RAILWAY MISMANAGEMENT.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XVIII, Issue 6065, 26 April 1881, Page 3

RAILWAY MISMANAGEMENT.

TO TUE EDITOB. ! Sir, —It is time some notice was taken of the present management, or rather mismanagement of our railway passenger traffic, and some . attention paid- to the convenience of the public. Why should all traffic be suspended, and all ordinary trains disorganised or stopped on every holiday now, because the principal holidays are monopolised by race meetings ? There is a large and increasing section of the public, who see no beauty or fun in horses racing and men drinking and gambling on a racecourse, but would much like to take a day's outing beyond the hackneyed circle of suburban Auckland, and yet, on the only days they can do so, they are prevented, and compelled either to stay at home or go somewhere by water, if they do not choose to go in crowded cattle pens to the races. I went to Onehunga on Easter Monday, by the 12.10 o'clock train, intending to spend a quiet afternoon there, as I could go nowhere else (there being no trains). After floundering over about seventy yards of rough, sharp road metal, and crossing seven or eight pairs of lines with coarse raspy lumps of scoria between them, I got to the Newmarket booking-office. Arriving at Onehunga, I found that the last, train would leave at 3.35 p.m., giving me just time to walk to Mangere Hill.and back. The train left Onehunga punctually" at that time, but we stuck at Ellerslie, and after some delay we were told to get into another train. Having done so and settled down, after some further delay, we were told to shift into a third train; and again we scrambled out and in over rough scori-v and rails. Jud«e our disgust when No. 1 (our train) went off to Auckland, followed in about ten minutes by No. 2, while we were left waiting in the last train, and at the next station were rushed and crammed by the last dregs of the racecourse, all distinctions of tickets, seats, or anything else swept away. And when I arrived at last at Newmarket it was 5.20 p.m., thus taking hours to come from Onehunga. Does the manager suppose the general public will patronise the railway at all on holidays if such treatment is meted out to them ? By "general public " I mean the great bulk of the people, for while 2000 or 3000 may go to the races—many because they can go nowhere else—there are 30,000 people in Auckland, the great majority of whom have a decided objection to riding to races in cattle pens, or to being swamped by

halfdruuken roughs, by being shunted ou of their proper 'rain into the last train from the racecourse, anil therefore prefer to leave the railway severely alone ou such occasions. —I am, &c, Cexsoe. [We have already had a complaint respecting the railway traffie arrange:i>eiits at Easter. We are" afraid the railway authorities here undertook to do more "than they iverc able to undertake with the plant available. But railway delays and inconveniences are common even in England at holiday time.—Ed.l