SCRAP IRON N.Z.R. said to have changed

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32603, 11 May 1971, Page 1

SCRAP IRON N.Z.R. said to have changed

The Railways Department offered a large quantity of scrap metal at the Middleton yard to a firm of scrap dealers and three months later refused to sell it, according to Mr J. Storey, a director of a Christchurch foundry.

Mr Storey said that the first mention his firm, Burgess and Storey Foundry Company, Ltd, had that there was scrap cast iron at Middleton was when it was approached by a representative of a scrap-dealing firm, to see if it was interested in the iron.

Inmetals Trading Company, Ltd, with headquarters in Wellington, had been offered the scrap by the head office

of the Railways Department; the company approached several Christchurch foundries.

A price for the scrap iron was submitted to the railways, and the dealer waited! three months before receiv-! ing a reply that the price had not been accepted, said Mr Storey. Through the member of Parliament for Lyttelton (Mr T. M. McGuigan. Lab.) he had tried to arrange for a deputation of Christchurch manufacturers to meet the Minister of Railways (Mr Gordon), said Mr Storey. However, Mr McGuigan advised that the Minister had stated there was only 300 tons of iron at Middleton and 500 tons in the South Island; the department offered 50 tons on loan for three months.

"Anybody with any common sense would tum this down. The Minister doesn’t know what he’s talking about here.” said Mr Storey. “The quantity has been quoted as 400 tons too; I certainly wouldn't mind everything there in excess of 400 tons, though." The amount of cast iron ati the Middleton yard was too: much for one foundry! alone; probably three or four would go in together to buy it and break it up for use, Mr Storey said. Some of it was “big stuff” in castings of five to six tons.

"We’ve got a hit of cast iron in now, but at that time (about a month ago) we were just about out. The point is, how long will it go on like this? "We do a lot of work for Government departments, but it could come to the stage when we can do their work only if they bring in their own scrap cast iron.” Mr Storey said the iron at Middleton probably had lain there for at least 20 years and had been written off to the stage where the Railways Department thought there was only 300 tons remaining. “And the way it looks at the moment, it will probably lie there for another 20 years without anybody doing anyi thing with it.”