AUCKLAND-WELLINGTON SERVICE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 11690, 27 June 1901, Page 4

AUCKLAND-WELLINGTON SERVICE.

Among iho many improvements urgently needed in the North Island railway services, daily express connection between New Plymouth and Wellington is prominent. At the present time the express which leaves New Plymouth at seven a.m. and reaches Wellington at twenty minutes past, nine p.m. the same day only runs tour times weekly, on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays. The return service runs on the same days. The great increase in our North Island population and. in the consequent travelling has already made this partial service not merely defective and embarrassing, but insufficient. During the summer months, and during continually recurrent periods of interest, these expresses are usually overcrowded. There is every reason to expect that a daily express would not merely be of great public convenience to the West Coast and to the Auckland-Wellington traffic, but would financially justify itself. Naturally, steamers do not run from and to Onehunga on the off-service ■days, but would doubtless meet the Government if a daily express were put on, as their owners are equally interested in developing a route which tor several years will be the quickest way between our leading cities and will long be the cheapest. As everybody knows, the railway rolling stock is in no way equal to the requirements of the colony, a weakness of management which probably accounts for many deficiencies, as it does for the commandeering of the useful coal-truck on highdays and holidays. But there is so much to be said for a daily mail between Auckland and Wellington, for the convenience of long-distance travellers, for the development of the West Coast trade and for the comfort of more local passengers, that Sir Joseph Ward might well strain a point in this direction and commence the running or a daily express on the New Plymouth-Wel-lington line early in the coming spring. Somebody must start it and if the trains were made regular the steamers would follow suit*