TRUNK LINES AND THEIR IMPROVEMENT

Evening Post, Volume XCVIII, Issue 143, 15 December 1919, Page 4

TRUNK LINES AND THEIR IMPROVEMENT

"Auckland must be connected with Whangarei at the earliest moment, and the connection of the City [Auckland] .with the East Coast must be completed." This sentence," taken from the Press Association report of Mr. Massey's statement in Auckland concerning Auckland railway proposals, is not quite explicit. If the second part of it merely means the pressing on of the East Coast (Auckland-Gisborne) railway, which we regard as a trunk line, there is nothing to question. But if it means the immediate pushing on of the "short cut" between Pokeno and Paeroa, the railway distance between Auckland and the East Coast, it cannot be classed as a trunk extension, but merely as an improvement. In the matter of length of run, the ''short cut" wosld remove a "kink" in the railway, which now runs round by Frankton and »Morriiisville; but not so bad a "kink" as that which is caused in the Wellington-Napier' . trunk line by' the Eimutaka Incline. This district suffers more from the Rhnutaka altitude—or, rather, from a wrong way of dealing with it—than Auckland suffers from the extra distance of the Franfcton-Morrinsville detour. Although the Pokeno-Paeroa and Whangarei connections are' not strictly trunk extensions, their development and trafficimprovement values .are such,- that we have no desire to quarrel with them. But the Eimutaka 'Incline represents a. greater loss, its avoidance a greater gain, than any loss or gain attached to these Auckland propositions.