Long service to board
Mr R. Todd has seen many changes in the transport industry in Christchurch during his 38 years service to the Tramways Board and the Christchurch Transport Board. Mr Todd will retire on Friday. He start,ed work as a conductor in 1937 and became a tram driver on the Cashmere and Papanui run in 1939.. He became an inspector in 1959. “We slowly graduated to the one-man trams, and then on to buses,” said Mr Todd. “The one-man tram was the thing as far as I was concerned. The move to buses was a bit regrettable, but I coped.” The change to buses went very smoothly, said Mr Todd, despite the fact that when he had to sit his bus “ticket,” he had not even driven a motor car. “However, my road sense and a good tutor soon had me driving confidently.” It only took a week before Mr Todd was driving a bus and in 1952, when the Sumner-Cathedral Square run was introduced, he drove a bus full-time. Mr Todd said that there had been many amusing, incidents while he was a bus driver, and tram driver, and these were usually .discussed by the drivers around a large open fire in their old club on Moorhouse Avenue, while they drank tea and ate biscuits.
However, when the depot moved to Ferry Road about eight years ago. their old club was closed.
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Bibliographic details
Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33944, 10 September 1975, Page 16
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235Long service to board Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33944, 10 September 1975, Page 16
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