RAILWAY MANAGEMENT.

Dominion, Volume 2, Issue 455, 13 March 1909, Page 10

RAILWAY MANAGEMENT.

Sir,—l would lil;o to make public some peculiarities of the management now <ihtnining on the Manawatu line. Son;e days since 1 lmd to take tho 11.35 train to Palmerston—formerly th.o 10.10 a.m. 1 know this, and in my conlkling innocence I reckoned on getting to Palmcrston a good half-hour curlier. Vain hopes! 1 hail a lady with me, and as we had heard that tho second class Manawatu carriages wero fairly comFortablc, thought we would travel secondclass. 1 wandered ulouu the truiu, ami saw I

[ throe Dice second-class carriage's, with cush- : ioncd seats, etc., and meditated entering - one and getting seated for tho six odd hours > trip—more vain hopes. Theso carriages 1 wero reserved. AVe sought out tho other ; second-class carriages, wlion wo saw - that there was not a cushion to sit on oven, ; nothing but hard boards. Wo collapsed, i and took first-class carriages; sis hours on i hard boards was not good enough. The .. three nicely-cushioned carriages, with all tho s latest conveniences, wero left at Plimmerton , for a picnic party, who, possibly consisting > of young children and aged folks, could i not possibly be allowed to sit two hours on i hard boards, hut tho railway officials evidently reckoned hard boards' good enough • for people to sit on all tho way to Palmeri ston. I should also like to point out tho I only latrine in the whole train was in a ■ first-class carriage, tho second-class car- . riages having no conveniences whatever, and ; this, I think, is inexcusable. Wo started [ some 30 minutes earlier than formerly, on i account of tho Auckland mail train, and we wero only detained 50 minutes at Shannon to ailow this mail train to pass us there. Some 80 minutes, altogether, wo lost from start to finish, but in the light of what takes placo on tho Taihape lino, I ought to be deeply grateful for being let off so easy. This train is running just as 1 described it above, and tho New Zealand public is still waiting 50 minutes at Shannon every day to let the mail train pass by. If tho Minister for Railways would patronise these trains, instead of sweeping along in tho through mails, ho would have a very clear understanding what tho New Zealand travelling public has to put up with. Kailway management, they call it; perhaps it is of a sort, but it is entirely out of touch with the public requirements.—l am, etc., HARD SEATS AiND NO CONVENIENCES. March '4.