FOSSILDOM'S BUNGLES.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1091, 1 April 1911, Page 13

FOSSILDOM'S BUNGLES.

Sir, —"Tho mountain Ims been in 1 labour, and has brought forth a riilicu- ! lons mouse." In other words, Fossil- j flora at railway headquarters has been ' tinkering with the railway time-tablo , again, and has made just sufficient al- : terations to cause inconvenience, without effecting a singlo improvement. I The people who have watched the tor- ' tuous process of straightening tho Hutt ' Valley line, going on for years and years at a cost of hundreds of thousands of pounds, have been naturally imagining that when tho line was duplicated there would bo faster trains and better services. Fossildonvs latest effort emphasises the notorious fact that tho service is not being run primarily to give facilities to the people (as junketing Ministers perennially allege). The service is being run to give officialdom as little trouble as possible. Instead of faster trains, wo are in one or two cases to have a minute or two tacked on to tho time at present occupied by trains on tlio suburban services, and 110 attempt whatever has been made to expedite the running. It was hoped, for instance, that the arrangement under which an interval of nearly two hours was allowed to elapse between the running of the service lietwecn_ Lower Hutt and Wellington in tho middle of the day would bo reduced. No attempt has been made to copo with this serious drawback. Fossildom lias bandied the time-table, and has made & pretence of doing something, but it lias done nothing hut sluilTlo and mark time. Oh, yes! it has accomplished one feat. It has cut Tetone out of tho 'Wnirarapa afternoon service. If cutting Petone out had facilitated.tho tiresome journey of our Wairarapa friends, thero would have been no complaint from us. But this lias not been effected. The Wairarapa train is to take one minute longer on the journey (whenever it happens to run to time) than it look before tho "re-modelled" time-table was brought into effect. Crawling like a wounded snake over tho landscape (67 c j uilcs in 5 hours 25 minutes), it is liable -

to stop at Belmont, Silverstream, and Horctaimga (ivhoro some of the clubmates and pals of tho powers reside), or it will stop at Wallacevillo, if required, but Fossildom lias set its fool down lirmly, and in capital letters announces that I'etonc has been cut out The Wairarapa train, which is supposed to average about thirteen miles an horn (or about as fast as tho average, footballer could kick his bat) is rarely ur to time cither way. It is said that the Government, which has spent hundred! ofthousands on track-straightening, lias failed to provide tho essential money U buy railway engines capable of developing adequate speed for improved suburban services. Anyhow, tho whole thing is in a mess, and tho next time any of your readers hears Minister Millar, or his henchman, Mayor Wilford, or any of the "democratic" bunch, talking at a banquet about "running onr railways in tho interests of tho public, and not for the solo purpose of making revenue," ho has tho permission ot suburban residents to utter cat-calls and reiterate the uncouth word "bunkum" to tho fullest extent of his lungs.—l am, etc., PETONE. March 31. -