HILLSIDE VISIT

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26771, 14 May 1948, Page 4

HILLSIDE VISIT

WORKSHOPS INSPECTED MAYOR AND COUNCILLORS INTEREST IN INDUSTRY When the Mayor, Mr Cameron, and members of the City Council paid a visit of inspection to the Hillside Railway Workshops yesterday morning, Mr Cameron said he hoped the visit would be the first of many to the various large industrial concerns in the city. The purpose of such visits, he explained, would be to provide the council with a greater appreciation of the extent and importance of Dunedin industries as well as to show the keen interest that he and the councillors took in the industrial activities of the city. He hoped that the council could make one such visit each month.

The visitors to Hillside yesterday were welcomed by the works manager, Mr E. F. Hamilton, 'who said he realised the importance of the council having a full appreciation of 'die industry at Hillside. Later in the morning the Deputy Mayor, Cr Wright, expressed the thanks of the Mayor and councillors for the opportunity to make the visit. All had been impressed by what they had seen, and had gained a wider knowledge of the many activities at'the workshops. The party visited the stores, the machine shop, the blacksmiths’ shop, the wagon repair shop, the erecting shop, the pattern shop, the foundry, and the boiler shop. The visitors agreed that a true appreciation of the vast extent of the industry at Hillside could be gained only by such a visit. A great deal of work was being done in each of the shops visited. The party saw locomotives being built and repaired, wagons and carriages under repair, and the manufacture of countless thousands of different articles ranging from nuts, bolts, and brass fittings to huge driving wheels and boilers. Blast furnaces roared while powerful hammers dealt with the red-hot metal Wood was planed and turned by dozens of machines for the repair of rolling stock. Cranes worked ceaselessly moving their heavy loads. Each worker was applying his specialised knowledge to the task in hand, and the dozens of different activities were coordinated to ensure a constant stream from the workshops of locomotives, all kinds of repaired rolling stock, and innumerable articles, both large arid small, for the maintenance and repa'r of the railways system of the South Island. Some members of the party spent as long as three hours at the workshops yesterday and agreed that to have seen everything their visit would have had to last much longer.