TE ARO RAILWAY.

Evening Post, Volume LXX, Issue 34, 9 August 1905, Page 2

TE ARO RAILWAY.

USELESS AS A PASSENGER LINE. MEND IT OR END IT? The Executive of the Wellington Industrial Association has decided to take no side on the question of whether the railway from Wellington station to Te Aro should be torn up. Judging by a discussion last evening, all the members agree that the present passenger service, the traffic of which has been taken by the electrical tramways, is unprofitable, and unrequired. Opinion is, however, divided as to whether the new move should be to tear it up or to add goods traffic. So the association is taking no The discussion arose out of a letter from the Carriers' Union, which wrote expressing the opinion that the time is ripe to do aM'ay with the Te Aro railway line, and asking if the association was prepared to move in the matter. The President (Mr. ,J. P. Luke) thought the matter did not call for any action by the association. Mr. D. Robertson thought that the Wellington Chamber of Commerce people had a jolly good cheek in asking the Minister for Railways to do away with the line. If they had asked for provision for goods traffic in connection with it, the ratepayers of Wellington would have been able to thank them. The original idea was to have a timber siding at Te Aro station, and this was what should be done. At present, the greater part of the timber had to be dragged over our streets from, -the Thorndon. end ; if thWe was a timber siding at Te Aro station it would cheapen tho cost of building at Te Aro and Newtown ends, the place where the business is. But nothing was done towards carrying goods on the line. The railway would go eventually to Miramar instead of stopping where it is, and 'the association should encouruge that. No action should be taken on the letter. The President did not think that the line as it is, carrying scarcely a passenger, and causing considerable loss to the country, should be continued. If they could move the Government to bring to the Tc Aro end the goods, even if only the timber, that would be a right step. But the Government, when approached by a deputation", had absolutely refused to do that., Mr. J. H. Harcourt: "No private firm would continue to run the line as at present." Mr. Robertsons "A private person would use means to make it a very pay- i able line." Mr. Robertson went on to I say that people cried out about high rents, yet they did not cry out against a cause thereof, which waa that through the refusal of the Government to carry timber on the Te Aro line and put in a siding, timber was 4d or 5d a hundred dearer at the Te Aro end, and the cost of houses was greater proporti6nately. If cartage was from Te Aro only, the cost (9d) of timber in the residential area round about Mount Victoria would be reduced by half. The timber should be brought to the end where the business is, not to Thorndon. Mr. Harcourt opined that if a private individual found his line did not pay with passenger traffic he would carry goods. Mr. Robertson: What good is a railway that does not do both? The discussion dropped.