtime evening, the first night overtime worked on such vessels since last Tuesday Labour was again short and _, . one newly-arrived coastal vessel, the Kara, lay idle all day. The departure of several vessels yesterday afternoon and last evening improved the labour position greatly.