SOUTH ISLAND MAIN TRUNK.

Otago Witness, Issue 3713, 12 May 1925, Page 63

SOUTH ISLAND MAIN TRUNK.

EAST COAST ROUTE FAVOURED. REPORT TO CANTERBURY PROGRESS LEAGUE. CHRISTCHURCH, May 6. The report of the special committee set up by the Canterbury Progress League to report on the comparative suitability of the Ea9t Coast (Wharenui-Parnassuß) and west coust (Glenhope-Mungahua) sections of tho uncompleted railway to serve as links in the dominion’s Main Trunk lino and the commercial and developmental possibilities, immediate and prospective, of the more suitable route, was submitted at to-night’s meeting of the executive of the league. The committee’s recomendations are: 1. That, considered as part of a main trunk railway connecting the extremo north with the extreme south of New Zealand, the east coast route is the most suitable for the following reasons: (a) Because it is 148 miles shorter than the west coabt route; (b) bocauso it opens up country the productivity of which can be appreciably improved by railway connection; (c) because the volume of traffio alroady passing over the route i 3 considerable enough to give promise of payable dimensions when the line actually is constructed; (d) because the lino appears destined to carry all the passenger traffic between, the North and South Islands in con junction with a trainferry service, this feature alone indicating a good revenue-earning prospect and ono that must improve with, every increase in population of the dominion. 2. The committee strongly recommends that the Government be urged to carry out complete surveys of the east coast route between the existing railheads, as an essential preliminary to the early construction of the line.

3. The committee is of the opinion that the decision of the Government to push on with the line from Glennope as far south as Murchison is warranted bv the general conditions and situation of the Murchison district, and is rendered necessary by the fact that considerable expenditure has already been incurred in extending the line southward from Glenhope. 4. The committee is not convinced that tho early completion of the line between Murchison and Inangahua Junction is of pressing importance, though it believes that ultimately the line should be built. The report mentions that it does riot require a very large stretch of imagination to see in tho future a fast express service from end to end of tho dominion, crossing Cook Strait by railway ferry steamers, and entirely eliminating the passenger traffic petwoen Lyttelton and Wellington by sea, and that it would be a logical result to follow the completion of the Main Trunk line, as the recant Royal Commission 1 -n.’ pointed out in its report. The league deferred discussion of the report till a later date.