No Passengers Affected

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31758, 15 August 1968, Page 1

No Passengers Affected

No passenger trains in or out of Christchurch would be affected by the railways industrial dispute, said the District Traffic Manager of Railways (Mr M. R. Leineweber) yesterday.

Goods consigned at the ordinary railway rates would be accepted or delivered in the normal way while the dispute was on.

Mr Leineweber said that the union had instructed that no bulk tonnage operators’ sidings would be serviced after midnight on Wednesday. “This would mean that no waggons or goods to or from four bulk tonnage operators in Christchurch would be placed or lifted from their sidings. Nor would waggons be available elsewhere for loading or unloading.”

The four firms in Christchurch with railway sidings were Alltrans Group New Zealand, Ltd, Cass Street siding; Daily Freight, Ltd, Moorhouse Avenue siding; Mid-Canterbury Transport, Ltd, Cass Street siding, and New Zealand Freighters, Ltd, Carlyle Street siding.

Mr Leineweber said that the union had agreed that if any of the waggons contained perishable goods they could be delivered. Goods loaded by these firms yesterday would go to the destination but on arrival they would be subject to the local ban in the destination area, said Mr Leineweber.

Passengers to and from the inter-island steamer express Maori, would be able to travel normally. The union was not banning the trains going on to the wharf at 7 a.m. or at 8 p.m., for the ferry. The dispute would affect goods at Lyttelton. Members of the A.S.R.S. would do all preliminary sorting of waggons before 8 a.m. Then they would place waggons at the ships’ sides on the wharf from 8 a.m. This would mean that instead of the wharves being set up at 7 a.m., they would not be set-up till as soon as possible after 8 a.m.

A similar procedure would apply in the evening. It would be necessary for union members to draw waggons for the wharf before 5 p.m. because they had been instructed that they must not work on the wharf after <5 p.m. Normally ships finished working at 6 p.m.

This would mean that there might be some waggons left on the wharves which the watersiders could still work.