STRATFORD MAIN LINE

Waipa Post, Volume 48, Issue 3470, 24 May 1934, Page 2

STRATFORD MAIN LINE

COST OVER £3,000,000. NOT YET PAYING ITS WAY. In answer to a question at Ohura on Monday evening, Mr. H. H. Sterling (chairman of the Railways Board) said that, the cost of the completion of the Stratforcl-Okahukura line was over three millions sterling, or £33,000 per mile. For the hist three months of operation, the line had earned from local and through traffic £B3OO above the former earning, the cost of working being approximately £IO,OOO. The total annual interest bill was £130,85G. He said he did not expect the line to pay even its working expenses at first, for it took time to develop business, but what he did expect was that the line should earn not only_ its operating expenses but also sufficient to pay interest on the amount (about C 80,000) that had been required to complete the work; in other words, meet the £IB,OOO it cost to open and operate the line, without, of course, taking into consideration the interest on the original three millions sterling sunk in the undertaking. He made a strong and eloquent apeal for the support of the district not_ only in promoting and extending business but in keeping down expenditure of operI ation. In this way they could justify the present service and save the line.