LYTTELTON RAIL SERVICE

Press, Volume XC, Issue 27373, 11 June 1954, Page 10

LYTTELTON RAIL SERVICE

SOME CARRIAGES TO BE REPLACED MINISTER’S ASSURANCE “As a borough of about 4000, the people of Lyttelton are getting a very very raw deal. If the people of Fendalton had been placed in the same position there would have been some alteration years ago as far as travelling to and from the city is concerned,” said the Mayor of Lyttelton (Mr F. G. Briggs) when a deputation from the Lyttelton Borough Council met the Minister of Railways (Mr W. S. Goosman) last evening to discuss the rail service to the port. Mr Goosman promised better carriages for the service within a few months.

The service was an electrified one, and on most clays there were five carriages, said Mr Briggs. Two of them were half-lit by electricity, the other three by gas. In the province’s centennial year some 30-year-old carriages from the North Island had been made available.

“Tiiis was for the Spirit of Progress—sorry—centennial train.” Mr Briggs said. “Now we are back to the same carriages as we had when I was going to school. Ido not think they are hygienic, and I think it is time we got something reasonable.” Mr Briggs said that on a recent Friday evening r sub-station at Heathcote had blown out, and Lyttelton people using the train had not arrived home until 1.30 a.m., after waiting, on a cold station from 10.30 p.m. The department had not sent a bus to take the people to the port. From Christchurch alone, there were about 600 workers going to and from the port by train every day, said Cr. A. M. Miller. Carriages with the old type of long benches gave inadequate service.

The District Traffic Manager of Railways (Mr E. M. Farr) said only five or six of the carriages mentioned had been sent tef Christchurch. About two years ago, before he arrived, they had been absorbed in the express and ferry services, he said. There was a shortage of better-class carriages.

“That is rather a breach of faith,” said Mr Goosman. “I asked for those carriages to be put there for the Lyttelton people. They should not have been shifted. “We have been more or less let down by the manufacturers,” said Mr Goosman. “We"should have been receiving two rail-cars a month from February. The first ones have been shipped. Some will be coming to the South Island, and will be replacing some of the express carriages which will be used in your service from Lyttelton, and the older carriages discarded. That should happen in the next few months.”

To Mr Briggs, Mr Goosman said that rail-cars were too expensive for a •small and diminishing service such as the Lyttelton line. Referring to Mr Briggs’s complaint about the lack of buses during the power cut, Mr Goosman said that in his experience the department had always jumped into the breach in an emergency. Mr Farr said buses had been provided. The department’s senior transport ms.n was there and had arranged it all. He had been called out on duty the moment the emergency arose.