PASSENGERS ONLY!

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1315, 19 December 1911, Page 4

PASSENGERS ONLY!

ON THE U"|! <™*CTOX lUILWAY

Ordinarily members of the public who do. not happen to be travellers may obtain admission to a railway platform In n ellington at busy hours on payment of tno modest sum of twopence, that char-e having been imposed to prevont overwowdmg and diminish the risk of acet- '""•*?•, authorities have now decided that that privilege is to be. curUllecl dimnst the Christmas and New Var holidays, and that none but tona fidei passensers are to bn nllowed on the platform between the hours of 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. i'his rule has not been t-o----ceived with approbatiou bv thdso who would fain pay even more than twopence >"T tjf privilcge of seeini their friends off. Mothers who are packing their c.hildren oft to tho country for the holidays will particularly resent the new order of things. On inquiry it was discovered that tho reasmi for the new rule was net to guard nsainsi overcrowding, but was to enable the officials as far as possible, to prevent everyone bound for the north crowding into the first express (which does not take passengers for any place south ot Taihape). The officials bad had trouble in dislodging people booked to places this side of Taihape." and it was to avoid ii recurrence of tho kind that Ihev allowed no ono but passenpers for Tiuhai>o and beyond on the platform until after the first express had gone. As far as parents and those in charge of children or invalids (ho rule would not be applied arbitrarily.