THE SHAG POINT COAL LINE.

Evening Post, Volume XXI, Issue 55, 8 March 1881, Page 2

THE SHAG POINT COAL LINE.

•> A few days ago we commented on the abBorption of the Shag Point Branch into the Oamaru section of the Southern Main Trunk line, explaining that this branch was used almost exclusively as a coal siding for the supply of the main line with fuel, lor which important service it received no credit in the accounts. A contemporary, alluding to on? remarks, says:—" So iar as it goes the above certainly is a very satisfactory explanation, but we should like to know why the cost of working tho Shag Point Branch is so very large." We shall be happy to clear up this point also. In the first place, the actual cost of working is not large, being only about .£325 per mile annually; it is only relatively -that the cost seems heavy when reckoned by its percentage to the actual receipts. These Jaite? may be taken at about .£3OO p«r

annum, and the expenditure at about JBGSO. But. then, in addition to the work for which the .£3OO or bo is paid in the year by the public using the line, some 15,000 .tons of coal have been hauled over it for the- -nee of the railways. If this work were done for the public and paid for, it would represent an addition of fully i>7so per annum to the earnings of the branch. In that case, the receipts would be about J61050, with an expenditure of iJ6so— a little more than 60 per cent.— thus leaving .£4OO net profit. The" public is " also * large gainer in another way, as the Shag Point coal is purchased for railway use at 13s, while Newcastle coal would cost 3f>s. Consequently, the Shag Point branch, as we previously, stated, is really one of the most profitable bit 3 of road in the colony through the great facilities it offers for the supply of coal at a cost enormously cheaper than that at which it could be obtained elsewhere. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said of the Eyreton, Waimate, Outram, Lawrence, Riverton, and Mount Somers branches, ' which are veritable " suckers " of the main line profits.