AUSTRALIA’S RAILWAY PROBLEMS.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXVI, Issue 18431, 15 March 1922, Page 5

AUSTRALIA’S RAILWAY PROBLEMS.

Received March 14, 8.25 p.m. LONDON, March 14. Mr. T. R. Johnson, formerly railway commissioner for New South Wales and lately engineering adviser to the Pekin Board bf Communications, lectured before the Institute of Transport on the railway problems of Australia and China. He endorsed the commission’s recommendation of 1921 for thfe adoption of the New South Wales gauge. He pointed out the overwhelming advantages from the point of view of defence of diverting the proposed North-South line to the eastward, thereby linking up Queensland with the east and west lines. This would be better than the Oodnadatta route. Victoria was, he said, leading the Commonwealth in regard to the electrification of railways. Sir Joseph Cook paid a tribute to Mr. Johnson’s railway services 'in Australia. Well-informed opinion favoured a new south line via Queensland. He deprecated the reference to a “desert line.” He had the best authority for saying that in this territory there were hundreds of millions of acres capable of carrying millions of cattle when bores were in operation and railway transport provided. In the Kimberley area alone there were a hundred million acres of the fines cattle country in the world. Lord Kitchener had repeatedly informed him that he favoured the Queensland overland route, not only for military purposes but from an economic point of view. Mr. Cook advocated spending millions on railway extension and land development, thereby employing hundreds of thousands of immigrants and promoting the expansion of industries.