Poverty Bay Herald PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. GISBORNE, THURSDAY. MARCH 5, 1914. NAPIER-WELLINGTON EXPRESS.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XLI, Issue 13321, 5 March 1914, Page 2

Poverty Bay Herald PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. GISBORNE, THURSDAY. MARCH 5, 1914. NAPIER-WELLINGTON EXPRESS.

Gisborne has more than a passing interest m tlie subject of acceleration of railway service^ now under the consideration of the general manager of the Railways Department. This district supplies a very large proportion of the traffic revenue of the Napier-Welling-ton section of the railway, the passengers who journey to and from Gisborne by the ferry service and other steame-rs and connect with the railway aggregating many thousands every , year. • It is only right, therefore, that m framing a* new timetable the convenience of patrons who live at a" distance from the rail should be taken into account, and this,* we have no doubt,, will be done by the general manager wMio has been

iiiipui -led to reorganise our railway ;ul ministration and put it upon belter business lines. 'Whilst the present timetable iv its arrangement of tho hours of departure from and arrival at Napier of the mail trains may bo said to be fairly convenient for those who have to transfer from steamer to railway carriage, and vice versa, the people of this district who travel by. railway -have good reason to join m tlie general complaint voiced by the. public of Hawke's Bay at the exceptionally slow times recorded on the Napier- Wellington ..express, and a.t the faulty connections .with railways running to other portions of the North Island. It is a. continual source of annoyance and reproach tliat people journeying the two hundred miles between Napier and Wellington should find it necessary to put m ten uncom- ; f ortable hours m a usually crowded and dusty railway, carriage. . Tho .average, of twenty miles an hour over comparatively level- country makes our mail trains look painfully slow to . visitors fronv other lands, and when it is. explained, as is invariably , the .case by railway travellers discussing this subject, : that tho. Railway Department, recently put on a heavier engine on this section, of tne railway but had to take, it off because the drivers could., not. rer duce its speed sufficiently to keep within the limits- of- the time-table, then tlie matter becomes positively ludicrous., Travellers on .this section, 'however, may well raise .their voices -in -protest against the exceptionally, unsatisfactory allocation of time that -is made fortlte>NapierWellington^ express, as compared with other express trains' m. the Dominion. The New Plymouth mail, by way . ol illustration, could scarcely by any stretch of imagination be termed "a- flyer," and yet it succeeds m accomplishing the, 87. mile run between Wellington, and Paimerston m 3 hours. 46 minutes, -which .-is. ten minutes less than the time scheduled for the speedy North Island. Main Trunk. Yet passengers by the NapierWellington train have actually to" suffer a- delay of 31. minutes^ m excess of the time occupied by the Taranaki mail travelling between these two points — Paimerston to Wellington — the schedule provided for the Napier express being 4 hours 17 minutes on this section .of the.. journey. The, position is intolerable;, and -when it is pointed out that passengers- by the New Plymouth express- have- the. advantage* „of the use" i of- a dining car . as far as .Wanganui, whilst . the Napier passengers have* to be content with hasty scraps snatched at wayside stations, the comparison becomes more pronounced! Moreover, "the connections of the Napier mail train arc- faulty. It is impossible to journey from Napier to New Plymouth, or vice versa m one day, though the distance is not so very, great.. This journey necessitates the v business, man breaking into two full days, with', tedious stop-overs, at Wanganui and Paimerston North. From Wanganui to Napier, a distance of 175 miles, it is necessary to be on the road .from, 7 o'clock m the morning till 7 o'clock at night, though- for; motor .cars it is an easy, run of nine hours. Train travellers from the East Coast districts have for many years had tjo suffer"- extreme inconvenience and delay; by . reason- . of the unsatisfactory! running oi the so-called express trains, and it is sincerely to be hoped that the new (manager m his rearrangement of the services majr be able to give .'them a substantial measure of relief. It is to Mr Hiley's credit that he had not been many weeks m New Zealand before he >was able- to declare' that the weak* spot -m our railway administration was theslowness of the trains, and he will earn the gratitude of - thousands of weary travellers if without much further delay he succeeds m a practical-- policy ot speeding up.