RAILWAY CONSTRUCTION

Taranaki Herald, Volume LX, Issue 143764, 12 April 1912, Page 2

RAILWAY CONSTRUCTION

In another column Mr. W. Blair, of Pohokura, criticises our remarks of a few days ago on the subject of railway construction. Ho lirst reviews railway construction, past and present, his statements being, we are ready to admit, substantially correct, thougn wo do not subscribe to his inference that railways sliould always be constructed to carry the maximum of traffic from the commencement. A light line may suffice to carry all the traffic for ton or twenty years. When, in the natural course of things, the line requires renewing, if the traffic demands it heavier rails maybe put down and the line otherwise improved. Seventy-pound rails have their life limitations, and if they rust away before tho traffic is heavy enough to need them it is a needless extravagance to lav them instead of forty-pound. So if two sleepers will carry the traffic for their lifetime it is an extravagance to put in three. These are just examples to support the contention that a light line, costing, say, £7OOO a mile, through a new bush country may bo a better system of construction than .-a heavy line adapted for carrying express trains. It is a heavy handicap on a line through new bush country to have to pay £SOO or £6OO a mile interest on cost of construction in addition to the cost of maintenance and working expenses. Turning to the methods of construction, in which wo said there is great waste, Mr. Blair says the methods have progressed very little since the first locomotive was built, that the same tools and appliances are still used, and that the Public. Works Department has plenty of them and gives tho co-operative men every chance to use them. That is where we disagree. We contend that trolley work is being done with wheelbarrows and handcarts. Our information about the shingle is that a five-horse team, at 10s per horse, took little more than half a yard over the saddle. A private indijtidunl who had some shingle carted over the saddle found it cost him £5 a yard for tho carting alone. We saw for ourselves shingle being used the other day which was carted from Pohokura, but which could now bo railed at small expense quite close to the work. With regard to the position of the Whangamomona station, we say that tho township itself is wrongly placed. There is no room for expansion, so confined is the space. If there is to be a town of any size in the valley it must be higher up. Time will show whether the station is rightly or wrongly placed. Mr. Blair’s remarks about a newspaper criticising railway construction do not call for any reply other than to the effect that newspaper editors do not pretend to be omniscient, but usually take care to obtain reliable information and opinions, as we have done in this case, before criticising a matter of which they have no technical knowledge.