Railways rule on Raetihi bus service

Waimarino Bulletin, Volume 3, Issue 14, 27 August 1985, Page 17

Railways rule on Raetihi bus service

NZR Road Services bus drivers on the nightly service between Palmerston North and Auckland via Ohakune have been instructed that they must travel via Raetihi to set down or pick up passengers when requested regardless of whether reservations have been prebooked or not. This ruling from the northern regional passenger manager of New Zealand Railways resulted from a recent incident which left a Raetihi family, including two young children, stranded in Ohakune late at night when the bus driver refused to take them to Raetihi. They were forced to take a taxi from Ohakune to Raetihi at an additional cost of . $15. But even this was a problem late on a Sunday night as they didn't have the right coins to use a public call box to telephone the local taxi and there was no-one around from whom they could borrow the money. When they wrote to New Zealand Railways northern regional passenger manager in Hamilton complaining of the driver's refusal to take them back to the destination from which they had originally set out — they had been picked up by a NZR

Road Services bus in Raetihi — they received a letter of apology and a refund of $ 1 5 for the taxi fare they had incurred. This information was passed on to the Bulletin by the family, concerned in the hope that other Waimarino residents may be saved the unnecessary hassle, humiliation and expense they experienced.