The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1916-08-22
PROF. FARNAM
 RAPS SERVICE OF NEW HAVEN
Trains Stopped, He Suspects, to Allow Passengers to
 Read Ads"

Voicing bitter criticism of the New Haven road for it's Berkshire division train service and some caustic refer ences to the roads new policy of using its cars and stations for advertising Prof. Henry W. Farnam of New Ha- vens has written a sharp letter on the roads attitude. He says:
 With no desire to add to the bur dens of the New Haven railroad but only in the hope of securing your aid in removing what seems to me dis tinct discrimination against New Ha- ven, I desire to call your attention to the summer schedule of the Berkshire division.
 Tt is no exaggeration to say that for twenty years we have never had such an unsatisfactory time table. Formerly there were express trains running from New York to Pittsfield, morning and afternoon, and trains from New Haven and Bridgeport con- nected with both of them at Brook field Junction. New Haven people could thus reach Stockbridge in three hours and six minutes. The morn- ing train is now an accommodation so that even New Workers require five hours and 21 minutes when they for merly went in three. hours and AS minutes and New Haveners have to take four hours and 16 minutes. What is worse, we are obliged to leave New Haven at S:28 instead of 9:32, as for merly. The result is that passengers from. the Shore Line and Hartford divisions who could formerly make good connection with the morning train at New Haven, must now wait until the afternoon and even then the best they can do is to catch a four hour train. In short, passengers from southeastern New England who for merly had two express trains a day to the Berkshire hills and two returning, now have none at all, and are not even able to connect on Saturday with the morning express from New York. The service in the reverse direction is just as unsatisfactory. Formerly, we could leave Stockbridge at little af- ter eight and reach New Haven in three hours. Now the train which leaves at 8:01 makes no connection whatever at Brookfield Junction, and we can only reach New Haven by go- ing to South Norwalk and changing to a train from New York. AS if to add insult to injury. the road not only makes us spend an hour more on the road, but charges us an extra price on account of the longer distance travelled. While I take Stockbridge as an example the inconvenience is felt in greater or less degree by all of the people who have occasion to travel between New Haven and Bridgeport at the one end and Great Burlington, Lenox, Lee and Pittsield at the other.
 "The correspondence, which I have carried on with some of the general officers of the road has failed to give any explanation for the change, .ex- cept that 1t is experimental and that as the greatest volume of travel is from New York the road has taken primarily into consideration the re- quirements of that territory. As re- gards the former plea. it does not ap- pear why the road, after having worked out fairly satisfactory schedule on the basis of an experience of a quarter of a century should sud- denly begin experimenting at our ex- pense. As regards the latter plea, have talked with a number of operat-
  mer residents and have yet to find one who thinks even the New York schedule convenient On the contrary it is so inconvenient to many of my neighbors that they take the Hudson River or the Harlem routes as far as they can, and then motor over and do what they can to avoid using the New Haven road in spite of their two ex- press trains a day.
 Whether intentional or not, the new time table amounts to a distinct dis crimination against New Haven and towns. It not only pre- vents people from southern Connecti- cut from getting easy access to the Litchfeld and Berkshire hills, but 1t also forces the people from the hill towns who may have occasion to visit cities for business or pleasure to spend an extra hour need lessly on the way in each direction.
 ''I do not attempt to explain the change. It has been suggested that the railroad having entered into a contract to plaster the stations over with tobacco advertisements, stops it's trains long enough at each one to en- able it's passengers to read, mark and inwardly digest these latest additions to Berkshire literature and landscape Another explanation is that the road is experimenting to see how far the smiles, which. according to the liter ary part or the time table, are now included in the price of the ticket, will compensate the people for the extra hour of fatigue and discomfort. If the road can induce it's patrons to ac- cept smileage in lieu of mileage, 1t may be able to save money enough to take care of it's floating debt. This theory draws a certain plausibility from the statement of the above men,. tioned literary supplement that smile is like putting money out at in- terest.
 But I do not attempt to explain the mind of whoever devised the new schedule. The plain facts are that it against New Haven by imposing an uncalled for burden upon travellers and that they could be re- lieved without any extra expenditure, but simply by such an adjustment of trains as we formerly had even in winter, when it was possible for New Haven and Bridgeport passengers to connect at least once a day with the New York express at Brookf1eld Junc- tion.