METHVEN BRANCH LINE.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume XXIX, Issue 7733, 1 March 1909, Page 2

METHVEN BRANCH LINE.

To the Editor. frT^ n the 19th of last month you published an account of your reporter's mtemew with the Honf J. A. Millar^ Minister for Railways, in which Mr Millar made special reference to the iVLethven branch as one that did not warrant the running of two trains per day, and even one train was run at a loss to the Department. To the majority of people, who are not accustomed to the Department's method of making their figures prove anything they wish, this statement is very misleading. . ' As one of the deputation which waited upon the Hon. W. Hall-Jones in Wellington last year with reference to the running of two trains per day 1 may say that the then Minister for i Railways made practically the same statement that Mr Millar did to your representative; but on going through the figures we found that, while the branch line is charged with the full average cost of train running—namely, os per mile—it was only credited with the passenger returns, and no credit whatever is given for goods revenue or a percentage for feeding the main lines; _ and as the Methven branch is essentially goods traffic, yon will readily see how unfair this treatment is. If, as the Minister states, the Methven branch docs not pay, then assuredly very few lines in the dominion do, for it has only one stationmastor on its twenty-two miles of railway, against (say) the Oxford; brunch, which has four stationiHasters in the same length of line, and not nearly so much goods traffic. The real facts arc that the* Methven district has put up with the inconvenience of its ona train per day for many years, and naturally the new Minister and his Department, in tlieir desire for retrenchment, are anxious to cut down, the working expenses as muoit as j possible ; but they ought to .remember | that the extra train can be run with the addition of two men to the staff and the same rolling-stock that works the one train, and which now lies idle nt Rakaia all day. Also, it is desirable that we should have some improvements in our mail service. At the- present time, if a letter is posted in Christchurch on Thursday afternp.oll at 5 o'clock, an answer cannot be obtained until Monday afternoon ; and, again, we get our morning newspapers at P> o'clock in the evening, and we are only fifty-eight miles from Christchurch by rail. JAMES OARR. Methven, March 1, 1909.