The Daily News. FRIDAY, APRIL 26, 1912. THE RAILWAY SERVICE.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 254, 26 April 1912, Page 4

The Daily News. FRIDAY, APRIL 26, 1912. THE RAILWAY SERVICE.

I The new Minister Railways is making a good start. He proposes to speed up suburban services, duplicate the service on the Main Trunk line, and provide more railway rolling stock, doing in the latter respect what his predecessor never attempted, that is, to go outside the Department to procure the necessary carriages. Evidently he does; not intend to allow the departmental potentates to continue their muddling and mismanagement. For some time past tliey seem to have regarded it as their duty to run the system for their own convenience, and not for the general public. Taranaki people know to their coit that nothing is to be gained by preferring Tequests or making protests to the Department. Taranaki is, so we are informed: iby Ministers, the most goahead of all the provinces. It has, however, progressed in spite, and never with the help, of the Railway Department, who are and have been giving the public no bettor service so far as speed ia concerned than when the line was first opened. The mail train, the so-called express service, takes two hours and 13 minutes to cover the 48 miles between New Plymouth and Hawera. The next train, the 7.40 a.m., takes 3 hours 09 minutes, the 12.50 p.m. 3 hours 10 minutes, and the 4.20 p.m. 3 hours 28 minutes. What other civilised community is inflicted' with such a snail-like service? Thirty miles an hour is considered slow travelling in "barbarous" Russia and "heathen" China. Urge the Railway Department to improve the service, and the reply invariably comes that "it cannot be done," on the score of extra expense and extra work. But these barnacles- of the service will not be able to take refuge behind the cost excuse now that the motor has been successfully applied to the railways. One day last week there glided into the Melbourne station the first McKeen motor train seen in Australia. At first, visions of invasion rose in the minds of those on the station platform. Engine, bag-gage-room, and first and second-class accommodation are all built in one, and they look for all the world like an armored train and a submarine combined. The strange vehicle has a nose like a torpedo, large portholes in place of windows, ami the rear is curved like the stern of a ship. Accommodation is pro- j tided for seventy passengers, the depart- |

ments being divided by partitions, and a

corridor runs tlte whole length of the train. The motor is in the front, and then comes the baggage room, capable of storing 30cwt. of luggage. The train is replete with lavatories and smokingrooms, lias a perfect ventilating system, ■Mid the temperature is regulated by means of steam pipes. The motor is of 200 horse-power, and the cylinder holds eighty-eight gallons of benzine, which are sufficient to drive the train for 180 miles. The McKeen trains were purchased in America at a cost of about £'6ooo each, and they were put together in Victoria. At ths preliminary trials they comfortably surmounted a grade of 1 in 40, and reached a speed of forty-five miles an hour. They are to be u&ed on the country lines where, hitherto, the traffic has not been sufficient to justify the Railway Department in running separate passenger and goods trains. There is no reason why they should not be successfully used in Taranaki and other parts of the Dominion, and we hope the new Minister, who is essentially a business man, will give favorable consideration to this matter, as well as reinstating the dining car on the express, which a department with any regard for the convenience of the travelling public would never have taken off.