cities (Christchurch, Dunedin, Invercargill and Napier-Hastings) once had suburban services, but they were withdrawn due to a lack of patronage. The Christchurch-Lyttelton suburban service was stopped in 1972 when passengers were down to "a busload". The last "boat train" for the ferry service to Wellington ran in 1976. The 10.5 km line to Lyttelton was electrified from 1929 to 1970. There were worker's trains north to Rangiora; two in the morning and two in the afternoon. Dunedin had suburban trains to Port Chalmers and Mosgiel, withdrawn on 3 December 1982. The Invercargill to Bluff service stopped in 1967; in 1929 the sole Clayton steam railcar had been used. Trains ran the between Napier and Hastings but some were replaced by a New Zealand Railways Road Services bus in 1926, and soon they ceased altogether. Worker's concession tickets had been introduced in 1897, initially for the Wellington-Hutt service, and extended next year to Auckland, Christchurch and Dunedin (and then between Westport and Waimangaroa). A 1979 NZR report "Time for Change" said that the Wellington suburban services revenue met only 26% of operating costs (Dunedin was 28%, Auckland 46%). School commuters Up to the 1930s and 1940s, pupils had to commute to larger towns for secondary education from places that only had a primary school; for example from rural Canterbury to Christchurch Technical High School. Another famous example was Sir Edmund Hillary who commuted by school train from Tuakau to Auckland Grammar School for three and a half hours, a one-hour and 40 minutes journey each way. School trains ran between Picton and Blenheim, allowing Picton students to attend Marlborough College (split into Marlborough Boys' College and Marlborough Girls' College in 1963). The service was cancelled when Queen Charlotte College opened in Picton in 1965, and those students remaining at the Marlborough Colleges switched to buses. The NZR offered season tickets for primary and secondary school students from 1877, using funds paid for out of the Education budget, and from 1885 for students attending primary schools from a place lacking a local school. Premier Richard Seddon and the Liberal Government were keen to place secondary education "within the reach of the poorest man in the Colony" with an extension of the free passes in 1898 and 1909. School season passes increased from 8720 in 1899 to 29,705 in 1914–15, when one in seven primary and secondary students travelled by train. Some pupils