FILLING THE GAP

Evening Post, Volume CVII, Issue 127, 3 June 1929, Page 11

FILLING THE GAP

SOUTH ISLAND UNE

WHAT TEE COMMISS-lON SAID

Much has already been said by tire .Prime Minister as to the desirability of completing the gap of 80 miles on the South Island Main Trunk route between Ward and Parnassus, but prob- I ably a great deal more will be said on the subject before the coming session proceeds very far, in view of the dif- ! ference of opinion that exists regarding the economic possibilities of the line. The Fay-Baven Commission which reported on the matter in 1925 stated that it was not so much in the local advantage of such a line as that between Ward and Parnassus that it viewed its completion as of greater importance than some other railways upon which considerable sums had been spent; it was because of the possibilities offered by its construction of making a complete railway transport system between all parts of the North and South Islands without change of carriage in the ease of passengers or break of bulk or delay in the incidence of goods traffic that they advocated its construction. The Commission said that with the line in being a train ferry between Pieton and Wellington (or, if possible, a bay with sheltered water and easily available by a short railway nearer the South Island) would give all the advantages of throughout rail transit between the two Islands. "Some day," said the report, "no doubt this form of communication will be established. The sooner it is done, looked at from a railway administration point of view only, the earlier will be the time when it will be possible to operate the system as a whole as economically and efficiently as in countries where lines are not disjointed. The public aspect needs but little demonstration. Through out communication would make the two Islands one insofar as transport is concerned. Internal trade would benefit by through rates and fares and avoidance of break of bulk. The cost of landing stations and ferry boats capable of conveying upwards of fifty ordinary goods vehicles need not entail very great expenditure in proportion to the advantages foreshadowed and the prospects of revenue to be obtained. Probably £500,000 will be found sufficient." The report added that wherever trainferries had been provided they had developed travel and traffic to a very much greater extent than obtained under former shipping conditions. Between Denmark and Sweden, Germany and Sweden, and in North and South I America this form of bridging the seas has been adopted with success, and just before the time the Commission reported a train-ferry service had commenced to run across the North Sea between Harwich and Zeebrugge. The train-ferry idea does not commend itself to the Prime Minister, for he stated when speaking at Motueka recently that the Government was not going to embark on a fanciful ferry service across Cook Strait between i Wellington and Pieton.