Poverty Bay Herald PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. GISBORNE, FRIDAY, MAY 21, 1920. GISBORNE-NAPIER RAILWAY.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XLVII, Issue 15222, 21 May 1920, Page 2

Poverty Bay Herald PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. GISBORNE, FRIDAY, MAY 21, 1920. GISBORNE-NAPIER RAILWAY.

Wheelbarrow methods still continue' on the northern section of the GisborneNapler railway.'' A gentleman who visit- 1 ed the construction, works a few days ago interested himself by watching the process with which work was being carried on on one small portion of the line. Two elderly men were engaged m removing the spoil from a cutting and | spreading it along the track. One had j a wheelbarrow, which he loaded and wheeled a distance of 100 yards, deposit- I ing the spoil and returning* for more.

i inn.. . The other man's job was. 'to spread .^tha spoil and wait t for the next b arrow"* load. He had a vast amount of waiting time. The incident was illustrative i>l' Public Works methods m New Zealand. No private employer could stand it ;iio contractor would tolerate it. The oftj-. ciais m charge of the works are not tn blame ; they have difficulty m finding men 40 man wheelbarrows let alone •ballast trucks, and they can only, caiiy'dn the \works m the beat manner with t£e limited . means 'at their disposal. .The District Engineer has taken : the Vinitlative ami instituted a system of ; contract, with which it iis hoped to speed up the construction of the line. 'Biit there is such a vast amount of work to be done,, especially on the exftreiholy difficult section from Ngatapa \to . the Summit, that many people ; are beginning to despair of "ever seeing the railway put through. We find there '-.'is* a strong., concensus of opinion amongst people closely acquainted -with the topographical features of the country . that a great riiistake was made m selecting the Ngatapa route for the railyray. It involves heavy cuttings on slippery papa foundation, and several tun'neis, one of them a milu long. In tho' opin.on of our informants a much better .me could undoubtedly have been. f,b'uhd had the railway been taken from vHahgaroa down into Waikohu to joihv r ab •they latter place with the line to/Motife Ihis would have involved a feW'.h^iles extra travel for trains from NapicriA/to Gisborne, but would correspondingly have diminished the distance _on. the through journey*. The bringing of 'the ; railway via Ngatapa was undoubtedlyra concession to Gisborne, enabling through* traffic to pass close to this centre.," )Vut it involved conatructioual difficulties greater than those who were • rea^pnalble > for the survey of the line -cpuW^have contemplated,, and the , question ;1 }; nowraised, is whether it wouldf nbt^'bel b^ttiSr to call a halt on the Ngatapa rottte-^arid urge construction from Waikohu o'Vjeir the easy rolling downs' between, thaV*pp:tit and Hangaroa.. We know the $ahge> of delay that may be involved b^raV ing.the issue of a variation of: rotate^ 'litifc after giving full consideration -to-i.lfie information, supplied by ' people ..who know the ground well, and who are quite disinterested on the question of rotfte, we feel it ourl duty to urcre that .the Railway League go thoroughly .iritoithe matter and make representations tij- the Government. It is . going "to cOstVa powerful sum of monoy to Icarryfthf) tailway on for the next eightVor ten .miles from. Ngatapa, and because.pf,ther'tffn--nelling work -to/ be done -is bound to be slbw> extending over "seviirai years, , whereas : on /the Waikohu. H|ahgai> roa liije there is noijiing to hinder raj-id construction at moderate cost. ; It ittbuid be interesting to know, whether "\tn ; o;tffo- ' gineers were given a free handrid chaosing the Ngatapa route, ahd wheiher^fiev were permitted to take the : X^aifeSflu route into consideration; also whether, m, the light pf : ' fuller ■knowledge of Tjhedifficulties of the former they vvbttldiipb be greatly relieved m anxiety lithe lattfer "Were now" adopted.' In such an eventuality the' work already done would not be. lost. , The railway to Ngatapa would always be found -to be a* useful "and profitable little spur line. • But for the purposes of an East . Coast main trunk railway the connection with Waikohu seems to-- us -to be eminently desirable, and we believe that if. the Gbvern* merit could be persuaded to: take it up and to proceed vigorously with construction on' the , contract system , years could be gained m the time "m which we shall see Gisborne linked flip with Napier 'by rail. We do hot believe -that the , proposal, if carefully gone into, will raise any controversy-^the argument is so strongly m favor of the Waikohu route — nor should it afford any! excuse to the Government for further- dalliance with this most important railway connection. The completion of the jfcapierGisborne railway m the speediest manner possible should -be taken up by all sections of the community as a burning > question and resolutionri'should ,be going forward: continuously to th? Government pressing them 1 to make sonic seribtiß endeavor to construct. the line. In other [ pavts of the Dominion similar;; York is [ being caried forward/,, and. has . been, all ! through the war period, and' there .is no ; reason iwhy this dfstijict, -which has 1 greater claims than any other, because of its isolation, arid because til its great contributions to the revenue of the . Dominion j should not receive much better consideration thai,, is being given r it. The question is vital to the district. [ The traffic has become sp great that tha \ steamer services cannot adequately cope with it, and travel by motor car, which people have frequently to resort to, entails very considerable > ex--1 perfse; The lack of mail facilities, to which we referred\yesterday, and: difficulties m conducting business with ont>. s side centres through our-present faulty communications, all constitute a great handicap to Gisborne and the whole, district which we must seriously strive to have removed. Will the memh6r for Gisborne --taker a lead m the matter i and proceed to "make the sparks "fly v»»