THE RAILWAY SERVICE.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXIX, Issue 124, 18 July 1911, Page 4

THE RAILWAY SERVICE.

Tho railway service between Sti atfcrd and New Plymouth mav be the best tho Department is able to provide, paying due regard to economy and other things, but it is n mighty poor service, and does not apoaieutly please anyone. A suggested alt.-ia-tion of timetable to make the morning train leave an hour or so noair daybreak, if given effect to, would merely be an added irritation. In its issue of to-day, the ‘Taranaki Daily News” refers to the matter and saj-s “the suggestion to inn the 7.20 a.m. train from Hawera to New Plymouth at an earlier hour has met with a cold reception in the southern towns, which, naturally enough, do not take kindly to a 6 a.m. train with its attendant discomforts when the present service suits them probably Just as well. What won d suit them better and achieve the same end is the speeding-up of the train.” With this we most certainly agree, and also with our contemporary in its view that it seems absurd that in these days of progress a train should take three hours and a-half to do forty-eight miles, a rate of speed not equal to fifteen miles an hour—about half the rate of the ordinary motor car. There is no reason why trains should travel at this snail pace, except it is to waste the time of the travelling public or keep the railway employees fully occupied. With the main part of our conterapory’s article we are entirely in agreement and reproduce it as under; “But if this train is slow, what is to be said of the train that leaves Hawera at 11.10 a.m. and reaches. New Plymouth at 4.17—5 hours 7 minutes to traverse 48 miles, a rate of locomotion that would almost shame a bullock-drawn dray! True, this train is more a goods train than a passenger one, but there seems hardly any excuse for its excessive slowness The Department do not take kindly to putting another morning train on to New Plymouth, but we are sure the convenience of the public would be better served if this train (11.10 a.m from Hawera or 6.40 a.m. from Wanganui) wore made a passenger train only, and arranged to take the place of the train that leaves Hawera for New Plymouth at 4.3 p.ra., reaching here (New Plymouth) at 7.28 p.m.. just before the mail. Slow as the present 11.10 a.m. up train is, it is used to a considerable extent by the travelling public, and were it converted into a passenger train only, reaching New Plymouth a little aftei two o’clock in the afternoon it would

prove a very great convenience, an.] one, moreover, that could be obtained without any extra cost to the Railway Department. Delaying a goods train to roach here before eight o’clock would cause no inconvenience and would serve the purpose the present 4.3 p.m. train from Hawera serves in picking up passengers at the wayside stations for the mail train. Under existing arrangements, trains reach New Plymouth at 4.17, 5.30, 7.28, and 7.55 p.m.—four trains one on top of the other, whilst in' the morning wc have but one, and that, as we have said before, arriving too late, viz.. 10.45. Surely it is not too much tc expect the Department to speed up the latter, to substitute the good; train for tiie passenger train in the way wo have indicated.”