HEAVY? RAILWAY TRAFFIC

Press, Volume XCIII, Issue 27858, 5 January 1956, Page 13

HEAVY ? RAILWAY TRAFFIC

MANY GOODS WAGGONS UNDER LOAD

Nearly 2000 railway waggons were under load in the Christchurch district yesterday, many more than usual at this time of the year. The Railways Department’s Christmas programme this year has been considerably upset by the need to bringempty waggons to Christchurch from as far south as Dunedin. Railway officials cannot recall any other instance of empty waggons being brought to Christchurch during the ChristmasNew Year period. The empty waggons are needed because of an unprecedented rush of goods arriving at Lyttelton from overseas. There were 1265 waggons of overseas shipping in yesterday's total.

The Middleton railway yard, which was closed for Christmas on December 24 and was not to have reopened until Tuesday of this week, had to be reopened last week to accommodate waggons for which no storage space was available in the Lyttelton and Christchurch yards.

Excursion Trains A total of 1044 passengers were carried by two excursion trains from Christchurch to Timaru on Tuesday, December 27, and 879 on two trains last Sunday, The excursion train to Otira last Tuesday left Christchurch with 540 passengers, and the total had r&on’ to | 610 when the train left Springfield. As this train had accommodation for only 595, extra seats were put in the van to cope with the overflow.

Special race trains took 218 patrons to Washdyke on December 24, 510 to Timaru on December 26. and 167 to Washdyke on December 29. Further excursion trains will run to Timaru on seven Sundays up to March 4. and three excursions will be made to Kaikouva in the next three months. Another excursion to Otira will be made on March 11. On January 22, an excursion train will ' be run irom Timaru to Christchurch in addition to the one starting from Christchurch. Heavy Holiday Traffic

Most railway passenger services from Christchurch have been very well patronised this year. Expresses to the south have been well filled all the way. and are heavily booked until the end of next week, although there is still accommodation available on most trains.

Picton expresses are fairly lightly booked from now on, but they will continue to run each way three times a week until the end of January. The peak day for. passenger traffic out of Christchurch in recent weeks was December 23, when 2045 passengers left by train.