DAILY RAIL-CAR

Taranaki Daily News, 27 September 1940, Page 6

DAILY RAIL-CAR

The representations made to the : Minister of Railways at Stratford ; yesterday for an improvement in the passenger service between New : Plymouth and Wellington are well founded, and it is to be hoped that they will bear results. The deputation concentrated on a request for a daily rail-car service between New Plymouth and Wellington in lieu of the present tri-weekly service. The Minister showed his sympathy by agreeing to give a trial daily service for a period of two or three months commencing next December, but he quite properly pointed out that the test of the service would be the patronage accorded to it. He added that the present figures did not justify the proposed extension. It is for the people of Taranaki to prove by the attention they give the service at the end of this year whether they are entitled to retain it after the experimental period has reached a conclusion. The chief weakness of the present service is undoubtedly the fact that ene car is not sufficient to cope with the traffic offering on the Friday trip from Wellington and the Sunday trip from New Plymouth. To-day people are lucky if they are able to reserve seats on these cars even a fortnight ahead, and it is ( pen to question whether there should not be some restriction on the type of passenger entitled to use the week-end service. Although the rail-car service between New Plymouth and Wellington was the chief point of di^cussion with the Minister, there are two other aspects of railway passenger services to and from Taranaki ihst are also of the greatest importance to the public of this province. O.ie is the Auckland-Taranaki servic-3, and the other is the New Plymou'.nWellington mail train timetable. Th? service between Taranaki and Auckland suffers because it is only tri-weekly, and the department might well examine the possibility of discontinuing the through train service to and from Auckland in favour of a nightly service by either rail-car or steam train between New Plymouth and Taumarunui, connecting at the latter station with the Auckland-Wellington expresses. The chief disadvantage of the railway connection between New Plymouth and Wellington is not the number of trains, which is ample, but the time they take on the journey. Ten hours for a journey of approximately 240 miles in an alleged express service is appalling. Most of the delay occurs between Marton and New Plymouth, where the steep grades at Turakina, Wangaehu, Fordell, Westmere and Waitotara are all a serious handicap. But an average speed > of not much more than 20 miles an hour is shockingly i low. The Okoia-Turakina deviation I will reduce the time by approxi- 1 mately 20 minutes, but in spite of the diflicult nature of the country between Aramoho and Hawera surely something can be done to shorten the very wearisome time taken on this section of the journey.