THE OHAKUNE SCRAMBLE.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2402, 18 January 1909, Page 3

THE OHAKUNE SCRAMBLE.

EXPERIENCES OF PASSENGERS. In spite of the assurance made by. the Prime Minister (Sir Joseph Ward) that any inconvenience arising hi connection avith the stop-over night of the Main Trunk train at Oh alamo avoiild be immediately remedied, and notwithstanding the report of the public health officers that the accommodation at that township is adequate, tmvellers continue to complain bitterly of their experiences at the halfway station. The accommodation at Ohakuno on a recent occasion is said to have been totally inadequate for the number of people who were set down at the station. One of the travellers states that there must liaaw been over 200 passengers on the train, a number of whom elected to sleep in the carriages. Tlie coaches were running passengers oamr a road full of holes and lumps at a good -pace for one and a half hours after the train had arrived. At tho hotel where our informant put up, a total of 64 passengers found accommodation. His party had written -a month previously securing rooms, but avere informed on arrival that owing to the large number of lady travellers, they would have to take “shake-downs.” Tho party numbered 12, and avere put ,on stretchers in the .passages (avith screens in front of them). Other shelters avere erected alongside the hotel, these including a marquee, avhicli the inmates facetiously dubbed the “.summerhouse.” The party avere roused at four a.m., and from then bnavnrds there avas a desporktc rush to get breakfast and-catch the train. The travellers who know the- road well advise peoplo to sleep in the train in preference to the jolting over the rough road between the station and the township, with the chance oi indifferent beds at the conclusion of the drive. In order to meet this contingency an enterprising Oh a kiwi e settler has arranged for a supply of meals close to-the station, -it is stated chat, no fewer than 42 persons slept in the train on -a recent night, That the complaints are general can be judged from the remarks oi -a correspondent of tho “Taibapo Jimes’’ who gives a woeful picture el the scene at the Ohukune station on Near Year’s Eve. The passengers, he states, arrived after nine o’clock on a dark, avet night, and found the coaches had been rushed by local ho-fidav-makers. There is no verandah at the station, and no protection Horn the avet tind mud. The railway cars were locked and the lights extinguished, and the passengers had a terrible experience while aavaiting the coaches’ return. -Much suffering could have been avoided had the ears remained available as shelter, as promised by the Prime Minister.