MAIN TRUNK LINE.

Bush Advocate, Volume XXI, Issue 118, 17 November 1908, Page 5

MAIN TRUNK LINE.

ALTERATION IN TIMES. [PBESB ASSOCIATION.] WELLINGTON, yesterday. Tho overland route to Auckland, oven though it takes longer than, tho combined soa and rail journey via New Plymouth, is already so popular that the traffic has outgrown tho facilities. It i 9 quite possible, of course, to carry all the passengers desiring to travel over the Main .Trunk line, .but on the journey south there is usually great inconvenience at Marton Junction because through travellers have to find seats on the already filled mail train. It has been suggested that special coaches for the Main Trunk passengers should be attached to tho mail train, but two engines are already required, and any further loading might interfere with punctuality. The Railway Department is fully alive to the disadvantages of ' the present temporary system, but one of its leading officers explained to a New Zealand Times representative, that very little can be done to improve matters until the Manawatu line is under Government control. Passenger traffic has set in from places even as close to New Plymouth as Stratford, fifteen persons' booking from that station in one day recently. Tho one-day through service will be started sooner than was at first anticipated, probably the middle of December. But even if this satisfactory method of relieving the present New Plymouth mail train is not promptly available, the Railway Department will run independent trains to and from Auckland. The north-hound train leaving the Manawatu station- at 10 a.m., it will reach Ohakune, the over-night stoppingplace, about tho same time" as at present.