TRAM SERVICES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26479, 5 June 1947, Page 6

TRAM SERVICES

OPERATION IN EARLY MORNING LIGHTING ARRANGED While members of the Dunedin branch of the New Zealand Tramways Union were deciding yesterday afternoon to submit an ultimatum to the authorities in the matter of lighting restrictions, the Transport Committee of the City Council was considering the same matter and had actually decided on an arrangement suitable to the demands of the tramwaymen before those demands were received. At two shifts meetings of the union it was decided to inform the City Council that no early morning cars would be run after June 11 unless the lighting was restored on the tram routes from the time of the first car until daylight. It was also decided that no “ midnight specials ” would be run on Saturdays unless arrangements were made about the lighting. In the meantime the Transport Committee had decided that all cars would in future be back at the sheds by midnight on Saturdays and that lighting would be provided for the early morning cars.

Cr McCrae, chairman of the committee, told the Daily Times last night that a scheme was in train whereby the power used by turning on the lights in the early morning would be more than compensated for by a reduction in the number of trams run during the slack periods each day. There would probably be fewer cars between the hours of 9.30 and 11.30 a.m. and 8 and 10 p.m„ said Cr McCrae. This plan should save far more units than would be used while the lights were turned on in the early morning. It is understood that a number of the senior motormen did not favour the direct action proposed by the Tramways Union, as they felt that any curtailment of the service would cause difficulty for people obliged to leave for their work at an early hour.