RAILWAYS MAY BE AFFECTED BY COAL SHORTAGE.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18787, 17 June 1929, Page 5

RAILWAYS MAY BE AFFECTED BY COAL SHORTAGE.

RESERVES NOT BIG, DECLARES MINISTER

The coal shortage was mentioned to the Minister of Railways (the lion W. B. Taverner) in an interview last evening. He said that his Department had not ordered any coal from Wales. The railways undoubtedly were short of coal, and the shortage probably would be further aggravated by the position in Newcastle, but the whole question was receiving the close attention of the Minister of Mines and of himself. He thought that there would be adequate supplies, and the Department was not holding the quantity in reserve it would like to hold. It would like to have greater reserves. Some difficulty had been experienced by gas-producinig concerns, particularly in the south, in getting full supplies of New Zealand coal, owing to a temporary shortage of trucks. He had explained the position to representatives of the concerns. The general position seemed to be that the demand for certain grades of New Zealand coal exceeded the supply., It probably was not generally known that, by means of the modern gasmaking plant known as vertical retorts, it was possible in some cases to use as much as 85 per cent of New Zealand coal. The remaining 15 per cent was imported from Australia. Similarly, the Railway Department, during the past few years, had considerably increased its proportion of New Zealand coal, and consequently had decreased the quantity it formerly was necessary to import.