WALLACE STREET TRAMS.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 5729, 26 October 1905, Page 3

WALLACE STREET TRAMS.

(To tho Editor, “N.Z. Times.”) Sir, —I fully endorse thecomplaint of your correspondent ‘Dunboy,” in this morning’s “Times,” concerning the Wallace street car service as it now is. Up till this week it has been a service that all its hundreds of regular patrons have been proud of, both because ■of its speediness in carrying them to and from the city, and because of its passing immediately by the wharf, G.P.0., and the two main railway stations. We have always been given. to understand that electric traction was to afford us a clean and speedy, as well as a safo means of transit, and so tho dirty, slow, out-of-date horse-car service was supplanted by electricity. On our section, as it was, we had what was unanimously considered a splendid service in every way; but with the present order of things, only the advantage of cleanness is left to us, and of its speed wo hear it said, “As long almost, as you can see a Wallace street car you can catch it.” The distance the cars used to take 1 Omln to cover they now take nearly 15min to travel over, and, as “ Dunboy ” writes, the motormen are compelled to hold the cars back, even with a clear run, and the cars’ own impetus carrying them along, and it is quite the usual thing to sec tho driving handle never more than one-third over, except when mounting an incline. On too of that sort of thing the care more often than not arc two or three minutes at each terminus.

The reason given hy the authorities for the change is, I believe, that the old timc-tablo was too severe on tho cars. Now, from my own regular observation. it was only on rare occasions that tho cars did - not have one, two, and sometimes three minutes’ wait at tho Wallace street terminus. Regular patrons of this section know that the erratic, jerky style of driving followed by some of tho motormon was the cause of more “flattened” wheels and strained cars than the speed at which tho cars travelled. Travelling at fullspeed right up to a corner or up to the point and then putting on tho power brake suddenly is calculated to do more harm in straining the cars and tearing wheels, etc., out of shape and-position in five seconds than travelling at full-speed on a clear road and slowing down smoothly when approaching corners and loop lines, etc., would do in five days. Finally, I would commend to tho immediate and earnest consideration of the Tramway Committee tho desirability of removing a just, grievance hy giving back to us the old Service and its old time-table, —I anv, etc., NO COUNCILLORS WALLACE STREET WAY. October 20th.