SUMMER TIME.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 11 October 1924, Page 16

SUMMER TIME.

EFFECT ON RAILWAYS, MR McVILLY’S EVIDENCE. If daylight saving comes into operation in New, Zealand: through the passing of the Summer Time Bill, the effect will scarcely be. noticeable so .far as me i ail ways are concerned. .That is the effect of the evidence given by Mr R. \V. MeFilly, General Manager of Railways, as reported in the minutes of the Summer Time Bill Committee. Mr Me Filly said in his evidence that if the time of the clock was put forward an hour in the summer time, and put back an hour in the winter, he did not think it would affect the timetables at all. It would work automatically. The trains ? would mostly have finished their journeys on .the day before the alteration was -made in the time, and would start at the new time on the following day. “We would save about an hour s lighting. That is all. I hat is the position so far as we are concerned.” In reply to Mr Sidey, he said there was absolutely nothing in the suggestion that difficulties would be experienced in connection with the time-table. ' The saving in lighting of the railways, he said m reply to a further question, would be worth taking into consideration; it would aggregate to a large amount in a year. The lighting of engines was being more ■ and more done with electric headlights. In the carnages Pintsch gas was used, except on the Main Trunk and more important trains, which were being equipped with electricity. Mr Sidev them said ;. “It has been suggested that the time of receiving milk at the factories is determined by the time that the railway tram runs, and that as the dairy farmer works by daylight and not by the clocks, he will have one hour less to get his milk ready for the train, the question 1 want to ask. is whether jou see-, any difficulty in connection with such cases in making a modification of your time-table during the time that the summer time would be in operation?” , -^l ' McVilly replied: - “The position there would be that the time-table would automatically become fixed by the alteration of the clock, but so far ■as the arranging of the time-table is concerned the runs of the trains are fixed according to the requirements of the business, and to enable us to give tr.e people the best facilities. ... So far as the running of additional trains to. meet the requirements of the dairy | ac |^ lies or any other class of country traffic is concerned, that would, as at. j piesent, depend entirely on the condition of the lines, and the number of ti axns on the lories.- There are lines today in which it is not possible to put an additional train on at a certain hour For instance, out of . Wellington there are only two periods in the day, of about an hour each, where we could fit a train in at all, and; the same thing applies to some extent to Dunedin, Christchurch, and more particularly Auckland, both north and ,south. It is an exceedingly difficult thing to get a train in there at alii” . Revel ting to the question of light--11 1. re P’y to Mr Hockly, Mr McVilly said that the alteration would not ‘cut both ways” by involving extra lighting in the mornings, because it Was daylight before the trains would start running. In reply to Mr Smith, Mr McVilly ?aid that on the clay of the change one trai . n ’ and one only, would be affected —the Mam Trunk express from Auck,j • . L* 11 ? would be running on the ° j schedule till it finished its journey, and the crossing times would have to be altered, so that it could run' an hour late (on time-table) from about Kaurimu.