Better wharf access
One of the largest and most influential deputations that has been received by any Minister of the Crown
in Dunedin for many a long day waited on the Prime Minister, Mr Massey, yesterday forenoon. The chairman of the Otago Harbour board Mr Galbraith said the object of the deputation was to suggest certain alterations in the railway layout, primarily with the object of giving better access to the waterfront. Years ago the Railway Department took 75 acres of very valuable land from the Harbour Board. When the Government built the new railway station it was promised, he believed, that a subway would be constructed to give access from Stuart Street to the foreshore. That had never been done. The Rattray Street crossing was dangerous. A number of accidents had occurred there, and it caused great delays in the traffic to the wharf. The cost would be £400,000 to £500,000 for the whole scheme. The detailed plan showed the proposed elevation of the railway from Pelichet Bay station and going right through the Dunedin station, with traffic subways on each immediate side of the latter, and moving staircases leading to the elevated lines. An elevated carriage yard is showing at the north end, where the Oamaru and
Port Chalmers trains now arrive and depart, and overhead bridges are shown at Frederick, Hanover, and
Jetty streets. Mr Massey replied that he could not possibly commit himself to the details of the scheme put forward, but he was quite willing to have the whole of the proposals exhaustively inquired into at the earliest possible moment. — ODT, 12.2.1921.