RAILWAY CONVENIENCES. Dining Cars on Express Trains.

Free Lance, Volume I, Issue 22, 1 December 1900, Page 6

RAILWAY CONVENIENCES. Dining Cars on Express Trains.

NOW that the question of greater railway conveniences is receiving close attention from the Hon. J. G. Ward, it is desirable that some attention should be paid to the licensed refreshment rooms on Government lines. There are railway refreshment rooms and railway refreshment rooms ; and, while some are well managed and supply most excellent meals, others are places to be carefully avoided by the unsuspecting traveller. Nor is it the most pretentious refreshment rooms where the greatest satisfaction is given. Occasionally it happens that an up-to-date dining room means a wretched and unwholesome meal at full regulation price; while the more modest and less pretentious accommodation is compensated for by an appetizing and well-cooked repast. w » * We have inspectors in this colony for almost everything else under the sun. Why not go a step further and appoint an inspector of dining rooms ? There is plenty of work for such an official to do. Scarcely a week passes that we do not have a complaint from some part of the colony or another about the miserable and badly-cooked meals served up at these railway dining rooms. Indeed, a doctor recently stated it as his opinion that a sandwich in the train was infinitely preferable to the abominable and illprepared food constantly being placed on the table at a well-known dining room which he indicated. • • • But if the idea of an inspector of railway dining rooms is not feasible, would it not be possible to have dining cars on the express trains running long distance journeys ? For example, there ought to be one on the train from New Plymouth to Palmerston. Leaving the steamer at the Breakwater at 6 a.m., passengers do not get a mouthful of food till they reach Hawera, somewhere about 10 o'clock, and there the accommodation might be better than it is. So also on the return journey. There is a very long stretch without adequate refreshment accommodation. * • • Dining cars would obviate all the inconvenience and dissatisfaction which are expressed at present, and more especially so if they were dining cars conducted on the admirable lines of those leased to Mr Walter Freeman by the Manawatu Compay. For years past, Mr Freeman has studied the taste and convenience of passengers, and has assisted to popularize the Manawatu service by the excellence of the meals served on his dining cars. Why then should there not be similar dining cars to Mr Freeman's on the Government express train ? The boon would be greatly appreciated by the travelling public, with whom, at the present time, most of the railway refreshment rooms find very scant favour.