RAILWAY ANOMALIES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LIX, Issue 18116, 14 June 1922, Page 8

RAILWAY ANOMALIES.

COMMENTS BY A VISITOR. : IRKSOME REGULATIONS. i TICKETS AND RESERVES. : [8? gTOBOBAgg.—OWN OORBESPONDENT.] WELLINGTON. Tuesday. An Australian visitor who had completed a business trip through New Zealand had some interesting criticism to offer to-day concerning railway administration. He had no doubt, he said, that the New Zealand railways were losing monev and inflicting inconvenience upon travellers through the operation of some of the existing regulations. He was unable to see that the regulations he had in mind had any advantage. Quoting an example, the visitor said that be,found single tickets to be available for only four days. This appeared to be a survival of a regulation imposed during the period of acute coal shortage three years ago. It was a source of great inconvenience to travellers. A person going from Wellington to Auckland and taking a through ticket had to complete the journey in four days. 'If he spent a couple of days at Palmerston North and a couple of days at Hamilton, the ticket would become invalid, yet he could stop as often as he liked if he took tha trouble of buying and gavo the depart-", ment the trouble of issuing a new ticket for each stage; This would cost him only Id extra for each section. Originally the single ticket was good for a month, ; and the traveller could break the journey anywhere after 50 miles without trouble. Another anomaly was that there was no inducement to any person to take a return ticket. The return fare - was exactlv double the amount of Eho single fare, and the traveller was tied down to return within a month. This must cause loss of revenue, since it gave the traveller no inducement to use the railway for the return journey. If the department issued return tickets at a reduced rate, and made them available for three months, people wouJd buy them and the department . would hsvo the use of a part of the money without interest for a month or two. Then there was the question of re Derved seats, added the visitor. Why was it not permissible to reserve seats for a journey of less than 100 miles? A traveller could reserve a seat between Christchurch and Timaru. 100 miles, but not between Wellington and Feilding, 99 miles. People who were using some of the lines out from Christchurch could not reserve seats because the terminate of the lines were within 100 miles of the city. That seemed absurd, since it could not be contended that people reserving' ' seats for the complete iourney would be depriving any "long-distance traveller" i of accommodation. | i OAREIAOE OF PARCELS. 1 HAMILTON GRIEVANCE. j [by telegraph.—own cobbjespondbnt.] ■ HAMILTON. Tueadaj. . Postal parcels now take three days to j reach Hamilton from Wellington, while the railways absolutely refuse to carry parcels on* mail trains, no matter what the urgency. These facts were the subject of grievances lodged by Mr. D. Wilson to the Hamilton Chamber of Com- ( merce last night, when he urged the i chamber to initiate some action with a j view to having the position remedied. , The Government, the writer considered, 1 was by its attitude killing its own business. Were there a good road to Auck- > land, he felt sure that a parcel van would be making regular daily trips there from Hamilton. The chamber agreed with the" writer, and carried the following resolution:— " This chamber urges the Railway Department to extend the parcel system to mail trains, in the interests both of the railways and of those of the business and private users of the railways, as parcel goods are usually required urgently, and mail trains are therefore the right method of transport." It was decided to send, a copy df the resolution also to the Postmaster-General.