I was interested in the letter from Mr Grace pointing out the amount of logs being carried by trucks rather than rail. I would be pretty certain that railfreight business managers compete hard for this trade. However the logging trucks are pretty efficient and can pick up from source and deliver to the port whereas rail needs to get the logs to a railhead first and that adds to costs. It comes down to economics.

Mr Grace also mentions Mr Cunliffe's pipe dream promise to reopen the Dunedin railway workshops and suggests producing log wagons, which are probably not needed anyway.

In reality the workshops there have long struggled to make a business case for their continuance.

It was only due to the ‘windfall' business of the Auckland Rail Project team for some five years and tens of millions of dollars from Auckland ratepayers for the fleet of locomotive hauled SA trainsets, which provided private sector revenue and a base load that ensured survival of the Dunedin workshops. When that programme completed, as Auckland turned to electric trains - what then?

The Dunedin workshops were advised on many occasions to use this windfall time wisely, to develop private sector contacts, business and secure ongoing work. It never happened!

The only way Mr Cunliffe can provide work for the Dunedin workshops is by fabricating wagons, in what is essentially a batch type operation workshop, that are able to be purchased at a much lower price from high volume/lower cost plants overseas.

Economically, that cannot be justified. As there is no free lunch, taxpayers all round the country would pay the difference in costs to keep what is an elderly workshop alive.

And what happens when those alleged batch of wagons are completed? Heavy engineering factories need continual, sustained productive hours to survive, otherwise they fail.

Another sound argument for procuring elsewhere and letting an overseas workshop have this problem.

D Hallett, Mount Maunganui