Traction Engines on County Roads

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XXV, Issue 57, 19 February 1935, Page 6

Traction Engines on County Roads

(To the Editor). Sir, —You publish a statement in your paper of Saturday of an interview with a County Council official, and as the statement got down to technical definitions and engineering problems, I can, 1 think, presume that the inletview your reporter had was .probably with an engineer, and I will answer that interview with those probabilities before mo. Firstly, 1 might say, I respect a good road as well as any body else, and probably a good deal more than a lot of users, owing to the fact that 1 am a party to the use of the roads in no many different aspects. The majority of our rouds were built in the first place, and later maintained, directly by rates levied from the farmers whose land the various roads traversed. The majority of farmers in those days went in much more extensively for grain growing and cropping than they do today, and it was mainly from money derived from the cropping that the roads were constructed and maintained. At a later date when motor traffic became prominent, the same roads were given a little more attention by county councils in the way of being tar-sealed, and incidentally the farmer was again saddled for this luxury in the imposition of the heavy traffic fee to cart his produce over the same roads which he had already been taxed and rated to build and maintain. Apparently now that the majority of the roads are now tar-sealed, an attempt is to be made to foist further irksome restrictions on the suffering farmers by the imposition of county restrictions saying when and by which method his crops are to be harvested, for this is what the latest move of the county amounts to. It is all very well for the County Council to suggest the use of rubbertyred motor tractors, but if there are any experienced farmers on the County Council, they will advance the practical suggestion immediately that there is nothing in the land to-day that will adequately take the place of the steam power for driving.the threshers. Tractors will do it after a fashion, but they are only an apology for a job, and they will never do the heavy work which a steam engine is called upon to do. As regards the Fernhill bridge, I would like to ask the county engineer how much weaker in * 1 tensile strength” this bridge is than the two bridges at Pakowhai, and in particular the small bridge-which is just past the gravel dump. Also what effect an engine of 7 1-8 tons will have on the “tensile strength” as compared with a motor lorry loaded with a swaying load of sheep weighing 10 tons crossing the bridge at 10 to 20 miles per hour. As I said in my previous letter if it was logic to allow lorries to use the bridge with loads of 10 and 15 tons with speeds of anything up to 35 miles per hour, the same logic should be adduced to allow the traction engine to cross once a year at a speed of one mile pci hour. Apart from weight, it is an understood engineering deduction, that in most cases it is speed and not weight that does the damage. I do not wish my remarks to suggest that 1 am opposed to lorries crossing this bridge, because I am not, and from what I have seen venture to state that the birdge is absolutely safe for any vehicle driven reasonably up to a speed of 10 miles per hour. lam directed in my observations to a certain extent in making this statement bv the fact that the County Council allows lorries of practically any weight to use the Pakowhai bridges, and although these two bridges are in a state of “condemnation” the Pakowhai shows more reaction from a 10ton load than does the Fernhill. As regards damaging the bridge, I do not for a moment question that in the event of disaster to the bridge, the damages would be colossal, and I can also assure the county engineer that I for one am not risking a £2OOO plant on a bridge where there is the slightest element of doubt, for I am certainly not looking to exchange this plant with the County Council, for the honour of sending their bridge lieadIcng into the river. As regards the insurance proposal of the County Council, it was certainly not accepted for the reason that the County Council knew perfectly well that a reputable company would not accept the conditions laid down, which meant that a policy of £3OOO would be required, and immediately after we crossed the engineer was to inspect the bridge, and if he says we dislodged so many piles and split so many beams, his version is final. There is no redress, for the reason that there was to be no expert inspection before we crossed and to get these inspections made by independent engineers and embraced in an insurance cover would eost in the vicinity of £SO. This was all for a single crossing by a single engine, ana nothing said at all about the lorry of 10 tons which crosses at all times. The whole suggestion was ridiculous in the extreme. I am fully aware of what the New Zealand Gazette, 1932, has to say about the use of tractions on the road, and 1 am equally conversant with the fee of £5 which was paid to the County Council for the use of the roads, which in itself was a written acknowledgment to use the roads. I did not at any time suggest the use of the roads at my own pleasure. I realise as much as anybody that the traction has to be controlled, but the owner is entitled to reasonable control, and if he applies for permission tu travel at 4 a.m. and he is refused, it can hardly be said that he was travelling- at his own pleasure. The New Zealand Gazette of 1932 intended the traction to be controlled. so that he could not damage the roads, but it also intended that, he should be treated with reasonable consideration when applying for the written authority. I contend that it is un reasonable or “ultra vires” to allow 99 per cent, of users untrammelled free dom, and to place prohibitive restrictions on the remaining one per cent. In Hawke's Bay there is approximately a yearly average of anything between 5000 acres and 12,000 acres under crop, and the bulk of this crop is handled by steam-driven plants, of which there are 12 operating in this district, and if the latest edict of the i County Council is carried to fruition, it •

will have the effect of placing one more restriction on a sadly harassed com* inunity—the struggling farmer.—Your*, etc., E. M. LANGLEY. Hastings, Feb. 18.