SUMMER TIME

Evening Post, Volume CVIII, Issue 83, 4 October 1924, Page 8

SUMMER TIME

EFFECT ON RAILWAYS

MR. M'VILLY'S EVIDENCE.

If daylight saving comes into operation in New Zealand through*, the passing of the Summer Time Bill, the effect will scarcely be noticeable so far as the railways are concerned. That is the effect of the evidence given by Mr. R. W. M'Villy, General Manager of Railways, as reported in the minutes of the Summer Time Bill Committee.

Mr. M'Villy said-in his evidence that if the time of the clock was put forward an hour in the summer time, and put back an hour in the winter, he did not think it would affect the time-tables at- all. It would work automatically. The trains would' mostly have finished their journeys on the day before the alteration was made in the time, and would start at the new time on the following day. "We would save about an hour's lighting. That is all. That is the position so far as we are concerned.'! In reply to Mr. Sidey, he said there was absolutely nothing in the suggestion that difficulties would- be experienced in connection with the time-table.

The saving in lighting of the railways, he said, in reply to a further question, would lie worth taking into' consideration; it , would aggregate to a large amount in a year. The lighting of engines was being more and more done with electric headlights. In the -carriages, Pintsch gas was used, except on the Main Trunk and more important trains, which were being ' equipped, with electricity. Mr. Sidey then said: "It has been suggested that the time of receiving milk at the factories is determined by the time that the railway train runs, and that as the dairy farmer works by daylight and not by the clocks, he will have one.hour less to get his milk ready for the train. The question I want to ask is whether you see any difficulty in connection with such cases in making a modification of your time-table during the time that the summer time would be in operation?" Mr. M'Villy replied: "The position there would be that the time-table would automatically become fixed by the alteration of the clock, but so far as the arranging of the time-table -is concerned the runs of the trains are fixed according to the requirements of the business, and to enable us to give the people the bestfacilities. .. . So far as the running of additional trains to meet the requirements of the dairy factories or any other class of country traffic is concerned, that would, as at present, depend entirely on the condition of the lines, and the; number of trains on the lines. There are lines to-day. in which it.is not possible to put an additional train on at a certain hour. For instance, out of Welling-' ton there are only two periods in the day, of about an hour each, where we could fit a train in at all, and the same thing applies to some extent to Dunedin, Christchurch, and more particularly Auckland, both north and south. It is an exceedingly difficult thing to get a train in there at all."

Reverting to the question of lighting, in reply to Mr. Hockly, Mr. M'Villy said that the alteration would not "cut both ways" by involving extra lighting in the mornings, because it was daylight before the trains would start running. In reply to Mr. Smith, Mr. M'Villy said that on the day of the change one train, and one only; would be affected— the Main Trunk express from Auckland. This would bo running on the old schedule till it finished its journey, and the crossing times would have to "be altered, so that it could run an hour late (on time-table) from about Raurimu.