Railway Service.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXVIII, Issue 36, 12 May 1906, Page 2

Railway Service.

The following reply has been received from the Minister by Mr W. T. Wood, M.H.R., anent requests made by the inter-district railway conference :

Regarding the requests for a daily senvice between Palmerston North and Foxton, and that a train should leave Palmerston at 8,5 p.ra. on Saturdays and run straight through to Foxton without doing any goods business, the Minister thought that the existing trains provided ample facilities to satisfactorily deal with present business. From data it appeared that the average number of passengers on the mid-day trains is 23 from Palmerston and 32 from Foxton. This gave revenue of less that £$ for the double trip, not sufficient to pay working expenses. Experience had shown that additional services would not improve or increase business and, as the existing business was not profitable, it was regretted the request could not be complied with. The same answer was made with regard to the suggested 8.5 p.ra Saturday train. A purely passenger train, as suggested, would only save 10 minutes time, and under the circumstances it would be inimical to the interests of farmers and others to alter the existing arrangement. With respect to the request that the morning train from Foxton on Mondays should connect at Palmerston with the train for Waipukurau, the Minister found that the Foxton people were entirely opposed to any earlier departure, in fact, they desired that the train should leave an hour later. Therefore until such time as there is more unanimity in the districts served by the train it will be quite impossible to make any alteration. As far as could be ascertained the connection suggested by the Conference would be convenient to an occasional passenger, but the earlier hour of departure necessitated would be distinctly inconvenient to the bulk of the regular passengers and the residents of Foxton generally.