SOUTHAMPTON DOCKS.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LV, Issue 230, 27 August 1935, Page 8

SOUTHAMPTON DOCKS.

RAILWAY COMPANY’S BIG EXPENDITURE.

Mr H. W. Bevan. who has arrived in Sydney as Australian representative of the Southern Railway Company, England, said that, to develop trade between Britain and the Dominions, the company had spent £10,000,000 in the hist eight years on a reclamation scheme at Southampton for wharves and railway traffic, and the largest graving dock in the world. Mr Bevan said that the plans for the extension of the docks and railway and shipping facilities, including a new quay at which the largest liners in the world could berth, had been almost accomplished. Everything conceivable to tacilitate the quick discharging of vessels was available. There was also a sales room for fruit, enabling the fruit to bo sold shortly after the arrival of a vessel, and cold storage accommodation at the quayside for perishable goods. The average time taken to discharge meat from a ship’s hold into the store was five minutes. This was a valuable facility, in view of the development of the chilled beef trade. Perishable goods could bo loaded into railway vans, and next day could ho sold in shops 100 or 200 miles away. The area within a radius of 100 miles of Southampton had a population of 16,000,000. Factories and mills were being built on the reclaimed area, and with” conveyors the raw produce was taken from the ship’s hold direct to the mill or factory, eliminating expensive handling charges.