The sea coast echo. [volume] (Bay Saint Louis, Miss.) 1892-current, 1919-07-26
|. & n. COAST TRAIN
TRAIN SERVICE SUB
JECT FOR COMMENT.
New Orleans Item Says Criticisms of
Service, General and Special,
Both Well-Founded
SCHEDULES ARE ALWAYS BE-
HIND AND SERVICE BAD.
East" Train More Oftener Takes 2
Hours Than to l 3-4 to Make
Trip to Bay ST Louis.
Editorial from N. O. Item.

Editorial from N. O. Item.
Critics of the Louisville and Nash
vile service in New Orleans make
| both general and special complaints;
and both are well-founded
| The general complaint is that the
improvement in the Gulf Coast train
service has scarcely improved appre-
ciably, in point of time or comfort
in quarter of a century. The writ
er's memory doesn't extend so far,
back as he knows, A Baldwin Wood, a
| competent engineer, made the state
ment first. No question has been rails
| ed against it. While the rest of the
world has in general gone forward,
much or little, he strikingly declares
| that here is great, rich, railroad that
! goes backward, rather than forward,
in it's service on one of the heaviest
divisions, notwithstanding that the dl-
vision territory itself, in spite of this
railroads stagnating tendency, has
greatly improved, even against the
railroads handicap.
Special counts against the L. & N.
service might be multiplied. We re-
| fer to one or two of the wost press
ing. It does not supply adequate or
reasonably comfortable equipment.
1t does not keep it's schedules.
The train leaving New Orleans at
5 O'Clock during the past two 'swelter-
| ing weeks has usually been so over
crowded as to force women with chill
dren in arms, as we'll as men and chill
IL
the platfoms, both Of which are pc
| riodically swept by sulphurous smoke
that would not be tolerated by any
| properly alert community The Louis
vile and Nashville management does
not provide coaches for it's patrons
to ride in 1t takes full fare from it's
patrons, and then makes even the
women stand up in the aisles and on
it's dangerous open platforms until
these sometimes resembles those of
Barracks street car during rush hour.
Many of the cars it does supply for.
this Gulf Coast Service are utterly
unfit for use in this climate at this
season. They are ancient and obso-
lete, with hot and dirty red uphol-
stery, without screens to protect pass
engers from the continuous black
storms of small and large cinders
that rain through the windows on him
from one end of the journey to the
other, the product of the wretched
slack burnt under the boilers.
This management has not even pro-
vided seats enough at full Pullman
rates into which travellers, disgusted
with it's other offerings or unable to
get one of them, might rent at the
extra rate. 1t won't even seat the
traffic at a Pullman premium.
The L. & N. once had what were
called "fast" and a "slow" train in
the afternoon. The first left here at
3:25 and ran, say to Bay st. Louis,
in l hour and 35 minutes. The "slow,"
one left later and made the run in
about two hours, or less.
The early train was recently made
"slow," and the late train "fast." That
is, their schedules were reversed, the
early being supposed to make the
stops formerly made by the late one.
That is as it should be, if the reversal
were REALLY carried out and the
schedules maintained. The second
train should be the sfast" train, for
obvious reasons growing out of the
needs and convenience of most of the
traffic But NEITHER now is fast.
The management has changed
slow schedule and still slower sche-
dule into two very slow schedules.
The late train, now supposed to be
"fast," rarely makes it's trip to the
Bay, for instance, less than l hour
and as minutes. More often it takes
nearer to hours than l 3-4. And
the further you go beyond the Bay
the more burdensome does this sort
of thing get on the populous and
thriving eastern communities who are
victimized by it.
The bigger trains of nowadays, as
Mr.. Wood points out are still hauled
by the obsolete locomotive types that
moved the smaller ones of former
days And the ancient bridges and
equipment are not as good as they
formerly were.
Doctor Hines, the Federal Govern
ment, the Democratic administration,
are directly responsible in theory for
these conditions as long as the gov
ernment hold the railroads. The real
responsibility, however doubtless lies
| with the Louisville and Nashville and
its management. They are in charge,
were in charge, and will remain in
/ charge of the situation.
The people of New Orleans, and of
the thriving cities and settlements
along the Coast between here and
Mobile should take account, in any
case of what the Louisville and Nash
| vile is doing to them and unite to bet
i ter it's service. This city deprived
by such tran service of much of its
4 natural advantage of proximity to
the Coast. The Coast is deprived of
its normal right to growth and devel-
opment.
Mr.. Curtis T.. Waller, candidate
81 fay district aftorney is home from q