The Progress of the Napier-Woodville Railway.

Waipawa Mail, Volume X, Issue 1062, 22 March 1887, Page 2

The Progress of the Napier-Wood-ville Railway.

(by one who has watched it). Though the line of railway from Napier to Woodville has not progressed by “ leaps and bounds,” especially that portion of it which lies south of Kopua, it has been interesting. As it has lengthened, a vast country has been settled on and populated, and a huge forest has been made the home of a thousand prosperous people. The railway has contributed much to this advancement, the work which its construction afforded being the means of keeping the wolf from many a dreary door. But I am not going to dwell on the results of the railway, for they are more or less obvious or known. My talk to day is on the actual growth of tlie line, and the incidents connected with it. Kopua was the terminus when T cast my lot in the neighborhood. And a busy little terminus it was, the coaches starting off for the south, the strange faces, the gangs of navvies, the villages of canvas, the hotel, the establishments connected with the resident engineer’s office, the saw mill and its hands, all contributed to make Kopua a. very different place to what it is to-day. The big bridges which now span the Manawatu and the next two rivers were in course of construction, and they were the pride of the place. The engineers took a justifiable pleasure in shewing them to their friends nnd the public, for as works of utility and cleverness of design they are not to be equalled in the colony. Onnondville was a town in name, but scarcely more. The line was not laid up to it yet, though the way was pretty well completed. One or two cottages were standing, but they gave one the impression of being an advance guard rather than a portion of a settlement. This is just what they have proved, nnd the settlement that has followed them has established itself with a rapidity that is perfectly astonishing. The Government township, as now, wag looked upon as removed beyond a possibility of settlement. It was placed down in a big gull)', and it was impossible to find a single reason for that spot being chosen unless it was that there was no deeper gully in the neighborhood. But the energy of tho local settlers soon got to work, and the enterprise of one or two of them rectified the blunder, and a fresh township was speedily put in the -market. Thus did the Government lose what profits they might otherwise have got, had they had the sense of the private individuals. But governments never had, and never will be expected to have that amount of sense, so we will not lose time moralising over their shortcomings. But whilst Ormondville has grown, Kopun lias faded away to utter insignificance. This shews that for a town to live, it must depend upon some country for support. Ormondville lias country ; Kopua has not. Hence we see Ormondville growing and Kopua stone dead. The hotel bad to be removed from the latter place ; the saw mill ceased working ; the engineer officers were lifted bolus bolus on to the railway trucks and carried off to more genial and civilised regions ; whaj

wliares were once occupied became recant and gloomy ; and in a word, it was enough to give a-person the horrors to so much as to look at the desolate desert that took the place of the once busy little terminus. Kopua, as its name almost denotes, is kopo. Peace to its ashes. Meanwhile, we hare to begin thinking of tbe growing centres, and leave the defunct districts to take care of themselves. Now, the-train does not even stop at Kopua, but dashes on down the steep incline, dives on to to the bridge, winds round the three parts of a circle, and finally lands' breathless in the town of Ormondville, now thiobly populated with a town board and all the concomitaut signs of civilisation—less, shall we say less the public house ? Yes.it must be said that this is the only difference between Ormondvillo and the rest of the civilised world, it has no public house. It mav be that tliis want is a further sign of its advancement ; it may be that the oivalisation of the future will be as free from the drink-shops as that of to-day is full of them. But we must judge things from the standard of to-day, and Ortnoudrille is decidedly an exception to the ijule in the one respect mentioned. It has no pub. The thirsty wayfarer must therefore plod along until he reaches the other centres, Danevirke, for instance, where King Liquor reigns supremely and unharasseJ, both of the hotels being gorgeous and keeping open until that bewitching hour of midnight, which is alike well-known to the readers of Shakespeare and to the revellers at the ehrine of Bacchus.

The traveller who merely runs along the railway line in the train has no conception of the immense improvement which the latter is on the twisty and hilly old road. In the olden days, the journey from Makotuku to Danevirke was about the most dreary and tiring in the north island. There was no settlement, with tbe exception of poor little Mataiiiau, which struggled hard to be worthy of such a dignified name, but hardly succeeded, and nil that the rider could see was the endless line of the forest, the interminable, and fearfully fnonotonous rows of pines and undergrowth and tawa. Tbe Piri Piri plain was a slight relief, but it was dreary too, nothing but a few Maori pigs and a single old whare breaking the deathlike stillness which had reigned all the way along. Now, the train leaves Makotuku and before you know where you are lands you at tho first of Danevirke’s throe stations. If you are not bewilbered into getting out you travel on as far as the township itsedf, where the proper station ought to be, but whore it is not. Once there, the most formidable difficulties in the road traffic and ih tiie construction of a railway line to are over. The remainder of the country to be traversed before reaching Woodville is flat and the train should do the seventeen miles in splendid time. The latter part of the journey will form fit subject of description when you ore reporting the opening of the line to Woodville, and indeed these remarks are iuteoded ns an introduction to that same opening ceremony.

Danevirke has enjoyed the advantages of a terminus for some time now, and she is at last called upon to give them up. How will this effect her interests? Probably not very greatly. The business done in the town and settlement lias all along been intimately connected with the productive resources of the place, such as the export of timber, fire-wood cutting, &c. The terminus has not been the same life giver to Danevirke as it was to Kopua, for instance, and there is no reason to suppose that because the train is to run to Woodville, Danevirke is to die a natural death.

But although the settlement in the bush has really made great strides, no one denies that it could have progressed much more quickly than it has. The Government havo not put the land in the market in a manner that will ever enable them to say that all that could bo done has been done. Both in the delays in making surveys and in the mofle of subdivision of the land, a great many faults must be found in the land settlement policy of the bush. However, ignorance has been the cause of tbe blunders, therefore we cannot do more than regret them. But daring the last seven years there has been a wonderful transformation scene all along the line, and it only remains for us to hope that a similar progress will take place as the railway still further forces its way southwards.