Letters: Charles Mackay incident not something to be celebrated

23 Ridgway St is New Zealand's first rainbow heritage listing. Photo / Bevan Conley

I fell about laughing upon reading that 23 Ridgway St is New Zealand’s first rainbow listing of a heritage building.

That this building is where an attempted murder took place seems to me a peculiar rationale for a heritage listing.

Whatever went down between Mackay and Cresswell, trying to murder by shooting remains a most serious crime, with severe consequences for the perpetrator.

In my view, this listing is bonkers. 23 Ridgeway is just a building where an ugly shooting took place. Bang bang.

PETER EDMONDS

Whanganui

Passenger trains a dream

Channa Miriam Knuckey (Letters, May 3) is sure there is a need for passenger trains to run from New Plymouth to Marton.

The boundary of our farm in Manutahi was the railway line, and in the late 1940s and 1950s, there were quite long passenger trains with people looking out of all the windows. The trains got shorter and there were still empty windows, so they went to rail cars.

They were good, as they could stop and start quite quickly, and at different times, the windows were full.

Then the windows weren’t full, so they were canned. The reason for this was people found trains and rail cars inconvenient.

Now, of course, they have been superseded by the more convenient planes, cars and buses that can pick you up in town and stop at cafeterias if stops are needed.

Trips from Tauranga to Whanganui require stops along the way so drivers can have their rest periods, but at least they stop in the town and people can have a bite to eat and wander ‘round.

But the trip takes a good while and the plane is quite quick - not everyone wants to spend a day travelling.

So dream on Channa, but the taxpayer can’t afford to sponsor your dreams.

GARTH SCOWN

Whanganui