THROUGH OTIRA TUNNEL

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LVI, 26 June 1924, Page 4

THROUGH OTIRA TUNNEL

TRAFFIC GREATER. THAN ANTICIPATED BENEFIT TO WEST COAST (By Telegraph—Special to The Mail.) CHRISTCHURCH, This Day. Railway traffic to and from the West Coast has proved to be much larger than was anticipated, according to information gathered by a reporter 'today. Following the railway strike traffic through the tunnel was extremely heavy during the month of April, and many extra train's had to be run to cope with the accumulation. “The four electric locomotives at Otira are now running an average of five trips daily through the tunnel,” a railway official said, “and sometimes when the traffic is heavy as many as seven trips are done daily.” All the eofN mines in the Grey Valley were railing coal through tiie tunnel. Hie average being between 1000 and 1500 tons a week. Timber was being railed, through to Canterbury in very large quantities, the average being between 170.000 feet and 180,000 feet a week. Of these amounts'a small proportion consisted of “slabs” and “pieces” (waste timber from the mills) winch was being sold as firewood. “Tlmre were not enough ships a short time ago” said the official, “to cope with the export of timber and coal from Greymouth. T don’t consider that there is nnv competition, however, between the railway and the shipping. All goods from Canterbury go through the tunnet and most of those from tbe North Island go through by ship.” Speaking of the effect of the tunnel on the. Const he said that places like Reefton bad felt an improvement, for the traffic figures from there bad increased in every way. The tunnel had done the Coast a lot of good.