Huntly-Awaroa Railway

Huntly Press and District Gazette, Volume 4, 24 December 1915, Page 2

Huntly-Awaroa Railway

AFTER being run for some time by the Public Works Department the Huntly-Awaroa Railway has now been taken over by the Railway Department. This event has been eagerly looked forward to, and great hopes of increased facilities for travel were built on the event, •but to the astonishment of the Public, the facilities have been reduced. Under the Public Works Department, all possible was done to enable people on the Western side of the river to travel in and out of Huntly, and although the accomodation provided was necessarily jf the crudest description, it was freely availed of, and numbers of passengers were carried to and fro each day.

Now, if the daily papers are to be believed, this section of railway is to be converted into a sort of glorified tramline, carrying coal, and in the guard's van, male passengers only. The ladies will naturally want to know what they have done that they should be excluded from travelling over this line. We venture to say that this is the only section of the N.Z. Railways on which such a condition of things obtains. What can be the reason of it no one seems able to tell us.

We presume the line is safe, or the Railway Department would not have taken the line over. The provision of one carriage could not be very costly, and we are sure the traffic under the Public Works Department’s rule has been quite sufficient to warrant the putting on of a carriage.

In any case, the line is part of our national railway system, and we have yet to learn that any part of this system should be run for the benefit of one section of the community only. We trust that the Deparmental officials will see their way to immediately extend the facilities for carrying passengers on the line so a 3 to include all sections of the community, and that the time-table will be arranged in sucii a way as to suit the people using the line.