EAST AND WEST.

Hokitika Guardian, 21 September 1923, Page 1

EAST AND WEST.

NIGHT TRAIN SERVICE. (Christchurch ” Rress.”) A beginning has been made, amongst business men and others on the West Coast, with an agitation for a night train service between Christchurch and Greymouth and Hokitika. It is understocl that the sympathy and active assistance of the Canterbury Progress League, and of the League's Railway Committee, are to be sought to further the object in view, A visitor who has recently returned from a tour of the West Coast informed a reporter that there was little doubt that such a service would be required during the period that the Hokitika. Exhibition was op,on in order to deal with the heavy passenger traffic that was antileipated. He told the reporter that when Canterbury people realised that the first class return fare between Clnistehuhch and Hokitika would be. probably, in the region of e.'is. they would journey to the Coast in their hundreds, and probably their thousands.

The movement is not. however, confined to the provision of a night train service during the Exhibition period only. Tt is believed that a night train to and from the West Coast once a week-, to begin with, at any rate, \vottld prove of great benefit to the business men ol Christchurch and of Greymouth and Hokitika, ns it would permit them to leave. their homes one day and return the next, thus effecting a considerable saving in title as compared with the conditions ruling under the present train service.