NEGLECTED SUBURBAN RESIDENTS.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 967, 7 November 1910, Page 4

NEGLECTED SUBURBAN RESIDENTS.

ANOTHER RAILWAY COMPLAINT. Sir,—Will yon kindly allow me to draw a little more public attention to the scandalously inadequate suburban train service on the.Manawa.tu lino, especially on Saturdays. jWc who lire beyond Johnsonville aro left for seven hours (print this please as large as you can), from 1.15 till 11.15, without a train, and this on the one day of the week when most of us country people take a trip to town. The Minister stated to Mr. Field that the 11.15 train was run for the purposo of affording business people engagcd'Su the town an opportunity of coins into the country when their business i.s finished, and that country people returned by the 4.15 train. The Hon. the Minister onnonnced in the House that ho was a botting man. Now, I will bet him a note that not one in four on the 11.15 train belong to tho class ho indicated; but that more than three-fourths of them consist of country and suburban residents returning to their homes, and a vast number of . them are women and children.' Let the Minister spend 15 or 20 minutes wi.he J Thorndon Station any Saturday night, and watch the procession of .weary women toiling along unaui6tress of parcels and tugged at by tireoout and fretful, children, and no may. niter his' opinion. The 9 o'clock train, which runs as far.as Johnsonyillo, would, if it ran cm, land the majority of these people "at their homes in decent time; as it is, many of them cannot get to bed till one or. two o'clock on Sunday mornning,' and their Sunday is a dog-tired day for them. Time after timo have I taken children to Wellington to see swimming snorts, or a cricket or football match, and have had to keep them wandering about the streets of Wellington till eleven o'clock at night. And this is tho vaunted railway management! Seven hours without a train on a Saturday; Tho matter is a public scandal!

People's memories are proverbially short; but' i. trust they will last lons enough to remind them when the opportunity comes, that it will be their duty to reduce the Government majority by at' least one as an indication that the western suburban traffic has been shamefully neglected. The Government could spend .£350,000 to Ret the Petono ami Hutt residents to their homes, perhaps, •ten minutes sooner, irliilo our request that a train which already runs, should run a few miles further, and get us to our homes two or three hours earlier, is met with a flat refusal.—l am, etc., ' CLODHOPPER.