RAILWAY OUTLOOK

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLV, Issue 2658, 13 November 1923, Page 1

RAILWAY OUTLOOK

COMPETITION OF ROADS. SHOTTED SPUR. LINES RE CLOSED? AND MONEY SPENT ON MAIN LINES. (By a Traveller, in the Post). In their perigrina lions ahonl the Dominion, the Minister of Railways and the Can oral Manager must have acquired a wealth of useful information regarding the present stale and future prospects of the New

Zealand railway system. They ought now to lie able to take a general -survey of the situation, and form

in their minds some conception of the most desirable course to pursue in laying down a railway policy in harmony with the tendencies of the time. On the correctness of their judgment and foresight, on their freedom from anything parochial and political influence, on their sheer reliance on the le>l of what is best for the whole Dominion the success of Pie railways almost wholly de-

l-ends. The ordinary traveller by the railways has no such broad basis of in-

formation lo go on; he must simply judge by what he sees and hears. The present writer, having done a great deal of railway travelling recently by all classes of trains after some years absence from the country cannot help noticing the changing tendencies of transport. Wherever, for instance, the roads are good and the country is fairly easy as in Canterlniry and the Manawatu and Taranaki, the local trains, which fifteen or twenty years ago were well and profitably patronised, are now travelling practically empty. It is hard to see bow they could possibly pay with so few passengers. One saw from the roadside, for example, trains of six passenger conches travelling between Palmerston North and Fox ton during Mann wain Show time, with .fewer than 30 people aboard, and that was near Longhurn. There would he fewer later on in flic journey. One travelled between Palmerston and Marion by a local with practically

a whole coach to oneself. The examples could be multiplied. Tf was notable, too, that what few passengers there were did not appear to be loeal people. Most of them were commercial travellers doing the small towns. MOTOR BEATS TRAIN. What is ihc cause of Ihis diminution in local passenger traffic as compared with a decade or so ago? One had only to look out of the carriage windows at'the road alongside to see ear after ear loaded, more or loss, passing the train. These were the people who in the earlier years before the motor age, would have been travelling by train with a horse and trap to meet them at their destination to take them

finally home. Now they go straight from one place to another by motor out and home again. If is vastly more convenient so. and usually much pleasanter. Only the mads and the railways suffer. J£ this were all, it would not be quite so bad. Where the rub comes in that hurts the railway authorities is that in several plaees, notably round Palmerston North and

up to Wnnjgnnui, the public motor vehicle is actively and successfully competing with (he railway between two given points. Tliei-e is a regular motor service between Palmerston N. and Wanganui at a figure which is a very considerable inducement for the traveller to take the road before the rail. There are popular and paving motor services between Palmerston North and Feilding, and between Palmerston North and Foxlon. and also between Marlon and Wanganui. This motor competition has come to stay, and perhaps 1o win. One wonders what a private railwny company would do about it. In America similar competition has caused the closing down of many iv,tor-urban olootrie railways and some steam lines. England, with

its dense population, has felt the competition of the road and is likely to feel it worse. Whal are (lie i\ew Zealand Railways going to do almut it? The. Minister has suggested the closing down of certain nonpnynlilc lines with the Palmerston N.-Foxton railway—one of the oldest in the North Island —as an example.

LONG DISTANCE RAIL HOLDS ITS OWN. There are certain aspects of this change in transport that need attention. First to tjje ordinary traveller it does not seem that long distance and express passenger traffic is showing any decrease on the railways. On the contrary, it would appear—superficially, at any ratethat. 1 such trains are paying thenway. The competition of public niotor vehicles so far is limited to distances not exceeding about fifty mil(Concluded on Page 4).