MAIN TRUNK STOPPAGES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXII, Issue 19027, 26 May 1925, Page 8

MAIN TRUNK STOPPAGES.

Interruptions to traffic on the Main Trunk line, following rain of any exceptional intensity, have come almost to be expected. Admittedly much of the country traversed by the line is difficult in the engineering sense. The greater part of the central plateau, or the approaches to it, is rugged, broken and often unstable in character. Allowing for the difficulties, can the Railway Department say positively that everything possible has been done to minimise the liability to slips and wash-outs? Their elimination would save many vexatious delays, and what is much more important, make running over the line, particularly by night, safer than it can now be proved to be. The tragic disaster at Ongarue in 1923 should nbt be forgotten. A toll of human life was paid there to the •treacherous soil through which cuttings had been made. The commission which inquired so exhaustively into the circumstances of that accident, after saying that the cutting involved had always been considered safe, added : "In view of the liability of pumice formation on papa rock becoming saturated in continuous wet weather, we consider this opinion must be modified, and we suggest that the department have cuttings in this locality specially examined, and take such further steps as its engineers may deem necessary to make them more secure." This was the considered view of a commission with a judicial head and an expert personnel. Has its advice been taken 1 If so, the fact has been given no !

effective publicity. There, plainly indicated, is the need for a careful engineering survey of a particular section of the line, so that all possible devices to make it safo may be found and utilised. Nothing comparable in magnitude to the Ongarue disaster has happened since, but thero have been smaller slips, wash-outs and traffic interruptions. The question still not answered is whether the department has taken up nature's challenge by concentrating on the problem of stabilising the line and its surroundings so far as the resources of engineering can achieve it. If not, no time should be lost in doing it. Other things required in the railways may perhaps be deferred if good cause can be shown. This may not. Thero should be no delay and no relaxing until the public is assured without qualification that any interruption such as thoso just overcome arises from causes it is not humanly possible to prevent.