PRAMS ON TRAMS

Evening Post, Volume CXXVIII, Issue 63, 12 September 1939, Page 4

PRAMS ON TRAMS

AN OLD DIFFICULTY

NEW CARS AMD PRAM STYLES

Prams on trams are an old problem, to the tramway department as well as to mothers,, and no one has so far found a satisfactory way round the difficulty. Now, said Mrs. Jowett, speaking for the Plunket Society of Wellington to the tramways committee yesterday, the position has become worse through the adoption of the new style of enclosed tram, on which still less provision has been made for prams.

Prams, she said, are not the cumbersome things they were formerly, and when folded up did not occupy a great deal of space. The Plunket Socieiy had trained the mothers- of Wellington, to some extent, to use types of pram that could be conveniently carried, but the new trams had brought fresh troubles. She suggested that when the council was building more trams more consideration should be given to the needs of young mothers. The Mayor, Mr. T. C. A. Hislop,. who is chairman of the committee, said that the council and the department were fully sympathetic and would do all that could be done to make the lot of mothers travelling by tram comfortable. LIMITATIONS ON SPACE. There are particular difficulties of tramway design in Wellington which reduce platform space, said officers of the department today. The two main restrictive factors are the narrow streets in the centre of the city, which mean close spacing of tram tracks and consequently limit the width of car bodies, and the sharp curves which have to be taken at certain points, which keep down over-all car lengths. Between them, these two conditions complicate design and result in the packing up of every foot of space under the floor with motor, brake, and control equipment, and above the floor clearances have to be worked down to inches. It is this fine margin which has made difficulties in the new Fiducia cars, which in all other .respects are highly popular with passengers as a great advance on former types.

Prams have not been carried during the afternoon rush period, from halfpast four to six o'clock, for long enough, and the tramway regulations limit the measurements of prams and push-carts, when folded, to 33in by 20Jin by 23in; generally conductors have applied an elastic rule to those measurements. Pushchairs have never given much trouble. Fashions in prams have changed and larger hoods are fitted, so that often the regulation limits are badly stretched, without pillows and parcels, and whereas two and three small folding prams or pushchairs could be taken on the platforms of the old type cars not more than one of the heavier folding prams can be put on board the new trams, and some of them will not go past the hand rail and the small partition on the platform. They cannot be double-banked without strong protest from the mothers concerned.

The tramway department is no more happy than the mothers. Some of the conductors have suggested, fairly enough, that more consideration could be shown them in the tonnage of prams, for they are expected to —and do —lift to the platforms half a week's groceries as well as the pram. Prams on buses are another trouble. Carriers are provided at the rear, but representations have been made to the council that drivers should not be asked to leave their seats when loaded buses pull up on steep grades. The council had this request before it at a recent meeting, but a decision was deferred pending an inquiry whether stops could not be altered to points where buses would not stand on grades.

The idea of attaching carriers for prams on tramcars is apparently completely scouted.