A FASTER SERVICE

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 21, 26 January 1925, Page 8

A FASTER SERVICE

BETWEEN LOWER HUTT AND

CITY

HALF : HOtJR RAILWAY TIMETABLE.

Residents of Lower Hutt and Petone and neighbouring districts in the Lower Hutt Valley, have long looked forward to the time when they may be connected with the city by a faster arid more frequent train service. One step towards the realisation of that hope will be accomphshed shortly, when the new rail motor coach, which is now being experimented with by'the railway authorities, comes into commission. • The coach only recently arrived in Wellington, and is being fitted and altered in some respects. Speed trials are being conducted, and-as soon as the results are sufficiently definite a time-table will be prepared for a faster service than that at present provided, to be run by the new coach. ' x '

The aim of the Railway Department is to run a half-hourly service ' to the Lower Hutt district, but before this can be arranged additional carriages, of the same or similar type to that now being experimentednwith will have to ■ be brought into commission. There is on. order another coach of the same design as-that already landed, and later a third of different design will be obtained for the Hutt line service. It is not anticipated that the regular half-hourly service will be maintained until these extra vehicles arrive, but in the meantime the new locomotive coach will run trips to and from the northern shore of the harbour, which will at any fate add materially totbe present service ' new time-table will be drafted in the course o! a few 'days, and the motorcoach will probably be running in about a fortnight. It is said to be capable of a speed of 45 miles an hour, and present tests go to show that the travelling time between the city and Lower Hutt will be reduced to about twelve or fourteen minutes.

As already-, explained in "The Post," the_ coach is not intended to haul heavy trains or a number, of carriages. The driving mechanism is compressed into very small space at one end of the carnage,, and the passenger accommodation is sufficient for forty or fifty people.