EAST COAST RAILWAY

Evening Post, Issue 30, 4 August 1936, Page 9

EAST COAST RAILWAY

WILL LINE PAY?

ROAD V. RAIL

UNUSUAL POSITION

(From "The Tost's" Special Reporter.) Quite an unusual position will bo created when the East Coast railway is completed, as it will be the first time on a large scale thafthe rail will seek

to take business away from road trans-

port. Hitherto the outcry has been against the inroads of motor trucks and passenger services on railway business. In this case the country through which the rail will pass has been opened up and entirely served by road interests and/he rail will be the interloper It will have-the advantage of a more or less level haul compared with the exceedingly hilly not to say mountainous route that is followed by the motor vehicles, and if it is sufficiently fed by short-haulage roads at the necessary intervals, it should be able to handle a large volume of business, both passenger and freights, if the rates charged are lower, as they should be, than those formerly charged by road.

GOOD ROAD SERVICES.

The range of road transport, where there are no other means of communication, is surprisingly complete. Fast passenger services, and heavy freight loads, such as wool and other produce are now carried out between Napier and Gisborne, and from, the intermediate places such as Wairoa, over distances and grades that need to be traversed to appreciate. Two-decker lorries carry fat lambs, and other stock is often taken by motor-lorry. The terminal ports of the new line are the destinations of much of the produce of the district, but there is quite a lot of intermediate travel and freighting also. This service has achieved a system which is working well, but on the face of it, it cannot, or should not, be able; to compete with the freights at which the railway should pay, and it is chief- j ]y in this that producers and residents of Poverty Bay will benefit. They are already served; they will shortly have both this service and the alternative of rail transport, with the possibility of cheaper rates.

LITTLE FRESH COUNTRY OPENED.

It is perhaps a mistake to say that the East Coast railway will open up a lot of new country. It is a coastal road, for the .most part, and the existing means of transport by road lie for a considerable part of the way between it and the unopened hinterland. It is true thai; the most temperate climate lies near the1 coast, and that the better class limestone grazing land, and the richer and larger valley flats lie more along the'coast than inland, and thus the railway will tap the richest as well as the most accessible part of the district. It will give a speedier and less exacting trip from the coastal towns to the centre. It will, oh the other hand, immediately benefit only this strip of country and the urban areas of Napier, Gisborne, and Wairoa.

This is not to say that the position will end there. If the long road hauls on the present system find that they cannot compete with the railways in this direction, they may be pushed into feeding this line •of rail laterally from the back country, and thus continue the pioneering transport work they have so well carried on up to the coming of the rail. From a hurried run over the country, however, it certainly appears that the developed and partially-devel-oped country inland, though ' now served longitudinally by the main road, is not yet , equipped with sufficient feeder roadsHo the coast, and that some road construction for this purpose will be needed.

TO CARRY MORE PEOPLE?

Of course, development is not yet complete over the whole of Poverty Bay, and some hitherto untackled roads would have to be built in any case. Much will depend on the extent to which the back couritry will subdivide, now that cheap freights to ports are in the offing. This question of [subdivision is one that has many phases. Some of the higher country is extremely rough and jumbled, subject to slips, and incredibly steep. While* it retains the winter and spring moisture, it carries excellent feed, but it bakes in summer, and fencing problems and the necessity for combining water supply and lower summer pastures in a pastoral holding reduce the extent to which subdivision would be practicable and profitable. Sheep country which is now carrying its maximum of sheep and is well looked after will return no bigger profits if subdivided, rather the reverse, as there may be charges on the capital cost of five homesteads and yards, etc., to come out of the gross returns, instead of one. Adding thirty people to the population, on purely sheep country, will not add to the production, and may, on some of the poorer country, of which there is a great deal, render these subdivisions uneconomic.

On the other hand much of the land.between Napier and Gisborne is not being farmed to capacity. Experiments in treating the land have given good results at Kotemaori and near Tutira, while it is said that excellent results have followed the top-dressing of Wairoa pumice lands.

It may be that the holders are discouraged by their partial isolation. The railway will spur holders of cultivable land to produce perishable produce which hitherto lias been unprofitable. ■ There are,, moreover, very large areas of land still in tea tree and fern in the back country that would'probably repay the clearing; if kept clear of weeds thereafter, but it is in country so rough and so far back that it would mean costly hauls to the rail. Sooner or later it will all be occupied and farmed, and it is perhaps from this source that increased freights may be expected for the new line.

RAIL COSTS AND rROSI'ECTS

The Napier-Gisborne railway was commenced in 1911, and it has cost to date somewhere about £3,500,000. It is estimated that it will cost £1,500,000 to complete. There are those who say that the former figures are ' under-estimated, and others who say that the latter estimate will fall far short of the mark, according to their political views. Supposing the figures to be approximately correct, there can be no doubt | that the line should be now completed. Whether it should have been yet commenced is another story, but the fact that interest charges have been mounting on some of it since 1911, and on the total cost during the last five years that the line has been idle, makes. it advisable for the line to begin to earn something as soon as possible. It is, after all, only following railway traditions in this country by commencing with a millstone round its neck, and it cannot be said of it that its conduct has been unbusinesslike, because it has never been in business. With accumulated interest on top of capital cost, it seems unlikely that the line will pay until the district is more fully developed. It will never pay if the freights charged approximate those of the efficient road services.

ROAD DRAWBACKS. What the road services are up against in grades'is astounding. The

road rises to 1000 ft oil Tongoio Hill and descends again. Never reaching sea level again, it nevertheless has .an unending series of ups and downs, some of them on steep grades, and reaches its" climax where it climbs 1660 ft from Morere to Gisborne, descending to mount lesser mountains again in between, in an eighteen-mile run. The road is so full of turns, many of them sharp, and on such steep grades, that it is a trial to people with weak nerves, many of whom are car sick, and the dangers of a miscalculation on the part of the driver are so marked that once the railway is through many people will forsake this portion of road travel. In only one thing is the road driver fortunate, and that is in the surface of / the roads all through this limestone and pumice country, graded gravel roads, except in patches, which give a perfectly safe and smooth surface. Can the road transport users compete with railway freights?

• There is already a section of completed rail from Gisborne to Motu, and there have been suggestions of extending the existing railways which are operating on northern coasts southward. If the line is ever linked between Auckland and Wellington along the east coast route, there will be a certain amount of through tourist traffic, but anyone in a hurry will still patronise the Main Trunk. From Gisborne northwards to East Cape there is much first-class and dairy country much better as a whole than any between Napier and Gisborne, although some of that is good. This country is already largely served by a metalled road inland, so that the railway to Motu does not help it much. Tolaga Bay and Tokomaru Bay iront some really good country, and | the Waiapu Valley from Waipiro Bay i is very fertile, though it sutlers a> good deal from erosion.

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