RAILWAY CHARGE

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31753, 9 August 1968, Page 12

RAILWAY CHARGE

Defence By Dept

The $2l charge made by the Railways Department to take carcases from the Lyttelton Harbour/Board’s cool store to a ship’s side was the lowest the department could apply, the district traffic manager of railways (Mr M. R. Leineweber) said last evening. He was replying to criticism of the cost by the chairman of the Lyttelton Harbour Board (Mr L. G. Amos) at a meeting of the board on Wednesday. “The $2l charge mentioned by Mr Amos is for the use of a costly insulated waggon with a carrying capacity of 20 tons for a period of up to two days awaiting loading into the vessel,” Mr Leineweber said. “In addition there Is the cost to the department of positioning the waggon the previous day to handle this admittedly spasmodic traffic and after the operation returning it to the next freezing works at which it is required. “The whole operation could thus take up to four days and the charge of $2l is the lowest the department can apply for this specialised service on a time basis,” Mr Leineweber said.

“If road transport had to provide the same service, including up to two days storage on the wharf, charges would have to be on a time and mileage basis and could well exceed $4O. “The fact that the meat has been railed from Belfast to the cool stores is irrelevant, as this occurred some time previously and necessitated an entirely separate waggon supply operation,” Mr Leineweber said.

Title Defence.— The Australian, J. Famechon, will defend his British Empire feather weight boxing championship at Melbourne on August 30 against the Canadian champion, W. MeGrandle.