THE MAIL TRAIN SERVICE.

Taranaki Daily News, 25 February 1922, Page 4

THE MAIL TRAIN SERVICE.

It is understood the Railway Department is at present lengthening the turning table at New Plymouth and strengthening certain bridges down the line, so as to accommodate the new and larger type of engines recently imported. These engines are. very powerful, and designed to run a hundred miles without watering. They also have great power, and can negotiate the stiffest gradients without difficulty. It is reported that the locomotives have proved entirely successful, surpassing all expectations. Tn the past it has been impossible to speed up the mail trains between New Plymouth and Wellington, because of the limitations of the engines in use and the number of stopping places. Now that bigger engines are to be put into operation there is no reason why the service should not be accelerated and made an express in fact as well as in name. It says little for our enterprise that during the years since the line has been opened there has been no reduction at all in the time taken on the journey, though in every other form of locomotion marked advancement has been made. The so-called express service has been as much a district service as a through one, the train stopping at nearly every station, however unimportant, along the line. The time has arrived—indeed, it is long overdue—when Taranaki and the rest of the West Coast should be given an efficient and fast express service, and now that the big locomotives are available and the necessary facilities are being provided the time is opportune to take up the matter with the authorities. We hope this will be done without delay. The only objection than can possibly be raised is the cutting out of some of the smaller stopping places, but surely satisfactory arrangements can be made whereby they can be served other than by the mail train. It is absurd for a mail train to pull up and waste time at a station where there may be one or possibly no passenger at all. It is not done on the Main Trunk, or on the South Island Trunk —or anywhere else, for that matter— and this coast merits a service equally as fast and as good in other respects. When the Taranaki Chamber of Commerce was dealing with the improvement of the train services some time ago it was stated that it was possible to .re-arrange the mail train service and save an hour and a half on the journey between New Plymouth and Wellington. With the powerful new engines—they can do sixty miles an hour in the straight without difficulty—surely an equal saving can be made. This reduction in time would make all the difference in. the long and tedious journey, and be a source of great benefit and convenience to the whole of the districts between here and the capital city. The Railway Department readily met the wishes of Taranaki’s commercial community a short time ago in regard to the local train services, which are now very much more convenient than ever they were before, and we are sure that if concerted representations are made in the matter of speeding up the mail train the department will similarly meet them. At any rate, no harm can come from approaching the department with a view to seeing what can be done. And the time is the present.