THE RAILWAY PROBLEM.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20496, 22 February 1930, Page 10

THE RAILWAY PROBLEM.

Three statements bearing on the problem of railway operation have just appeared. From Hamilton comes the announcement of further freight concessions between Auckland and the Waikato, the department in effect intending to establish its own shipping department to facilitate and cheapen the transfer of merchandise from ship to rail; the general manager has issued a defence of the policy of discriminating against those railway patrons who transport low-grade freight by rail but give the high grade and more profitable business to motors; he has also expressed gratification at the holiday passenger traffic returns, remarking, while doing so, that "the outstanding problem is that of the passenger traffic." The three are worth considering together. Two methods of seeking more goods traffic are associated. One consists of trying to win over patrons; the other of trying, in effect, to dragoon them. To attract patronage in face of competition is sound procedure, the only defect of what the department is doing lying in its very limited application to one section of line. Dragooning is dubious practice. The general manager suggests the department has nothing to lose, but merely stands to gain by its discriminatory process. The assertion needs proof, for such tactics often have uncaleulated effects. Most interesting of all is the admission that the core of the railway problem is passenger traffic. It has not been admitted in this way before, though the returns in recent- years liavp proved it beyond doubt. "Why, then, does the management not try to attract more passenger traffic by the better of the two methods applied to goods, by reducing fares in the endeavour to run its trains full instead of half empty? Here, if anywhere. surely, it stands to gain more than it would lose. Here it has tho opportunity to create goodwill. However, its recent policy in Auckland alone shows its deplorable failure to realise how it is likely to alienate the travelling public. The new railway station, for technical reasons, is being built on a site (hat I lie public, accustomed ever sinco there have been railways to a station fronting Queen Street, regards as inaccessible. It is no uso asking whether this is reasonable or not, for in these days of plentiful road competition the last word is with the public. The Morningside tunnel project, which had at least the merit of making the main Auckland station a through station, and providing access to the railways from the heart of the city, has been abandoned. The engineering indictment of the department's own engineering scheme may or may not be justified ; but having delivered it, the department suggests no alternative. It has nothing to offer in amelioration of the hopelessly antiquated and slow northern'outlet, it has no plan to bring the railway up to Queen Street, the natural place for recruiting passenger, especially suburban passenger, traffic. So long as it is handled in such a way, passenger traffic is likely to remain _ the outstanding problem of the railways.