Boys’ Experiment With

Press, Volume C, Issue 29608, 2 September 1961, Page 13

Boys’ Experiment With

JL VVI JL*P

Seven secondary schoolboys filed into the board room at the Christchurch railway station yesterday to be paid for 10 days of the most varied work possible in the traffic branch. They had been chosen by the careers advisers at their schools to spend a fortnight of their holidays as temporary clerical cadets with the Railways Department. At a discussion around the board-room table yesterday three of them told the staff officer (Mr G. McMillan) that they would probably take jobs in the railways next year. A fourth boy is undecided as yet, but said he was considering it. The temporary cadet scheme was an experimental one, announced by the Minister of Railways (Mr McAlpine) on August 17, aimed at recruiting clerical cadets. "Very Valuable” Mr McMillan said yesterday the results had shown the experiment to be very valuable. “It has shown prospective recruits more of the work of the department than could possibly be done at any interview,” he said. He added that prospects for young people in the department had never been better, and there was plenty of opportunity for rapid promotion for those who showed ability and worked for It. “In fact. I wish that I was just starting in the department, instead of getting close to retiring.” The boys are K. Morgan (St, Bede’s College), R. Perry (Burnside High School), A. Borrie and R Garters (Linwood High School), A, Christie (Christchurch West High School), B Nobbs (Aranui High School) and R. Tulloch (Shirley Boys’ High School) They are all aged about 18. Scope of Coarse "Hiey learnt all about a railway career, the organisation of the traffic branch bookings, the sort of work done by cadets, signalling, train control, goods sheds and other aspects of th“ department’s work. Then they were sent out to the Papanui. Riccarton, and Heathcote station*; the booking office, .and the shipping

shed for some practical ex perience.

Among them they did a little of every kind of work They sold tickets, accepted consignments and costed them, checked waggons into the yards, and under supervision they signalled trains, recorded train times and operated the tablet machines which record the passage of trains between stations Yesterday at the end of the fortnight, they collected their pay—£l2 Is 8d each. Mr McMillan said it was likely that similar courses would be conducted at other main centres when the value of the Christchurch course had been assessed in Wellington.