Chamber puts plan to clear rail backlog

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33675, 26 October 1974, Page 1

Chamber puts plan to clear rail backlog

A two-point proposal to ease the backlog of cargo and railways freight in Canterbury has been presented to the Minister of Transport (Sir Basil Arthur) by the Canterbury Chamber of Commerce.

He has been asked to set up an emergency freight clearance committee, with powers to direct until the backlog is cleared, and to obtain outside storage for the Railways Department, such as the King Edward Barracks. ! A similar emergency committee was set up some years ago when there was a similar backlog of freight.

Membership of the I committee could include 1 shipping companies, the > Lyttelton Harbour : Board, customs forward- 1 ing agents, the Road ' Carriers Federation, the ‘ Canterbury Trades f Council, the Canterbury i Manufacturers’ Associa- ■ tion, the Bureau of , Importers, and itself, the chamber has suggested. 1 i Both the chamber and the Manufacturers’ Association 1 have asked all consignees to ] collect goods as quickly as < possible to ease the crowding : in transit sheds. The president of the chamber (Mr M. L. Newman) said j yesterday that some immedi- i ate measures were vital to ' get freight moving again. 1 “The whole New Zealand 1 transport system is totally i inadequate for the volume of s imports,” he said, “In Christchurch alone t there were 640 railway wag- ! gons waiting to be unloaded, j and it was estimated that it 1 would take six to seven 1 weeks to unload them if no ! more came in. This Thursday < there were 680 waggons to i

be unloaded, so the situation is getting worse,” he said. “The container terminals, both of which are in the North Island, are clogged, partly with South Island cargo. The railways system is clogged through a shortage of labour, a shortage of waggons, a shortage of cranes, and inadequate marshalling yards and sheds. “When we first looked at this we thought the railways was the problem, but that is only part of it. The whole network is in bad shape. “The road transport system is stretched to the limit and beyond, and so is the Customs Department for the clearance of goods. As well as this, the customs agents are at full stretch to try to keep up with the paperwork. “Importers’ warehouses are inadequate to store the goods which are coming in, and very often, if they are collected from transit sheds, they are being unloaded with nowhere to go and are being stacked in the open,” he said. An additional difficulty had arisen through the credit squeeze because some importers were unable to raise the money needed to pick up their cargo from transit sheds, and this further strained available storage space, said Mr Newman.