UPPER HUTT TRAIN SERVICE

Evening Post, Volume CXV, Issue 130, 5 June 1933, Page 8

UPPER HUTT TRAIN SERVICE

(To the Editor.) Sir—lt was refreshing to read in the columns of "The Post" that an attempt ia being made to improve the local tram and bus services on the run to Wellington, and that a deputation from the Upper Hutt Borough intends to interview the railway administration with a view to securing long-overdue improvements. It is to be sincerely hoped-that the deputation will lay special stress on the extremely unsatisfactory accommodation supplied for second-class passengers on the Upper Hutt run, and press, strenuously for a' supply of modern proper secondclass chair-seated vehicles equipped with steam-heating, and, in the case of night runs, electric lighting, to replace to some extent at least the uncomfortable crosssenters —real back-breakers for a long jourriey—and long-seated bench types of rmri^ages that have for many years past

formed the make-up of all trains between Wellington and Upper Hutt. I am sure that if a few modern cars, say, ten or twelve, were allocated to the Upper Hutt run for use along with firsts (mostly fitted with the necessary steam pipes but through which no steam at present runs) on the three eaz-ly trains to Wellington each morning, and placed next to the engines so that steam heating would replace the existing antiquated and wholly inefficient method by nieans of footwarmers, a long-felt want would be supplied. It is indeed difficult to believe, bearing in mind the amount of public money that has been expended in effecting improvements to the working railways during the last fifteen years, especially in new carriages and in improvements to existing stock, that the whole of the carriages on the Wellington-Upper Hutt run are pre-war stock. There are probably several hundred carriages at the Lambton-Upper Hutt section, and not one modern chair-seated car could be found in regular every-day work. An exception would be the six or so suburban carriages fitted with electric light that appeared several 'years ago. Apart from these, little, if any, change or improvements have been made to second-class travel on the Hutt line for the last thirty years. There are many other matters deserving attention, including fares, frequency of service, speed or running time (and bound up therewith the relative importance of various stopping places or halts), and, lastly, Sunday trains. No doubt all these matters will come up for review; bnt one cannot help but state that suburban residents in general and Uplper Hutt-Silverstream train travellers in particular are smarting over the question of fares. The Railway Board has steadfastly declined to offer any reduction in the workers' weekly or ordinary tickets, and the sore part about it is that' on the day Upper Hutt workers tickets were increased. from 4s 3d to 5s 8d Auckland suburban fares were actually reduced, in the case of Papakura, twenty miles south of Auckland (and the terminus of that suburban area) from 4s 3s to 4s, I believe, and other stations proportionately. Likewise, ordinary tickets for a twenty-mile, spin in the Auckland suburban area were reduced at about the same time from 4s 6cl first and 3s second to 3s first and 2s second, and lesser distances in proportion. On week days firstclass from Upper Hutt to Wellington and return actually costs 4s 6d, while stations further up the line from Mangaroa up to this side of Featherston are let off with 4s first for a journey of anything up to double the milage. The above are definitely not 1933 fares, and it is to be hoped that the board can.be prevailed upon to set aside this unfairness and injustice and reduce local fares to a proper level. — I am, etc., UPPER HUTT.