TAHAKOPA TRAIN SERVICE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25798, 20 March 1945, Page 7

TAHAKOPA TRAIN SERVICE

Sh- There is little wonder that the rseonic of the Catlins district are getting fed P up with the most unreliable tram service in New Zealand, and I say this without fear of contradiction There ,is never a train in on time. Mondays tiain due to arrive at 2 o’clock will arrive at anything between 3 p.m. and 4 p.m., and sometimes later. Wednesday s train is the same, and Thursday’s, due to at rive at 5 o’clock, arrives at anything up to 730 p.m. Friday’s due to arrive at 7.30 p.m., will arrive any time up to 10 o’clock. This is a most disgusting state of affairs, and it is easy to see why people have been leaving the district whenever an opportunity presents itself. The only persons left are those tied down to the sawmilling industry under manpower orders, and a few of the hardy old pioneers who have managed to survive. There arc empty farms and houses from Owaka to Tahakopa. It is bad enough living in a district where you see noth-' ing and have no conveniences whatever—no electric appliances, no decent accommodation, hardly a house with a bathroom and hot and cold water, no picture theatre, nothing but work, and m the winter time mud up to your knees. And to cap it all one has to come for miles to meet a train at 5 o’clock after a hard dav's work without tea, only to find thai one has to sit in the cold until 7.30 to collect one’s wife. Perhaps she has been to see a doctor, and you find on top of her illness that she is half frozen sitting in an obsolete carriage from 3 o’ci< until as previously stated, anything up to 7.30. to do a journey of 20 miles. Our train service is four days a week through the coal shortage, and we do not even get a paper on Tuesdays and Saturdays. This state of affairs has gone far enough, and it is high time the Railways Department did something about it or there will be nobody left in the wretched place —I am, etc., A. C. Tahakopa, March 15. rThc acting district traffic manager, to whom this letter was referred, states that under the coal-saving time table the service on Ihe line referred to has been reduced from six to four days a week. Owing to the amount of traffic that was being handled llic trains were subject to delays on account of I lie shunting necessary en route. —Ed. 0.D.T.l