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Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3826, 20 October 1883, Page 2

The guaranteed special Saturday night train between Hastings and Napier has been suddenly stopped. The authorities have refused tho guarantee of ;£6 on tho ground that that sum does not psy the department. At the same time it is admitted —because it cannot bo denied—that tho railway rules stipulate that for a distance of twelve miles the sum of ,-fiG shall be tho required guarantee. It is, however, optional with the department to refuse or accept an offer for a special train. Finding that the Government to all applications for a late train to and from Hastings gave the stereotyped reply that it would not pay, certain townspeople undertook the experiment of seeing whether it would. The trial proved successful, for the guarantee money has been returned to tho guarantors. But the department has discovered that, under the existing time-table and other unsuitable etceteras, the special train has to run fortyeight miles to do the work of twenty-four, and so a great public convenience has been withdrawn. AYe all know that it takes a good deal to move the ponderous machinery of a Governmental department, and what by a private company would be done hy a scratch of the pen, in the other may tako reams of correspondence and months of consideration. AVo arc in hope, however, that avo shall live long enough to sec sueTr an alteration in the time-table as to removo the reproach of "how not to do it" from a department that cannot bo made to pay until it learns how to serve and meet the wishes of the public.