Railways agent change 'oversight'

Waimarino Bulletin, Volume 6, Issue 240, 19 April 1988, Page 1

Railways agent change 'oversight'

ByLynleyWard Without public warning Ohakune's rail and road service ticket agency has been changed and selling hours slashed. The new agency is next to the AA information Office and is open for only five hours a day, Monday to Friday. The previous agency, Hammonds Bookshop, had been providing a service for 10 hours a day, Monday to Friday, and three hours on Saturday moming.

The changes were revealed at last week's meeting of the Ruapehu South Business Association.. Steering committee member Mrs Jean McKillop, an Ohakune motelier, said she werit to buy a ticket to Auckland last Tuesday, only to find the bookshop was no longer the agent and that a replacement agency had not yet been set up. She said no notice of the closure had been given to the public. Mrs McKillop went to the AA Informa-

tion Office a day later still trying to buy a ticket, only to be told she had to go to the Raetihi agency. When she arrived there to buy her ticket, she was unable to. She was told the train had already left Wellington, so could not be advised to stop at Ohakune Junction. "I would have hated to see what would have happened if I'd been making a booking for a guest," Mrs McKillop said. Turnpage5

Railways agency

From page 1 "It makes us look like an incompetent tourist area." Co-owner of Hammonds Bookshop, Mrs Eileen Hammond, told the Bulletin that her firm closed down the agency because of the time spent on rail and road business. It often meant that bookshop customers had to wait a long time to be served. "My first priority is for ordinary customers. It was inconveniencing them," said Mrs Hammond. "There have been times when I had to wait on the phone for up to half an hour during the holiday season for Wellington or Auckland to answer." She said that InterCity (formerly NZ Rail and Road Services) turned down her firm's offer to provide a working place for the station-master when the railway station was closed down. "It would have been all right if I could have employed someone else to do the railway work, but the amount of money I got as commission from InterCity was not enough to pay even half a wage." Mrs Hammond said she was not able to help the public with information about the new agency because she didn't know herself. Last Wednesday's ticket service in Ohakune was provided by an InterCity bus driver for two hours in the afternoon. Area passenger manager Mr Paul Tessier said from Palmerston North that the whole incident was "a little bit of an oversight." He thought the new agency had been operating since Monday last week. The public would be notified of the change by InterCity in the near future, he said, and signs would be erected at the new agency shortly. The agency will be sharing its Clyde $t premises with a real estate business and the Citizen's A 5f»rvir'P.