RAILWAY SERVICES

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22306, 21 January 1938, Page 7

RAILWAY SERVICES

TO TUB EDITOB 07 THE TRESS. Sir, —Allow me to comment on the North Island main trunk express service between Wellington and Auckland. As one who travels a good deal by rail, 1 should like to know if the Railway Department could not regulate a better schedule than exists at present. The present system caters only for those who desire to travel by night, but all are not anxious to under go this tedious journey, trying hard at intervals to snatch a little sleep while the train speeds along to its destination. Seemingly two express services run daily between Wellington and Auckland and vice versa, and those expresses are both night expresses. I should like to ask the department controlling the service whether this schedule could be altered to suit the whole of the travelling public. I suggest that a daylight trip should be included In the time-table of trains, one express to leave Wellington for Auckland in the evening, arriving at Auckland at about 7 o'clock in the morning, the other service to leave Wellington at about 7 o'clock in the morning, arriving some time in the evening at Auckland, the same services to apply as from Auckland to Wellington. At present the train services are inconvenient and fatiguing to those who travel long journeys. Hoping something will be done in order to improve the present time-table of the running of trains. —Yours, etc., TRAVEL-BY-KAIL. January 17, 1930. ["The suggestion made by your correspondent, 'Travel-by-Rail,' is one which has been already well tried out by the department," states Mr G. H. Mackley, General Manager of Railways, in a reply to the above letter. "For a considerable period three expresses were run each way between Wellington and Auckland, including One known as the 'Daylight Limited,' which left before 8 o'clock in the morning and reached the other terminus of the main trunk line soon after 11 p.m. (These, by the way, are approximately the timings now proposed by your correspondent. The patronage accorded the 'Daylight Limited,' except at Easter and Christmas, proved to be very poor, and at no time did it approach that of the other regular expresses which leave Auckland and Wellington six days weekly at 3 p.m. ('Ordinary' express) and 7.15' p.m. ('limited' express). In view of the very small numbers of passengers whom the 'Daylight Limited' suited, and the poor patronage consequent thereon, the running of this express was discontinued, except for a few days at the Christmas and Easter holiday periods. The prolonged trial of the 'Daylight Limited' as a regular service showed clearly that the great majority of travellers by the North Island Main Trunk line preferred to use trains which make most of their travel during the night hours, and that the comparatively small Tiumber who desired to travel by the 'Daylight Limited* was insufficient to warrant running this service at ordinary times. When standard types of rail-cars are available, however, it may be possible to run daylight rail-car services between Wellington and Auckland to suit the requirements of the comparatively small number who prefer to travel on this route by day."J