The Feilding Star, Oroua and Kiwitea Counties Gazette. SATURDAY, MARCH 28, 1908. Feilding and the Railways.

Feilding Star, Volume II, Issue 533, 28 March 1908, Page 2

The Feilding Star, Oroua and Kiwi tea Counties Gazette. SATURDAY, MARCH 28, 1908. Feilding and the Railways.

j It is not necessary to make any apo- : logy for returning to the rumored ; intention of the Railway Department I to side-track Feilding in the running of the Main Trunk trains, for the i subject is of the first importance to . our business people, and the topic . is still warm in interest so far as ' their daily discussions are concerned. [ This is essentially an agricultural ! and pastoral district, and if such ji I i district has no outlet, then not only ; is its development denied, but its I very existence is threatened. In the - | course of its Yes-No editorial article ' r j in yesterday's Manawatu Daily Times it was stated that amongst the circumstances that must be taken into account in considering the Department's position is the fact that the services at the Palmerston end would havo to be recast to meet the case of the Wairarapa and Hawke's Bay sorvices. It is apparently forgotten or overlooked by our contemporary that some day there will be such a recasting of the services and of the whole system of transit that Palmerston may be left out of the reckoning altogether. If, as the Times suggests, speed is the first essential of the Main Trunk train — and we do not at all agree with this contention — then the Railway Department must continue in the country the policy it is now carrying out in the suburbs of the cities with regard to straightening railway lines. What will be the effect' of the straightening policy along this coast ? As was rumored the other day, distance and time could be saved by a straight line from •Levin to Marton; and, more important still for Feilding, the carrying out of a similar policy would make Feilding a junction instead of Palmerston so far as the Wairarapa. and Hawke's Bay services are concerned. As we pointed out the other day, the proposal for a direct line from Levin to Marton is a record of many years ago ; but it still more ajicient history to remember that Bunnythorpe, which lies only six miles from Feilding, was originally to have been the junction of the lines from Ashhurst and from Wellington. Settlers along this countryside who remember the events of twenty-two years ago will recall the great indignation there was over the action of the Government of the day in cutting out Bunnythorpe after it had been decided upon as the junction. Railway maps of that date show that the locality was marked as " Mugby Junction," and on the strength of "it being made a junction the Government established a settlement there and the the place was cut up into small sections, some of which- sold as high :is £150. So that the Railway Department has every reason to carefully consider the proposals regarding Feilding, for if Bunnythorpe was, in the opinion of its advisers, the wisest place to establish a junction over a generation ago, then the Feilding district to-day is in a still better position for a junction than is Palmerston itself. Especially will this be the case whether or not the Government undertakes the much needed

extension of the railway sustem to tho Apiti and Kimbolton districts, for Feilding is, as wo have previously pointed out, the hub of tho widest and richest traffic producing country in the whole dominion ; and if not in this year, then certainly in the course of a few years the Railway Department will havo to remodel its system if it decides upon a policy ; n which passengers aud freight rather than the tourist traffic is the object it has in view.