Cars eat into rail revenue

The first Sentinel-Cammell steam coach for NZ Railways, powered by a 60 horsepower steam engine,...
The first Sentinel-Cammell steam coach for NZ Railways, powered by a 60 horsepower steam engine, intended for unprofitable routes, is landed from the ship Port Melbourne. — Otago Witness, 20.1.1925
The number of persons who travel by their own motor cars in preference to rail is annually increasing. Their private conveyance affords them a mode of transport that is not only more convenient, but is also cheaper, than railway travelling. The commercial automobile is also cutting into the Railways Department’s business to a very large extent, particularly in the North Island. For this development the department must itself accept the responsibility. It has, largely through its inflexible adherence to time-tables that are not suited to the public convenience, allowed private competition to deprive it of an appreciable volume of passenger traffic. The business is clearly a profitable one for the owners of the charabancs, for on some lines there are as many as three services, if not more, competing for it. It is problematical whether the department can recover all or much of this traffic which has been diverted from the railroad. It is only by a revision both of its time-tables and of its scale of fares that it can hope to regain the business. It must be recognised, however, that a great deal of the passenger traffic that is now carried by road is not recoverable by the railways, and nothing is really to be gained by dwelling upon what is, after all, a natural development of the expansion in the production, and of the reduction in the cost, of motor cars. — editorial

Magistrate throws out case

A boy, 11 years of age, was charged with having barked a tree growing in Baker street, Caversham. Senior-sergeant Mathieson said that the boy had used a knife on the tree, and had barked it all round. The Juvenile Probation Officer (Mr Lock) said that the boy belonged to respectable parents, and it seemed unfortunate that he had been brought before the court when his home conditions were quite satisfactory. 

The Magistrate agreed with this view, and said that it was only a juvenile escapade, and the case should not have been brought before the court.  If such matters were worth bringing before the court everybody in the community would be brought up at some time or other. 

He hoped that the police officers would give attention to what he had said. The boy would be admonished and discharged.  Senior-sergeant Mathieson said that he was not responsible for the prosecution, but he would inform his superior officers of what his Worship had said.

Rego no laughing matter

The provision that for the purposes of registration under the new Motor Vehicles Act every motorist must furnish, among other things, the engine number, has been responsible for the first joke hereabouts since the Act came into force The Deputy-Registrar of motor vehicles in addition to being the official recorder of births, deaths and marriages, in a country town not 20 miles from Christchurch, had been busy all morning registering motor vehicles. It was getting close to dinner-gong time. A lady hustled in almost on the last minute. "Will you please give me a registration form," she asked. The official handed her the form with the injunction: "Don't forget to put the engine number in." "Er — er —" stammered the lady, with a perceptible blush. "I'm afraid I won't be able to." ‘‘Why?" inquired the registrar. The light gradually dawned upon her. "It’s not a motor car I want to register; it's a baby." — ODT, 25.1.1925

Compiled by Peter Dowden