LIVE STOCK TRAFFIC.

Waikato Times, Volume 105, Issue 17605, 9 January 1929, Page 8

LIVE STOCK TRAFFIC.

MOTOR COMPETITION.

RAILWAYS LOSING BUSINESS. TRANSPORT OF SHEEP. AUCKLAND, Wednesday. Mr J. Elliott, North Island representative on the executive council ot the A.S.R.S., said yesterday that he had just returned from a tour of the Hastings district, where he had had the opportunity to see something of tn motor-bus and motor-lorry business that was taking such a large sum annually from the railways. “ I travelled on a motor-lorry, fitted up with an overhead frame similar to a sheep-truck,” said Mr Elliott. ‘ The carrying firm that owned this truck had six other similar trucks, and by them was shifting thousands of sheep daily from the big sheep farms around the Hawke’s Bay district, some o_ which were adjacent to the railway line. These lorries carry from 90 to 180 lambs, and the firm in question delivers almost all the lambs required dailv by the Whakatu Freezing Works although no less than 6,500 lambs were slaughtered at the works last The lorry on which Mr Elliott travelled was maintaining a speed of from 25 to 30 miles an hour, from 6 a.m. until 8 p.m. He was emphatic in his opinion that if the Railway Department allowed this sort of competition to continue unchallenged, the livestock traffic department was in jeopardy. , , “In addition to the sheep-trucks, this firm has secured several horse-box frames, capable of housing five- horses. These frames can be adjusted in a few minutes and the frames for the sheep discarded,” said Mr Elliott.