Five Months On A Train

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31782, 12 September 1968, Page 2

Five Months On A Train

For five months Mr and Mrs B. Mason, of Auckland, are working seven days a week on a train which is touring New Zealand. Both are formerly from Canterbury.

The train is carrying an exhibition of finalist entries in the first $12,000 Rothmans Industrial Desigrf Awards contest, for which Mr Mason is secretary. His wife. Fay, who is a trained schoolteacher, is helping him during the tour.

Already they have been travelling five weeks and about 80,000 people had viewed the exhibition by the time it arrived in Christchurch yesterday. Six days a week, Mr and Mrs Mason work up to 12 hours a day, but Sunuays are not as busy.

“The train usually travels at night and we are at a place at 8 a.m., when we do -leaning duties for an hour and a half. My husband and I have three casual workers to help with this,” Mrs Mason said. All Dusted “The three carriages in which the exhibits are displayed are vacuumed and every exhibit is dusted. Some of the articles have to be packed and re-assembled but most travel as they are.” The exhibition is opened to the public at 9.30 a.m., when Mrs Mason from a desk greets

each person who comes aboard, and answers questions.

.School parties are taken through (there have been up

to 12 a day) and she explains to the children the aims of the award and the importance of the designed products, both for domestic use and export. “The exhibition closes officially at 7.30 p.m., except Friday nights, but almost invariably we have a queue to clear and it is rarely closed until after eight. We then have more cleaning to do.” When the train made an

unscheduled stop at Gore last Thursday night people were still queued on the platform at midnight The train was a spectacle on its own for many people, Mrs Mason said. Besides the three blue and gold carriages carrying the exhibits, there is an accommodation car which can be used for travel at night if necessary, or to ensure adequate night security. The carriages, converted guardsvans, have attractive decor. For meals, railway refreshment services are used where they are available. Among Mrs Mason’s more unusual tasks is occasionally running the generator which supplies lighting and heating on board the train.