RAILWAY SPEEDS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22412, 7 May 1936, Page 15

RAILWAY SPEEDS

Sir. —I was an interested reader of Mr. Thomas A. F. Stone's letter in the Hkkald of May 5, as I have often wondered whether our main-line expresses could not be speeded up a little. It was very interesting to hear from one qualified to discuss the more technical side of the speed of our train-services, and apparently the limit has been reached in this direction. Regarding the main expresses, however, there is one direction in which I think a considerable amount of travelling time could be saved, i refer to the innumerable small stopping places which, to my mind, could be eliminated. Even the stops for refreshment are, in modern travel systems, now well and truly obsolete. If stops are necessary at every or almost every small station, say, on the Rotorua line, is it really necessary that an express which is supposed to be the crack train of the Dominion should be compelled to lose such enormous amounts of time to serve these stations? As to the refreshment and lunch-time stops, surely the expense of maintaining staffs at each of these stations exceeds that of a small staff in a special din-ing-car attached to each train, as is the practice overseas. Supplies of the necessary foodstuffs could be entrained at each terminal, and in the case of the Rotorua express these staffs could exchange at Frankton, as I believe the rest of the crews do. At present the time taken by these continuous stops is in excess of one and a-half hours, as an example of one trip on which I made a careful note of these .stop-times. Thus the time could be reduced between Rotorua and Auckland by at least an hour by a more judicious regard tor the necessity of a large number of stops and the inclusion of a dining-car. And with service cars already seriously competing with our train-services, every convenience offered by the department must surely help. Railway Every Time.