Tenders to be called

Press, 3 June 1982, Page 7

Tenders to be called

Tenders will soon be called for the removal of the Waiau branch railway line. The 66 km line from Waipara was officially closed early in 1978. and since then, the rails crossing highway 7 at Waikari were lifted to allow the regrading of the road. 1 The Railways Corporation has informed the Hurunui County Council in a letter that the (union) ban, which has been in force against the removal of the buildings and other items from the Waiau line, has been lifted. Tenders would be called soon for the uplifting of the line, said the letter. The Waikari station building had been sold, and the buyer had until mid-June to remove it. • The ban was imposed by

the National Union of Railwaymen in June, 1977, for a five-year-period. The secretary of the Waipara branch of the N.U.R., Mr Jack Andrews, of Rangiora, said that the union’s national council was dealing with the ban. Mr Andrews, who had been in touch with the national union office, said he had not heard that the ban had been lifted, nor that it had been reimposed. The ban was originally imposed as part of the N.U.R.’s campaign of resisting what it saw as the rundown of the Railways by the Government, with the consequent threat to N.U.R. jobs.