The Whanganui District Council may have found a way to lessen the impact on the district's roads from increased numbers of logging trucks.
Council's infrastructure and special projects committee was told on Wednesday that KiwiRail may open up its Taupo Quay yards to logging companies, thus relieving the pressure on roads leading to the Eastown rail yards where logs are currently going to.
Logging activity has increased and is set to ramp up further from next year onwards with 15 years worth of forests coming on stream for harvesting in what council has described as a "wall of wood."
The damage to the district's roads from the logging trucks means council faces a shortfall over the next 10 years in its roading budget - possibly as much as $60 million - and has had to defer scheduled works to complete more urgent repairs, notably to Okoia, Marangai and Eastown roads.
Council managers told councillors they need to act quickly and work out a way to recoup the money that is expected to be spent on road repairs as a result of damage from logging trucks.
While a meeting to discuss the issue in depth is scheduled for later in the year, councillors were updated at Wednesday's meeting, where there was some potentially good news.
Infrastructure manager Mark Hughes said council had approached KiwiRail about using its Taupo Quay yard instead of Eastown as the city's logging hub. KiwiRail was receptive and said it would discuss the issue with its clients.
Principal planner Jonathan Barrett said it was "manifestly obvious"the roading infrastructure around Eastown Road will not cope with current and future levels of logging activity.
"The obvious site is the existing rail yards at Taupo Quay. That site has considerable potential ... there's significant under use of that area," Mr Barrett said.
"It has the added bonus of having direct and very quick access to State Highway Three - for traffic entering and leaving the depot."
Reports on the impact of the increased logging on district roads were underway and were expected to be finalised within the next several weeks.