PENALISING SUBURBAN RAILWAY TRAVELLERS.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1350, 30 January 1912, Page 9

PENALISING SUBURBAN RAILWAY TRAVELLERS.

Sir,-I shall bo voicing the opinions of many -at your .readers in asking you if there is any common sense in the i-vstem of traffic management on the New Zealand railway system.' On Saturday, January 27. lilla, I travelled to I<ambtoii* hv n train leaving llentaiinga at 5 p.m. "in company with some ;!0 other victims, 1 was hustled into the train by a perompt.ongimrd at Ileretaunga, and tho trai-i was start rd before the last of the victims had actually lmrded the train. At "i.lop.m we waited iwo minutes for the'Wairarapa train to crow, and one minute after,tiio "ei-essing." At Lower Hutt and I'eteno w° waited for r.o reason at all live minutes; and by dint of superhuman energv on the part of the driver wo reached Lambton nil to time, having as usual travelled at the alarming (?) speed of'lß mile.s an hour. There can be no necessity for the dangerous, hustling which took place at IleTotaunga: simply to allow of the.snhsequent waste of.time, which i.s ono of the most noticcablo features of the New Zealand railway system. Again, the senseless system of ticket inscectior., which required a visitation from the guards and their assistants twice, and occasionally three times, in a jemrnev of 18 miles, oonltl only, obtain on <i ralfroy managed fcj a Dtjaitiaoit rktdi docs not

study tho convenience of its masters, viz., tho travelling public. Unless tho denizens of this Dominion are really so uni-versally-dishonest as to require "this close supervision, as instanced also by tho ve.ry rare occasions on which the magic word "season" permits oho to continue reading in peaco, without proving by ocular demonstration that ono is tho proud possessor of a season tiekot.. I could write sufficient: to fill oolumns with similar complaints, such as tho marvellous system of taking up and dropping carriages at Lower Hutt; the non-provision of firstclass accommodation for more than a dozen passengers; tho deliberate suspension of suburban traffic on v.'hat. is, I believe, called Province Bay, and so on; but if your publication of thoso quoted loads to reform you will have earned the gratitude of yours, etc., A VICTIM.