A BUSY STATION

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVIII, Issue 136, 6 December 1944, Page 4

A BUSY STATION

WELLINGTON FIGURES

In a normal day 16,330 suburban passengers and 3500 long-distance passengers use the Wellington railwaystation, according to evidence given before the Railways Industrial Tribunal yesterday afternoon by Francis G. J. Temm, assistant stationmaster. At holiday periods, he said, the longdistance traffic was more than doubled, while suburban traffic was also considerably increased. On those occasions it was estimated that about 25,000 people were dealt with daily. Mr. Temm said that he had had 37j years' service in the Railways Departi ment. For some years he had been seconded for duty as private secretary to a Parliamentary Under-Secretary, and he claimed to be in a position to say that railway officers compared very favourably with the officers of any other State Department. In his opinion, the remuneration of railway officers, compared with that received in many other Government Departments and taking into account the special responsibilities devolving upon railway officers in safeguarding the travelling public, was low. "Throughout the country the stationmaster is the Railways Department's chief representative in the town in which he is located. He should have equality in professional standing and social status with the local town clerk the bank manager, the postmaster, and the manager or secretary of the local < dairy company," said Mr. Temm. "It is my experience that of all these local officials the railway stationmaster is invariably the lowest paid and unfortunately, social status is measured by most people in terms of income." It was significant that railway officers rarely placed their sons in the railway service, compared to the custom of members of medical and legal professions and business men having their sons follow in their footsteps Mr Temm added. He himself had reared seven sons, but none had entered the railway service. Two had entered the Public Service, but had selected other Departments, and others had entered the commercial world. That, he thought was of some significance. Another witness, William James Power, assistant transport officer, Wellington, also spoke of the volume of traffic at the Wellington station. The suburban passenger traffic, ..he said was particularly heavy, approximately 18,000 people being transported between 7 a.m. and 9 a.m. and between 5 p.m. and 7 p.m. Those figures, to which must be added the daily number of "passengers handled by the through and district express and passenger trains, gave some indication of the organisation necessary to ensure smooth v/orking and the maintenance of a high standard of schedule running In addition, goods amounting to approximately 8000 gross tons were transported daily to and from Wellington.