Log Trucks “Not To Blame For Damage”

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32127, 24 October 1969, Page 8

Log Trucks “Not To Blame For Damage”

(New Zealand Press Association)

TAURANGA, October 23.

The Minister of Works (Mr Allen) has been taken to task by the Kinleith resident director of N.Z. Forest Products, Ltd, (Mr J. T. Currie) for his suggestion at Tauranga on Monday that more logs should be transported by rail rather than by road.

Making it clear that he was entering into no controversy of road versus rail, Mr Currie said: “The roads were never put in properly. They are just cracking up. We know something about road construction. We carry twice the loads on our private roads at 50 miles an hour and we do not have roads cracking up and failing because of their design. “We spend the money properly in the first place. It is not the allocation of money which is important—it is how you use it "On my way to Tauranga from Kinleith tonight I counted one logging truck for

every seven other heavy trucks. The others were milk tankers, beer tankers, fertiliser and general goods trucks. “It is just passing the buck to blame the logging industry. Why should the logging business be given away because a few roads are cracking up?” Mr Cprrie had earlier made the point that his company was maintaining 1400 miles of its own private logging roads and building 100 miles of new roads a year to carry 45-ton payloads at 50 miles an hour. “I for one do not go along with the present shortsighted and childish approach to the problem,” he said.