CHRISTMAS EVE TRAIN.

Taranaki Daily News, 23 December 1921, Page 4

CHRISTMAS EVE TRAIN.

AN UNACCEPTABLE CONDITION. Overtures were recently maxle by the Taranaki Chamber of Commerce to reinstate the late Christmas Eve train from New Plymouth to Stratford. The Railway Department agreed, but asked for a guarantee equivalent to one hundred sec-ond-class return fares. This was agreed to. Then the Department intimated that the guarantors would not be credited with any return fares, i.e., that any passengers coming up *by the morning, afternoon or evening mail trains, and returning by the late evening special train, would not be counted. As anyone coming to New Plymouth would necessarily have to journey by an earlier train that day the condition meant that only those taking single tickets from New Plymouth by the special late train would be considered as a set-off against the guarantee. Obviously these would be very small in number, and the guarantors would be called upon to' defray practically the whole cost of the train. The business men of the town met and considered the condition inequitable, and the special train not worth proceeding with. It was felt that the Department was not looking for extra business, for, it it were, it would have realised that the very fact of putting on a special late train would, induce many to travel and visit New Plymouth ihat would, not otherwise think of doing so.