Conference Of Engineers Opened By Minister

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29746, 13 February 1962, Page 7

Conference Of Engineers Opened By Minister

The Minister of Transportr (Mr McAlpine) issued yesterday what he admitted was a “mercenary" appeal to young engineers to consider careers in the transport industry. He was opening the annual conference of the New Zealand Institute of Engineers at the University of Canterbury. He also paid a compliment to the engineers who are already employed by the Government transport services. Mr McAlpine made a special plea on behalf of the Railways Department and the aircraft industry and ground control aspects of aviation. In welcoming the 500 engineers and their wives to Christchurch yesterday, the Mayor (Mr G. Manning) said that to a large extent Twentieth Century Western civilisation was based on science and engineering. “No matter where we look we can see every department of our economic life being determined by energy engineering.” Last evening, after four papers had been delivered to the conference and women guests had been taken on a tour of the city, members of the institution went to the Canterbury School of Engineering at Ilam. As a good number of the engineers were trained at the former school in Worcester street, this conference has brought men from all parts of the Dominion back to familiar ground. Their old school has been refitted for other uses and last evening was for many their first look at the new school. A two-hour tour and conversazione were arranged. Mr McAlpine spoke of what are, for him, two special symbols of engineering achievement in New Zealand. “I am reminded of the engineering in the last century that has made Canterbury what it is. The railway tunnel from Lvttelton was put through in 1867 when the total population of Canterbury was only 10,000.” It was a symbol of courage and tenacity, he said. "The second great symbol is the spiral that lets the trains down the escarpment from National Park to Raurimu—one of file great engineering achievements of the world.”

Today, in its programmes of modernisation, the Railways Department found that there were never quite enough engineers to fill posts. “We require them to an even greater extent,” said the Minister.

A great field was opening up in aviation, Mr McAlpine said. An extension to an airfield could cost a comparatively small sum but the

•ad ar and ground control instruments to go with it would cost approximately three times as much and still not be the most up-to-date. “Anyone who joins in that sector of civil aviation is assured of overseas training,” he said. The Minister paid a compliment to automotive engineers who provided a standard of safety on the roads. Regular inspections were made by 100 departmental engineers of heavy and public passenger transport fleets. Their 100.000 inspections each year ensured the safe and timely maintenance of vehicles, he said. “Last, year, of the 4500 heavy vehicles withdrawn because of old age. only three were ordered off the road as being unfit. Our buses have travelled 700 million miles in the last ten years and there has not been one death due to a mechanical fault in any one of these buses.”