THE PRESS MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 19, 1977. Rail versus road transport

Press, 19 September 1977, Page 18

THE PRESS MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 19, 1977. Rail versus road transport

The eve of retirement provides a rare opportunity for executives to speak their minds in public. The retiring district traffic manager of the Railways Department in Christchurch (Mr C. S. Roscoe) took the opportunity—in an interview printed on Saturday—to berate the Government for denying the funds to the Railways Department which Mr Roscoe considers necessary to enable the railways to play their proper role in the nation’s transport system. There need be no doubt that bad successive Governments approved the spending of more funds on the improvement of tracks and the replacement of rolling stock the railways would not be in the run-down condition so apparent today. Cheese-paring of railways expenditure dates back more than a hundred years to the basic decisions in favour of narrow-gauge lines. Today’s users of the railways are understandably concerned when their consignments are held up by slips, or inordinate delays in transit or in sorting. The declining reputation of the

railways as a carrier of goods—not to mention passengers—is at least partly attributable to inadequate provision for capital and maintenance spending over many decades.

Mr Roscoe’s most serious criticisms of Government policy concern the allocation of resources between the railways and other forms of transport, in particular road transport. Is the recently announced lifting of the 40-mile limit on road transport likely to have the disastrous effect on railway freight that he predicts? Does the diversion of heavy loads from rail to road impose such a large burden of extra costs on the community? These are questions of particular significance at this stage of New Zealand’s development, when economic circumstances require a thorough reassessment of traditional policies. The questions deserve authoritative answers—preferably by a team of experts independent of both the New Zealand Railways Department, road transport interests, and the Government.