ALL-NIGHT QUEUES

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIV, Issue 295, 13 December 1943, Page 2

ALL-NIGHT QUEUES

BOOKING HOLIDAY SEATS

AUSTERITY IN AUSTRALIA

(0.C.)

SYDNEY, Dec. 7

Remarkable scenes have been occurring at the two Broken Hill railway stations whence trains leave for Sydney and Adelaide. Crowds have been waiting in queues up to 48 hours to book seats on Christmas holiday trains. These are the only special trains which will run anywhere in Australia this austerity Christmas. They have been granted to Broken Hill because of its isolation and trying climate.

Families organised the waiting into shifts, the hardier members taking the night shift, to keep their places in the queues. They slept on station ramps, in adjoining streets, or in deckchairs which they had brought with them. Many brought rugs and some even carried packed meals and made a picnic of it. In the morning mothers would hand over their places in the queue to children and go home to cook breakfast for their families.

One man said he made expenses for his holiday playing poker during his 33-hour wait. A woman knitted a set of baby clothes for her expected grandchild.

Later, committees were set up to avoid the all-night queues. The committees issued place tickets covering all bookings on a train. When the bookings ran out the queues broke up and were told when the next queue would reassemble.