THE OCEAN BEACH RAILWAY.

Evening Star, Issue 4296, 2 December 1876, Page 2

THE OCEAN BEACH RAILWAY.

To the Editor. Sir, — After all the fuss we have made over the opening of the railway to the Ocean Beach, the neat way to reach the Forbury Beach is by one of the old Caversham cars. When the Ocean Beach was spoken of as a favorite place of recreat : on, nobody ever meant that sandy desert in the midst of which the new railway now sets down its unsuspecting passengers. “Paterfamilias," with his tribe of youngsters, “cumbered with many things,” on this side his wife, on that the hamper, finds that he has two miles of soft sand through which to transport himself and his belongings before he can reach the only spot on the beach on which luncheon is possible. Woe betide him jf he thinks he can risk the lightening of the hamper before he begins his journey. Sandwiches are nice, but their flavor is certainly not improved by the sand which the faintest breath of wind raises in that desert. Practically, he is more remote from the only part of the beach which is worth visiting than if he had been put down by a Caversham car for leas money at the corner of the Forbury road. Your correspondent has been beguiled once into visiting Forbury beach with a lot of children by the new railway. The next time he goes to that “ favorite resort ” he will consult the convenience aud comfort of his family by taking a Caversham car. There is one other point on which I will venture to remark. The “Flat”—Kensington, St Kilda, and Forbury—is now covered by a population of thousands of people. By the most ingenious stupidity conceivable, the railway is made to take a circuit around the Flat instead of through its midst. A railway is made between the Ocean Beach and Dunedin, and is so contrived that not a saul of the thousands living between these two points can use it. I venture to say that there are hundreds of working people on the Flat who would gladly use the railway, if it was within their reach, as a means of conveyance between their homes and town ; but as the excursionists still find the old Caversham car the easiest way of reaching the Forbury Beach, so the laborer on the Flat finds the St. Kilda car, when he can afford it, the easiest way of reaching town. Such are the facilities of suburban railway communication !—I am, &c., A Point of Admiration. Dunedin, December 1.