THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. TUESDAY, DECEMBER 16, 1924. SPEEDING THE TRAINS.

Wairarapa Age, 16 December 1924, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. TUESDAY, DECEMBER 16, 1924. SPEEDING THE TRAINS.

The speeding up of the Wairarapa train service, which has come about as the result of the promise made by the Hon. J. G. Coates to a deputation a few months ago, might well have been effected years ago. There was no apparent reason, beyond the natural eombativeness of an entrenched bureaucracy, why long since many of the delays and stops on this run should not have been eliminated and the journey reduced to something like three hours each way. The timetable has only to be studied in the light of actual experience of almost any trip to or from Wellington to realise that the delays are to a large extent unnecessary and avoidable, bearing no relation whatever to the requirements of the traffic. For example, there is no reason why suburban travellers between Wellington and Upper Hutt and even Lower Hutt, who have a generous service of their own, should be permitted to crowd into the Wairarapa trains and pull them up before getting out of the Hutt Valley. Wairarapa travellers have for years past gone through the farce of showing their tickets at the barrier in Wellington and hearing the porters say that the first stop is somewhere near the head of the valley; only to find the train pulling up at Petone and Lower Hutt and other points, and suburban passengers nonchalantly getting off. The timetable shows that the speed of the train on the flat on both sides of the Rimutaka is not a great deal better than on the mountain itself; and that many valuable minutes of time have been absorbed on every trip at small stations where there seems to be no warrant for delay. The length of the journey has been ascribed vaguely to the Incline, when as a matter of fact much of the delay belongs to the flat portion of the run and not to the. mountain at all. We are glad to see that Mr Coates has made good his promise, and trust that ho will find other opportunities of mitigating the annoyance caused by the long wait for the deviation.