SYDNEY CROWDS MSB ILL TRAINS

Auckland Star, Volume LXXVI, Issue 304, 24 December 1945, Page 5

SYDNEY CROWDS MSB ILL TRAINS

RECORD SPEWING 13,000 People Leave By Rail In One Day N.Z. Press Association—Copyright Rec. 11 a.m. SYDNEY, this day. Already in Sydney this first peacetime Christmas for seven years has had two memorable features —record spending and record crowding on trains, which are drastically curtailed by the coal shortage. On 18 trains, which would normally carry 6300 people, 13,000 holiday passengers left Central Station yesterday. The carriages were packed to the doors four or five hours before the trains were due to leave. While some trains were shunting into the station travellers rushed wildly into carriages. Chivalry was dead. Women were buffeted and children dragged from parents and lost - Nearly 60,000 passengers have left Central Station since last Thursday on trains for country and holiday resorts. . , Road transport on main highways out of Sydney has been the heaviest on record. Another stampede occurred yesterday afternoon when racegoers at Randwick stormed the gates of the main paddock immediately after the last race, causing one of the biggest jams in Sydney's racing history. The crowd swept aside the 20 police on duty in an attempt to gain seats in the limited transport available. Thousands were forced to walk back to the city. Trams took people to the racecourse, out all tram traffic stopped for the week-end at 2 p.m.