Days of future past
In accordance with Labour Party policy, a HamiltonAuckland commuter rail service is scheduled to commence in around a year’s time.
This is not a new idea. One hundred and thirty years ago, in February, 1889, the announced that a ‘‘purely passenger train between Hamilton and Auckland’’ would be ‘‘run daily’’. The new service was to augment the existing freight train which also carried passengers.
Leaving Auckland at 9.35am, the scheduled arrival time at Frankton junction was 2.30pm. A four hour trip was a considerable improvement on six and a half hours, dispensing with ‘‘ . . . those annoying stoppages and interminable shuntings which have so long taxed travellers’’.
Additional changes were proposed for stock and freight trains, with cattle being transported between Te Awamutu and Auckland on Mondays and Wednesdays, picking up stock at Frankton en route and a goods locomotive leaving Auckland an hour before the proposed new commuter service.
Subsequent to the announcement a meeting took place between a Hamilton deputation and railways administration, the former lobbying for a reduction in freight prices as well as the lowering of passenger fare to and from Auckland and/or a return discount.
The dialogue was unsuccessful. In October a group of concerned Hamilton citizens met to discuss the benefits of setting up a local branch of the Railway Reform League. The cost of freight was deemed ‘‘so heavy as to make the sending of products to port unprofitable’’.
Fares were beyond the means of many. Subsidised fares were thought desirable by at least one in attendance, who opined that ‘‘the railways belong to the public and the fares should be such that the public could use them when they wanted’’.
In November the Waikato Farmers Club discussed the shortcomings of the new service. Complaints had been registered with the railways commissioners over delays.
Sixty head of cattle had been lost in transit the previous year and if anything things had deteriorated since. Some farmers present felt ‘‘they were now in a position to help themselves by driving their cattle to Auckland [instead]’’.