FORTY YEARS' GROWTH

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 79, 30 September 1938, Page 16

FORTY YEARS' GROWTH

N.Z. RAILWAYS

TODAY'S TRAFFIC PROBLEM

In view of the approach of the Centennial, the General Manager of New Zealand Railways (Mr. G. H. Mackley) presents an interesting review in the "Railways Magazine" of progress in rail, traffic, and equipment. "In the past forty years the passenger traffic has grown from 6,708,725 passenger journeys in the year 1898 to 22,441,----212 in 1938, the cost of the coal used in the respective years has increased | from £48,820 to £690,029; likewise the cost of stores and material purchased by the Department (apart from coal) has grown from £207,000 to £905,694," he writes. "Wages paid by the Department have increased from £623,267 to £4,902,226. In the same forty-year period goods tonnage handled in the individual years has grown from 2,628,----746 tons to 7,516,049 tons. The capacity of the wagons provided to carry the goods has been increased from 54,398 tons in 1898 to 267,559 tons in 1938, or by nearly five times, whilst the length of railway lines has been increased only from 2055 to 3323 miles. "These figures will, I think, make it plain what we mean when we talk about the increased density of traffic —particularly when it is realised that the number of wagons has increased from 8768 to 27,235, the number of passenger vehicles from 543 to 1481, and that the train miles have increased from 3,666,483 to 12,777,852. In other words, whilst the route miles of track available for the trains to run on have increased in the ratio of about 1_ to 1, train miles have increased in the ratio of 3£ to 1. "There has also been a notable increase in the locomotive tractive effort available. In 1898 it was 1,879,4491b as compared with 10,684,559 in 1938. The number of staff has increased from 6051 members in 1898 to 22,963 members in 1938. But how different is the service they have to operate! In 1898 the largest locomotive on our railways (the "U" class) weighed only 63 tons in working trim, as compared with 136 tons of our present "K" class engines. "In 1898 there was no Westinghouse brake, there were no electric headI lights, there was no tablet system, no automatic signalling, no electric lighting of cars, no train control system; and of course, the many amenities modern stations provide were unthought of, and multiple-unit electric trains, rail-cars, sleeping-cars, hot and cold water, and steam heating in car riages, as well as many other improvements that the present-day user of the rail enjoys, were still to be realised. So when the 'old-timers' tell of the problems that confronted them in the earlier days of the railways, those who work and use the services today can see the greater scale upon which railway transport is worked, and know that our problems are certainly no less than were theirs."