TRAM EXTENSIONS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20626, 26 July 1930, Page 14

TRAM EXTENSIONS.

POINT CHEVALIER ROUTE.

FIRST CARS RUN TO-MORROW

PROGRESS OF NEW WORKS

Tho first tram to Point Chevalier Beach will leave Customs Street West at 7.28 a.m. tomorrow and will leave Point Chevalier at 8 a.m. on the return trip to the city. Now that the.tram tracks have, hcen extended to Dixieland Cabaret the feeder bus service that has lately been operating will be discontinued. A frequent tram service has been arranged, the time-table allowing for trams to leave and arrive at 16-minute intervals during the slack periods of the day, 8-minuto intervals during the busier periods and 4-minuto intervals at peak-loading times. Travelling time will occupy about 30 minutes. To provido a more frequent servico at peakloading periods some of the trams will rnako the hall corner and Walker Road their termini.

Electric-power to operate the new .servico will be received through a new substation erected by the Auckland Power Board on the main Point Chevalier Road. The station will commence running for the first time to-day. A small staff will be employed for the first week or so, but eventually the plant will be entirely automatic in operation. Tlio new route is 5.77 miles in length, the second longest tram routo in Auckland. The longest is Onehunga, which is 7.55 miles in length. The distanco from the city to the beach at Point Chevalier is five sections, as against the six sections on the Onehunga line. Over half tlio programme of tramway extensions commenced by the Transport Board in the winter of 1929 has now been completed. The extended routes on which trams are now running are Dominion Road, Remuera and Point Chevalier. The -Mount Eden extension is well under way, the excavations having been completed from the terminus at Pencarrow Avenue to Wailing Street and tho tracks having boon laid as fas as Plunket Street. 'J he rails will be put down as far as Rewa Street, which is tho first road beyond Landscape Road, and if the loan proposals now being placed before tho ratepayers in the Mount Roskill district for the concreting of Ihree Kings Road arc approved, the tram-lines will be continued as far as Mount Albert Road. The Transpo;t Board already has the necessary authority under its 1929 loan proposals to go on with this work.

Workmen have already made a start with the excavations in Richmond Rood, and presumably the Sandringham extension will be undertaken when the first section of this route is finished.