SLOW TRAINS.

Auckland Star, Volume XLVI, Issue 61, 12 March 1915, Page 3

SLOW TRAINS.

(To the Editor.) Sir, —There is no more convincing example of the exasperating slowness of the suburban railway service than that afforded by the 5.40 pan. outward Mercer train. In the short trip of fifteen miles to Manurewa the time usually occupied is seventy minutes, but as I have ibund in a few weeks' brief experience, froir sixty-five to ninety minutes, with possibilities of time extension to which, -I am informed, there ie no known limit. -That the run through to Mercer, a dis.tanev of only forty-three miles, should be thaed for two hours and forty minutes incredible; but that this should be 6ub]ect to conditions that frequently unduly protract the journey is intolerable. The hardship thus inflicted is the more galling, not only because avoidable, but because most of the passengers are country settlers, many of whom live at long distances from the railway line, and even - incidental delay must intensify the inconvenience and discomfort of their long homeward drive in the advancing hours of darkness. An additional cause for dissatisfaction is the invariable obstruction of the 5.40 train for ten or fifteen minutes —sometimes more—at Penrose, and often at Otahuhu and other stations as well, to allow certain inward bound trains to pass. As the latter do not appear on the time-table, and are evidently not intended for passengers, any such interference with the regular service is quite unwarrantable, and might be avoided by holding back the non-pas-Benger trains at Otahuhu, Westfield, Southdown, or wherever and whenever required. It i≤, I believe, an axiom in railway management that the convenience and necessities of the travelling public should supersede all other eonsidera- . tions. —l am, etc, MANUREWA YlL'ii-U.