LIGHT RAILWAYS FOR NEW ZEALAND.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 9022, 8 January 1908, Page 5

LIGHT RAILWAYS FOR NEW ZEALAND.

(By Fredk. Black, A.M. Inst. E.E. (Published By Special Arrangement). 11. There is but one good commercial reason why, if a railway is built at all, it should be a light railway, and that is the existence (or prospective existence) of only a moderate traffic a traffic that is insufficient to pay the working expenses and capital charges of a standard line. There are not a few bi'aneh lines in .New Zealand that never should have been built except as light railways; the traffic on them, while doubtless good for the district served, is altogether inadequate for anything but a light system. The usual reasons, prompting the building of branches to correspond more or less with a main line, are absence for any need for trans-shipping goods at the junction, and convnience of traffic operation. The trans-shipment-cost reason is a bogey; experience is plentiful enough on this point, and in the United Kingdom the figures never exceed 4d a ton, except where very fragile goods , are concerned. On coal freights, where hopper cars are used, and the hoppers hoisted from the light railway trucks on to main line trucks,' two or more going on each of the latter. The trans-shipment cost is about three-farthings per ton. If it be taken that under New.Zealand conditions the cost would be twice these -amounts, what does it profit, consignors that they save Sd on each ton, and at the same time lose probably two or three shillings in having to pay standard railway freight charges? It is obvious that, with light lines costing a quarter or athird the money of standard ones,/ built in districts of moderate traffic and feeding the main line, the allround rates for rail service generally must be less than where a goodly proportion of the railway system is too expensive a machine for the total amount of work it can possibly get to;dp;rAfter all, freight charges must be bsi&ed in some degree upon the cost of the service, and the cost of the service is largely made up of interest on capital invested. The argument as to convenience, in working traffic, simply means that no -special rolling stock is required for sole use on the standard branch railway. It ignores the fact that the outlay for rolling stock on a light railway is trivial compared with the saving effected with not having to build a comparatively heavy track, erect massive bridges, form costly embankments, make deep cuts or tunnels, and use large radius curves. Of course there are occcasions when even a light railway constructed on a public road requires earthworks and special bridges, but the cost of these will not be a quarter of the amount necessary for the standard railway. If then a substantial saving on the building and equipping of the light line, as against the building of the standard can be made, the economy ar.d convenience arising from the employment of main line rolling stock are obtained at an excessive price, ar.d are not worth having. It would be foolish to assert/the superiority of the light railway for all branch lines. Ic has its limitations, in carrying canacHv, in speed, and in earning power. The future of a district must be considered rmicu mors than its present state, and if in any case there is scope for a traffic that would really tax the capacity of the cheaper system, and a reason-,, able prospectT)f realising this condition within five or six years, the light railway, clearly, is unsuitable l for it. So far as New Zealand is I concerned, there are very few dk-x tricts of this kind, if those lying in the track of future main line railways are excluded from consideration; as regards standard branch lines already built, anyone may judge how far the districts they serve were and are deserving of the expenditure, by notfng on how many of them only two, four or six trains per week are run. , The widespread demand for standard branch lines cannot be met at present, because'the Government has no money available to build even the most promising lines, but how many of the districts interested remember that at any time, capital, whether wanted by Government or local bodies, is only obtainable in a limited quantity within a given period, if it is to be at a reasonable price? To hold out, therefore, fjr the more expensive type of line can result in nothing else than prolonging the time of waiting for the majority. The frank adoption of a light railway policy will mean transport facilities at a near date for many districts that otherwise will not see a railway for the next generation.