RAILWAY ADMINISTRATION.

Press, Volume LX, Issue 18089, 3 June 1924, Page 11

RAILWAY ADMINISTRATION.

TO TK ZDITOB o* . Sir,-The persistence with which you have urged the need for overhauling the railway service from top to bottom has borne fruit. I n maki arrangements for a thorough investigation by the English railway experts whose names you suggested, the Government has been we,l advised, as both gentlemen have unrivalled first-hand knowledge ot their subject— a knowledge which could not he approached by any of. tho New Zealanders whose names were mentioned in some quarters in t'ais connexion. it may interest your readers if the notes you supplied regarding Sir Sam Fay and Sir Vincent Raven are supplemented by a few details. Kir Sam Fav has been a railwayman for fifty years, your notes tell us. You also mention that he is one of the directorate of two South American railways. To go back further in his railway career it may be said that he was at one time superintendent of the line of the London and South-Western Railway, nnd that previously he had raised the Midland and South-Western Junction Railway from almost bankruptcy to prosperity. He became General Manager of the Great Central Railway on the resignation of Sir Wm. Poliitt in 1901, and as a railway authority tersely put it, he was "the very man to pilot the Great Central Railway to success if wide experience in railway matters could effect it." The whole history of the Great Central Railway is a' record of steady progress conditions which would have defeated any ordinary mortal, and from the date of his appointment Sir Sam Fay has tackled and surmounted difficulties bevond number. A magnificent record, and one which encourages us to hope for many practical suggestions born of a vrst experience. Of Sir Vincent L. Raven, the public may not have heard so much, but his record, too,, is beyond the ordinary. . You speak of the nature of his war services and state that he has lately been technical adviser to the North-Eastern Railway. In the same Company's service at an earlier period —-somewhere about 1910—he succeeded Mr Wilson Worsdell as chief mechanical engineer, and he has apparently been following hard on Mr Worsdell who, in June, 1910, assumed the position of consulting mechanical engineer, the post you mention as having been lately held by Sir Vincent Raven. , These, then, are a few points from the railway records of the gentlemen you were thoughtful enough to suggest should be asked to help the Government. It would be unwise to expect great results from the investigations made by these experts, unless the Government is bold • to act without caring if it offends the susceptifiilities of those who, for years, have been satisfied that they possessed all the experience required to manage the Dominion's -railways. Some "heads" may feel sore when their views are subjected to the scrutiny of two keen experts versed in the best methods of coaxing or forcing a decrepit service to stand on its own feet properly.—Yours, etc., ' SCOTTIE. June 2nd. 1024. .