That ship has sailed, but could it

That ship has sailed, but could it come back?

CINDY JEMMETT

Waterways and coastal routes were New Zealand’s first highways. Settlements and trading centres flourished around natural harbours. Overland travel was difficult and slow, and coastal shipping, first by waka and sailboat and later by steam and motorboat, was the main means of transporting goods and people. Throughout the 20th century, major changes in technology, infrastructure and government policy saw coastal shipping all but disappear.

Small one- and two-mast sailing vessels were a common sight around the New Zealand coast through the 1840s–1860s, carrying everything from building materials and fuel, to food and livestock. By the 1870s, steamers predominated. Unlike sailboats, they could run to set timetables and offered a reliable freight service. Motorboats, running on diesel rather than coal, were the next engineering advance. These vessels made their appearance in the mid-1920s. Compared to steamers, they were much more fuel-efficient and did not require stoking.

Competition from rail and road

In the second half of the 20th century, competition from rail and roads saw a sharp decline in coastal shipping. Rail could deliver freight directly to inland settlements. It offered faster, more frequent delivery schedules and did not rely on port handling. Its only weakness was it couldn’t cross the Cook Strait.

This changed in 1962 with the introduction of the Railways Department ship, Aramoana, which operated between Wellington and Picton. It provided a roll-on, roll-off freight service, connecting the North and South Island railway networks.

The vessel could carry 34 rail wagons or a mix of wagons, trucks and buses, as well as 31 cars on an upper vehicle deck. In its first year of operation it transported 181,000 tonnes of freight, 46,000 cars and 207,000 passengers. The Railways introduced a second ship in 1966, and by 1974 had four roll-on, roll-off ferries on the Wellington–Picton run.

Containers reduce turnaround times

Another innovation in coastal shipping was the introduction of containers in the 1970s. Time spent at the wharf loading and unloading cargo was expensive. Containers reduced turnaround times significantly by allowing ships to become larger, as savings made by economies of scale were no longer offset by costly time spent at the wharf.

The New Zealand Ports Authority selected a small number of ports big enough to handle the new, large container ships to be fitted out with container handling facilities. Smaller vessels whose bread and butter had been short coastal runs fell away, unable to compete with the container ships for scale or the railways for short-haul convenience and flexibility. By the mid-1970s, almost the only ships left on purely coastal runs carried bulk cargo of cement or oil. These were purpose-built vessels chartered by cement and oil companies.

Trucking on

Along with new technologies, government policy played a large part in shifting modes of freight delivery and influencing which transport infrastructure was prioritised and developed. In the 1930s, trucks began to take a share of the short-haul freight business. To protect the state-owned railways, the government introduced distance limits for trucking and used a licensing system to restrict vehicles to carrying specific types of freight within set areas. In 1936, trucking distance limits were set at 48km, but these were extended to 67km in 1961 and 150km in 1977. Deregulation between 1983 and 1986 saw all trucking limits and goods area licensing removed. Trucking offered pointto-point flexibility and used the public infrastructure of the roads rather than specialised port or rail facilities. By the 2000s, most freight in New Zealand was transported by road.

And what of the future? Environmental and social impacts are not always easily measured in dollar terms or counted against a company’s operating costs. Instead, these are borne by local and central government and communities. Pollution, noise, congestion, road safety, city liveability, and human and environmental health should be central to decisions around future freight transport. Could coastal shipping and rail again play a larger part in our freight transport network? History shows us the influence of technology, legislation, and economics. To this equation we must add our environmental and social values.

Cindy Jemmett is Heritage Advisor at Te Ao Rangahau.

Nelson wharf scene. Jones, Frederick Nelson, 1881-1962. Ref: 1/2-025918G. Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand.

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