BRANCH RIALWAYS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20312, 20 July 1929, Page 9

BRANCH RIALWAYS.

HINT OF CLOSING. HEAVY ANNUAL LOSSES. ' POSmON IN THE SOUTH. , SOME STRIKING DETAILS. '•We have not put the bar on new railways by any means, bai only on short distance rail-ways, many of which will require to be taken up," said the Prime Minister. Sir "Joseph 1 Ward, in replying to . a Bay of Plenty deputation. The idea of tearing up a non-paying rail way with a view to putting it somewhere else bas been mentioned before, bat experts have emphasised the point that once a railway has been made, the great bolk of the cost has been rank beyond recovery. The rails may be salvaged and transported to another place if they are worth relaying. The sleepers may be dug up and those that are sound may be nsed again. Wooden bridges may be dismantled and the timber sold jf there is a b'uver for cat and fashioned material, and a slight retnrn might be made from the material of buildings that are torn down.. But. whatever value there may be in this second-hand material is only a fraction of the capital sunk in the line. Tunnels For Sale. An engineer laughingly expounded the obvious. "You can't sell a cutting. You can't transport a tunnel to another place. - You -can't market an embankment. In * word, yen can't sell the labour by which a line was created. You can't recover engineering costs. Yon can't offer the neighbouring farmer a bargain in sidings or in concrete .laid in a stock loading yard. •_ A railway is an asset only as a going concem. Yon might sell the land occupied by a line to the adjoining farmers, but they would not regard a disused permanent way as being of high agricultural value, elaborately drained though ii be. The closing of a lins is tantamount to scrapping ii—and there is little value in scrap." Haw Railways Have Suffered. Notwithstanding the partial abandonment of branch railways in favour of road > transport, the announcement that "many may require to be taken up" will arouse wide interest and not a littlo anxiety, mainly in the South, because the railways that have suffered most at the hands of ♦he motor-vehicle are still expected to carry heavy freight at low rates. The public may refuse to ride in a branch line train, because road transport is faster and more convenient, it may accept whatever advantage motor freighters may be able to offer, but when it comes to coal and timber and lime and such commodities where the railway still offers a cheaper rate, it claims to have an inalienable right to the railway service. If the Prime Minister decides that the non-paying branch lines must be taken up, his greatest task will be in his ovrn province of Otago, and in Canterbury. Those acainst which the fatal mark would have to be placed must naturally be found in the list of "non-paying developmental branch lines and isolated sections, the losses cf which are made good by subsidy from the Consolidated Fund. Tho« of the North Island are 33 follows: North Island. Branch. MSes. Kaikohe <o s« r® Warofax .a a. cs- 13 Toko -- m 43 Opunafee -..-a w w 23 Greytown va sv « 3 Eskd&le uv cv 12 Total ..- i. .. 124 Bat only three of these are branch lines. The others are extensions oi main lines—Kaikohe, the continuation of the North Auckland Slain Trunk; Toko, the western section of iha Taranaki-Auck-land line; and Eskdale, the first section of tba Napier-Gisborne line. There are therefore only three subsidised branch railways in the North Island,, comprising 33 miles, the loss on which, in 1527-28*. was calculated at £31,500 ont of the total loss on branch railways of £362,00(3. The South Island list is another matter. It is as follows; . - v South Island. Branch. Miles. . Eyreton-Oiford w v. 54 Cheviot .. ; t.v 44 Little River w ■ .. 23 Southbridge 2G YTnitecliSs u.i ' t>. 12 Metnvea .» i>« t-. 23 Sprlnsburn .. 23 Fairlie ..v • 87 Waiffiate w s.. 13 Kurow .. .. «. 38 Nsrapara-Livingstcxia ■„ 27 Waihemo .. .. 9 Otago Central ■„-* u. 147 Lawrence .. ». 52 Tapanai .„ u-a &- 27 Waikaka sv 13 Switsers . .. t... 14 G-len.ham .. wji w. 10 Seaward Bush -. 34 Orawja .. .. 9 Forest Hill .. .v. j3 Muraroa. .- w. 12 Total 665 From a glance at the railways tin* table it would seem that several of the southern branch lines are more than ready for the ceremony of turning the first sod of their destruction. A traveller who wants to reach Whitecliffs will find no information in the guide about trains on that line. Instead there is the timetable of railway motor-buses which use the roads. Railway Buses on Road. The same applies to the _ line from Oarnaru to Ngapara. The time-table for railway buses run on the read is all that, appears. A note eays that buses wi.l convev passengers, hand luggage and a limited number of light parcels. Other ; traffic will be conveyed by goods trainThere is a Gilbertian touch in the concluding sentence: "All buses will start from the railway station, Oamaru* _ • This branch line, which has a little branch of its own from Windsor . to Tukarahi, measures 27 miles, the..capital cost of which could be estimated in the vicinity of £IBO,OOO. Twenty years a£ r 0 a double service was run over it daily. To-dav it is used solely for goods traiiic and the subsidy the Consolidated Fund paid to recoup the this traffic for the year ended March 31, 1928, was £lO.lOl, which includes interest. The net loss was £2306, In other words, the taxpayer was called upon to pay £10 ; 1D1 for the privilege the people of that district of North Otago possess of using the line solely for goods and stock. It is a glaring case of the public paying dearly to aid the farmers of a restricted district in marketing their wheat, wool and meat. And for "years the wheat was grown under subsidy. The Prime Minister will find manv lines in his own district of Southland in similar plight The Tapanui line of 27 miles showed a loss for the year cf £11,507 and the Consolidated Fund paid it. The Waikaka line of 13 m2_es had a deficit of £*2sßt the Swiizers line, 14 miles, £534S r the Cienhain line, 10 miles, £5295; the Seaward Bush line, 34 miles, £10,107; the Orawia line, 9 miles,,. , 2 £5326; the Forest Hill line, 13 mifev £4285; and the Manure* line, 12 miles, - £1215. All these lasses fell on the Consolidated Fund a-nd the position wasja as serious on the Bisfcwork pi branch in Canterbury.