Taking two trips over the Kaimai Ranges recently I noted, on each occasion, 12 fully-laden log trucks and trailer units were heading for the Port of Tauranga.

Also recently, one of the aforementioned units became impaled upon a bank, on the wrong side of the road, if my memory serves me correctly.

The question is not how did the vehicle arrive in that situation, but what are log trucks doing on the Kaimais?

There will now be many arms raised in horror, asking how else are the logs supposed to arrive at the Port? The answer is simple. Load them on to railway wagons.

Construct an area at the nearest rail track to the producing forest. There must be one closer to the plantation than in the Port of Tauranga.

Trucks will still be required, obviously, to transport loads to the rail. If there are 12 log-carrying vehicles within say a 30-minute period, how many must there be during 24 hours?

Another part of the North Island has been using this method for a couple of years, to transport logs to a Port. Work has commenced to extend that operation as more and more trees reach maturity.

To take the operation a step further wouldn't it be heavenly for shop-owners and residents if there were no log transporting units trundling through Katikati every day.
How possible? Once again, simple. All logs from the Coromandel area could be taken to Waitoa and railed to the Port. Even better would be to extend the existing track to Kopu. Logs would also be carried by rail into Port Chalmers.

It's been suggested rail is on the decline, perhaps there's ways to bring it back to life.
Should the above go ahead, there will be need for more log-carrying wagons.

And with Mr Cunliffe promising to re-open the Dunedin Railway workshops, they can be produced in New Zealand, not imported from China.

This also may lead to more locomotives being required, And let us have clean-burning Canada or USA models, not environmentally-unfriendly Chinese make. These will be dearer for sure but far superior.

I Grace, Tauranga City.