THE LYTTELTON TUNNEL.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19274, 12 March 1926, Page 10

THE LYTTELTON TUNNEL.

No one with any knowledge of the actual conditions will criticise the Government's decision to substitute electric for steam traction through the Lyttelton tunnel. The Railway Department has previously reported that the volume of traffic does not justify any large capital expenditure, and their opinion has been confirmed by ihe independent report of the engineers engaged by the Government to advise it regarding electrification of the suburban sections at the four main centres. For the actual handling of passenger and goods traffic on the section, the existing tunnel and steam traction are adequate. But the passenger traffic —and the crews of goods trains —has a right to a3k for relief from the discomfort and even distress that are caused by the passage through the smoke and dirt that accumulate in the tunnel with the passage of steam trains. It will cost £200,000 to electrify the Christ-church-Lyttelton section, and the Government has undertaken that expenditure because its predecessors pledged themselves to duplicate the tunnel. The reasoning is the more remarkable because its own officers proposed an alternative remedy, the use of oil-electric trains, which would be equally effective in removing tho smoke nuisance, and vastly cheaper in capital cost and operation. This advice has apparently not received sufficient consideration. Oil-electric coaches have been adopted by the Canadian National Railways with highly satisfactory results. Equipped with oil-engines driving . electric generators, they do not require the expensive overhead gear of the usual electrification, and their running costs are said to be only one-seventh of steam locomotion. This form of traction is indeed strongly recommended by Messrs. Kissel and Sims, and since the only purpose is to abolish the smoke nuisance, it . can hardly be supposed that the people of, Christchurch would not prefer an oil-electric service to a scheme which is so economically unsound, that there is already an official suggestion that the Government should subsidise it at the expense of the general body of taxpayers.