KAIAPOI RAILWAY STATION.

Press, Volume XXII, Issue 2680, 10 March 1874, Page 5 (Supplement)

KAIAPOI RAILWAY STATION.

TO THE EDITOR OP THE PBESS.

Sib, —The inconveniences which beset the Kaiapoi railway station are legion. In the first place the station is utterly regardless of comfort and placed where it ought not to be, viz., in close proximity to the North road. The waiting rooms, kc, are away from the platform, so that passengers in wet weather get soaking wet in passing from the station to the trains ; those with corns may put up with walking along a rough stony path to the foot of the platform, and others may put up with a climb on to the platform up a gangway placed at an abrupt angle. Those who alight from the railway carriages, which do not reach the platform (it only holds about three carriages), can perhaps better describe the perilous feats which they have to perform than I can; but I have repeatedly seen some awkward falls to persons getting down in this way. As every train has waggons to shunt at this station, another inconvenience is the. stoppage and detention of the down trains some chains from the platform, till the waggons have been uncoupled and passed on to another line ; whereas the platform should be so placed that those intending to alight could do so while the Bhunting was going on.

At very little additional expense the present platform could be removed, lengthened by thrice its present length, and the station buildings placed upon a level with it, doing away also with the existing risk of passengers running out of the station door against a passing train. On more than one occasion I have been eve witness to narrow escapes here.

Coming to the goods department, there is a shed which at this season cannot contain one half of the grain that ought to come to it. Grain is refused When the shed is full and has to be taken away again in wet weather, because the station has no such things as tarpaulins. If the grain can be taken in strings of drays ale kept waiting for hours, owing to the fact that the small weighing machine of the establishment only weighs about four sacks at a time and is an imperfect machine at that. The goods accommodation certainly requires to be increased to thrice its present extent with a covered shed in which waggons can load or unload in all weathers. A weigh bridge by which the weight of a dray load of grain could be checked in less than a minute would materially facilitate the unloading, and saving the time of the men employed in the shed would thus be advantageous to tbe Government. With the officials I have no fault to find, but have repeatedly Been that they must lose much time in going from the station to the goods shed. Yours, &c, X. Kaiapoi, 9th March, 1874.