RAIL RECORD.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 223, 20 September 1938, Page 5

RAIL RECORD.

TRAFFIC IN N.S.W.

MILLIONS OF JOURNEYS.

AIR-CONDITIONING PLANS. (From Our Own Correspondent.) SYDNEY, September 15. Facts revealed in the annual report of the New South Walee railways, for the year ended June 30, have astonished the Department itself. They reveal a record of 189,000,000 passenger journeys, which is equal to about 70 journeys a year for every man, woman and child in the State, and it is expected that in the current ,r ear thia record will be eclipsed by 11,000,000.

As half the population of the State is concentrated within the metropolitan area of Sydney, suburban journeys naturally dominate the position. They number 170,700,000, compared with 12,(500,000 on country lines. The traffic on the west side of the underground railway loop (that is, from the Central Railway Station to the Town Hall and Wynyard) showed an increase of 1,340,000 passenger journeys, but traffic on the east side, from Central to the Museum and St. James' Stations, declined by 005,000 journeys. The explanation of thie state of affairs lies in the fact that the Underground loop is still uncompleted, although the work of joining up St. James' to Wynyard by completing the city loop round Circular Quay hae been going on a long time. At present underground trains from the east side run to a dead end at St. James , , whereae on the west eide from Wynyard they run out over the harbour bridge and on to the North Shore suburbs. Last year the railways had to pay more than £6.400,000 in statutory payments, including £5,300.000 interest, £710,000 exchange and £530.000 sinking fund. But for these heavy compulsory obligations, the report states, fares could have been out by at least 50 per cent. Peak Not Reached. The railway authorities think that, in spite of these high traffic figures, the peak is still a long way off if services can be made more attractive. They do not see, however, how they can greatly increase speeds, except at a prohibitive capital cost. The main trouble involved is the straightening of excessively curved sections of the railway lines.

The Department has announced that as soon as possible it will air-condition all long-distance country trains. Victoria was the pioneer in air-condition-ing railway trains in Australia, first applying it to the Sydney express, which rune from Melbourne to the New South Wales border at Albury. The MelbourneSydney line climbs over high country, where the nights can be very cold, although through the day the train may be travelling in very hot weather through dry and' dusty regions, and the introduction of air-conditioning was an immediate success. Since then the New South Wales Railway Department has inaugurated several air-conditioned Diesel railcare on country lines, and these have resulted in such a notable increase of traffic that the Department has now decided to air-condition all its country trains as fast as finance will permit.