'Engineering Romance'

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 726, 27 July 1929, Page 34

'Engineering Romance'

LONDON “TIMES” COMMENTS FAVOURABLY ON RAILWAY DEVELOPMENT IN NEW ZEALAND

ENCOURAGING OPINIONS An interesting article headed “New Zealand Railways; An Engineering Romance,” appears in a recent number of the weekly edition of the London “Times.” The article, which is written by “a correspondent,” reads as follow: “The New Zealand Government is urging the country to regard the railways as the Dominion’s most valuable property. All the railway lines are State owned, and in the last three or four years they have come to feel acutely the competition of motor services on the roads. This year they are faced with a deficit of approximately £ 1,000,000, largely owing to the falling off in passenger traffic. “The great feature of New Zealand railways is the way they run into the wildest places, through the wildest scenery. There is very little of the long flat running of the English Midlands, where the country changes and the view from the windows closes in and opens out, without diverting the straight flight of the train. There has been very little laying of lines across the country, in the smoothest convenient route from one clump of farms to the next, from a country town to a great city. New Zealand railways have pushed their way into hills, spanned chasms, tunnelled under watersheds, reached the farthest beauty spots, and enabled the Dominion to grow on their trail.

“The Dominion has the longest railway tunnel in the Empire—the Otira tunnel, in the South Island, 5i miles under the watershed of the Southern Alps by Arthur’s Pass. The trains that run through this tunnel are electrified, as also is the oldest bit of line in the Dominion, through the mile and a-half tunnel under the Port Hills between Lyttelton Port and Christchurch. It was opened for traffic on December 1, 1863. The gauge used then was sft. 3in. Varying gauges were used for some time, but Sir Julius Vogel, in his Railway Act of IS7O, laid down a uniform gauge of 3ft 6in., as compared with our 4ft. Siin.

“A thousand miles of line were built in the next 10 years, and two thousand more in the next half century. Two important railways were originally built by private enterprise, but there are now only about 120 miles owned privately; the otiter 3,000 are in the hands of the Minister of Railways, who is answerable to Parliament. In 1924 the Fay-Raven Royal Commission recommended the setting up of a Railway Board of Management, which reorganised the financial administration of the lines and propounded an eight-year scheme of development costing approximately £1,000,000 a year. This great scheme is still being carried out, though the Board has been abolished in favour of direct Ministerial control. TOURING TRAINS

“The railways are running at a loss at the present time, but they are a sound material investment. Their earnings in the last two years have been equal to a dividend ot 4.17 per cent, on the total investment of the country in them. In 1925 it was 3.53 per cent. Though the receipts from

passenger traffic are decreasing, those from freights are increasing steadily.

“One example of the importance attached to the railways in the development of the Dominion is the special use which is made of perambulatory touring trains. Australia has had the “Reso” train, which conveyed a number of Australian business men and visitors on a tour through several districts, enabling them to see other parts than their own and to talk to local magnates. New Zealand has had a number of these special trains, such as the “Commerce” train in the North Island, and the farmers’ trains, which carry farmers round the producing areas in each island. The railways advertise these trains as a means of holiday-making, for week-ends, or longer. “The most exciting thing on the railways of the Dominion at the moment are the new “Garratt” articulated locomotives, three of which have been imported for trial. They are very much bigger than anything hitherto running on New Zealand lines, for they have a weight of 146 tons, as against 94 tons of the New Zealand “X” class. To look at, the “Garratt” is roughly an ordinary railway engine with a very iong boiler, without driving wheels under it, but with two square extensions, one in front and one behind the cab, taking two lots of driving wheels articulated on to the boiler part of the engine. The “Garratts” have not yet finished their trials in New Zealand, but their adoption would, in all probability, be the beginning of a revolution in New Zealand railways.”