Railway Facilities.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XL, Issue 7545, 19 May 1903, Page 5

Railway Facilities.

The President of the Farmers' Union, Mr J. G. AVilson. has received the following- reply to resolutions forwarded by the Colonial Executive dealing with the alleged shortage of railway trucks :—"With reference to your letter of the 4th March, in regard to the necessity for increasing the supply of rolling stock on the Well ington-Na pierNew Plymouth section,' I have the honour to inform you that 1 have had very exhaustive inquiries made as to the position and find that although there have been some slight delays in fulfilling orders owing" to the great demand for trucks, such delays have not, so far as can be ascertained, been serious, and no greater than at times occur on all parts of the railway system during the busy seasons when sudden rushes of traffic have to bo met. During the last 12 or IS months the rolling stock has been considerably increased, and this has had a tendency to minimise the delays. AVith respect to the alleged scarcity of live stock trucks, particularly the principal traffic in sheep is to the free/ing works at Petone and Ngahauranga, the requirements of which I find have been more than fully met, both Companies having during the season had the sheep delivered at the works faster than they could deal with them, and ia fact the Department was on several occasions requested by the companies to hold back- the traffic as they had more sheep on hand than they Could deal with. I have already had under consideration the advisability of further increasing the number of sheep trucks on the Wel-lington-Napier-New Plymouth section, and have given instructions for the supply of a large number of additional trucks, which it is anticipated will be in traflie for next season's business, and will, I feel sure, remove any cause for complaint regarding the shortage of waggons in future.—J. G. AVARD, Minister for Railways."