CARGO FROM WHARVES

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22390, 9 April 1936, Page 12

CARGO FROM WHARVES

HANDLING BY RAILWAYS SOME BERTHS NOT WORKED A complaint that through the policy of the Railway Department regarding the carriage of cargo from the waterfront, he was being forced to use motor transport, been made by the of a local scow. He considers that the department is taking only the cream of the wharf loading and not the remainder. "I brought a shipment of fencing posts from Mercury Bay, and was asked to send them by rail to Drury," he said. He berthed at the southern sicta of the viaduct, where a special railway siding was provided, but when he applied for a truck to bo sent, ho waa informed that the railways did not work the waterfront west of Prince's Wharf, except for the haulage of motor-spirits from the siding at the approach to Western Wharf. The viaduct was specially designed for the use of small craft, the scow master said, and railway sidings and every facility had been provided by the Harbour Board,' which was agreeable to their being used, yet the railways would not transport cargo from there or from Western Wharf. It would bo necessary for him to move to another berth at one of the other wharves or despatch the posts by motor.

Railway authorities said yesterday that no agreement had yet been reached between the department and the Harbour Board regarding work west of Princo's Wharf, except for the haulage of motor-spirits. Applications had been received for trucks from time to timq, but nothing could bo done, in the meantime. Western Wharf itself was not linked up by rail, there being lines- only on the approaches. A-Harbour Board officer said the refusal of the department to send trucks to the wharves in question had been a sore point for a long time. The lines on the viaduct had been provided by the board and Western Wharf had not been linked up, because the department would not work it. Expense should not be a bar, as the difficulty could be solved by imposing a haulage charge. At. present the railways were losing hundreds of tons of cargo which thev should bo handling.