THE NELSON RAILWAY.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XXX, Issue 181, 3 August 1896, Page 2

THE NELSON RAILWAY.

THE MOTUPIKO EXTENSION. "HOW NOT TO DOIT," A PROTEST ON BEHALF OF POSTERITY. [Ry our Special Reporter J. IV. Very little need be added to oonvince the people of Nelson tbat if they do not watoh their own interosts their railway may end, for many years at least, practically at Belgrove. If between Belgrove and the Motupiko river there were any good country whioh might bo settled and developed by the railway, a few mistakes, deviations, and rash expenditure would not matter, Rut for all praotical purposes ihe region of which Norris' Gully is typical is merely an outlet irom one settlement to another. The traveller will notice after leaving Belgrove that the forest gradually thins out till for some distance before reaching the entranoe to Norris' Gully and for miles thereafter the hills are barren and scrubby, with soarcely any trees growing on them. The last bit of forest before the head of Norris' Gully is reached has been burnt down, and the oharred blackened logs lie thick in a grim expanse to the right of the road. Only one heroio settler seems to inhabit this arid waste —and he has struggled on vainly, failing alike with hops and with vegetables. Lower down, towards Belgrove, hops grow well ; but here the land id too exposed : and a melancholy ruined fence is all that is left of an industry that proved useless. Even when the sparse timber has been burnt and felled, choking up the ground, but yet affording shelter for a few sheep, the grass has not grown well, and the fern and sorub are encroaching. As we passed this last remnant of timbered land, tbe .children of the solitary settler were gather'ng firewood, laboriously carrying the halfburnt ldgs up a steep pinoh to the road, where a small cart awaited them. Thereafter, till the Motupiko river is reached on emerging from the gully, there is little or no timber, at least on the east side, The soil is cold uud clayey, thickly strewn with shingle, and every few hundred yards there is a shingle run up the steep hillside. It seems as if the touch of a pick would bring down an avalanohe of boulders, and the value of vertical cuttings is shown on the road, for whereever there is an accidental slope the debris has come down. At one pomt — where the three feet flume is to carry a shingle shoot over 'lie trains— the roadman has had hard work to keep the highway clear, and the sbingle has obviously cut a chasm for itself into the creek below. It is ou the shoulders of these hills that the railway formation is being made, and how the line is lo be kept dear of debris without enormous, cost it is difficult to imagine. Ou the other side ot thecieek whiun we have called the west side for convenience, though the gully does not run directly north and south— the land U (latter, and there a.*e a few trees here and there. The Midland Railway Company's formatiou runs along here, as far from shingle runs as possible— -in fact the floodbed of the creek is between the formation and the hill. This route would be the safest and the best, : or, once the lines were laid, they would not cost very much to maintain. If tbe deviations now being carried out be laid with rails, however, the Norris's Gully section of the railway may prove to be as expensive for ordinary maintenance as any in the colniy. Rugurded merely as an outlet, Nurris's Gully has great value; but it is absolutely worthless at both ends for station purposes. Yet at the Motupiko side a co-operative gang of 12 men are busily eugaged making un excavation for v station, while at the head of the gully the ground has been prepared for another siding or station for which there is no apparent use at all. It is h.irdly likely that teamsters will avail themselves of the smtiou at the Motupiko end, and they certainly will pass altogether the station or siding at the Belgrove end. If they are compelled to come as far as the former from Rrjmeil'a, very probably they will continue their journey to Belgrove without unpacking. It has already been pointed out that the Stanley Brook people now go to Wakefield for their railway requirements, and it is doubtful even if they will use Bromell'sshould the terminus of the railway be there. As to the present proposed terminus, they will not come near it, uud all who are forced to go by team to the end of Norris's Gully, will make one job of it, and briug the teams, as now, to Belgrove. or Foxhill. It will be admitted that here alone are all the elements of failure in store for the Belgrove-Motupiko extension as at present projected. Leaving all questions of errors of construction aside, the termination of the Hue at the station for which excava--1 tions are now being made at the end uf the gully will suit no one, hence strenuous efforts should be made to have it removed at least a mile nearer Bromell's. j The wider issue of a line into the Tadmor Valley by means of a curve past Bromell's is for future discussion ; hut the urgent and vital issue of the present is that of the Motupiko terminus. If the railway authorities can be induced to abandon their excavations for v terminus at/ the end of Norris's Gully, and continue their line to Bromell's, these articles will not have been written in vain; and .t ie hoped that the Nelsou Railway League will now now take np the a.itation which has been begun in these columns.