SOUTH ISLAND TRUNK LINE

Taranaki Daily News, 15 July 1929, Page 9

SOUTH ISLAND TRUNK LINE

MINISTER DEFENDS PLANS.

COST OF RAILWAY CONSTRUCTION.

(By Wire. —Parliamentary Reporter.) Wellington, July 12.

The suggestion that the cost of the South Island trunk railway line completion work would be £32,000 per mile was controverted in the House of Representatives to-day by the Minister of Railways (the' Hon. W. B. Taverner). He produced detailed figures ,to show that the average was more likely to work out at £17,600. The Public Works Department's estimate was £27,715, “but is it fair,” asked the Minister, “to take even the last mentioned sum as a basis for determining operating results? It is a matter of historical fact that the line from Hurunui to the Blvff and the various brandies i were built at an average cost of £12,200 per mile, but none would be so foolish as to conclude that the line through very difficult country in parts of Otago was built at that figure. “Why, therefore, single out the line between Wharanui and Parnassus? Should‘we not rather take the average cost of construction, at least from Picton to Christchurch? Here are the figures: Pieton to Wharanui, £12,143 per mile; Christchurch to Waipara, £15,000; Waipara to Parnassus, £8,681; Wharahui to Parnassus, £27,715 per mile.” This, said the Minister, worked out at an average cost per mile over a distance of 218 miles of £17,600. Mr. Taverner also quoted railway construction figures of recent years in the North and South Islands to show that they ranged from £14,600 to £30,000 per mile, and in the case of the WaiotiraKirikopuni line a 14-miles section had cost £75,000 per mile. Leaving out the latter end the Tauranga-Waiotira line, in both cases in difficult country, in only one case, at Tauranga, had the cost of construction exceeded £20,000 per mile. The tendency seemed to be to take the section from Wharanui to Parnassus by itself and ask “Will it pay?” but the Minister suggested it must be considered as part and parcel of the South Island main trunk line, not as a branch line or a dead-end.

The area to be covered was approximately 1,039,787 acres, with a capital value of £9,792,684 and a population of over 19,000, while the districts indirectly served by the line contained a population of 29,000.