A BIG DAY FOR THE TRAMS

Dominion, Volume 14, Issue 305, 19 September 1921, Page 8

A BIG DAY FOR THE TRAMS

HANDLING THE FOOTBALL CROWD. It is anticipated that Saturday’s receipts will easily top the best previous wet day record for the Wellington Municipal Tramways. Fortunately the tramway authorities, aware of tho pressure which would be put upon the service, had figured out very good arrangements for the day, with the result that no one was very much inconvenienced over tho denuding of some of the suburban services to provide extra cars for the park. What was most creditable of all, no one who wished to go to the park had to put up with any great inconvenience. That, of course, was duo to the fact that the big crowd took five and a half hours to assemble. Each ono figured out for him or herself what time it would be best to leave for tho park, and that made for the happiest; of results from a tramway management point of view. From 9.30 a.m., "specials” began to leave town for the football ground, the fare being 6d., or double the ordinary fare. In between there.were the usual Island Bay cars running at the .ordinary faro, but these did not appear to bo rushed in preference to tho "specials,” which only went ns far as tho park gates. These were dispatched at intervale from the city, and, later, from Courtenay Place, and a good steady traffic set in at about 10.30 a.m. and continued until 2 p.m. Tho real tramway problem, however, was not how to get the people to the park, but how to got some 30,000, leaving tho grounds at the same time, away. On this point Mr. M'Gillvray. with pardonable pride, said: "Well, I think we got 90 per cent, of the peoplo. and that without an accident!” That is an excellent record.

was accomplished probably in the only way possible. Rintoul Street is not an ideal road for tramway purposes. The grade is a sharp one, and there are no

facilities for assembling cars in any great number. Realising this, the tramway management decided to work tlie whole of Vhe trraffic from the junction of Rintoul Street and lliddiford Street, on the flat where there was a double track, and every facility for good control. This idea proved tlie best that could have 'been decided on. True, the people had to walk from the park down the hill to Newtown in the rain, tut

that was a detail to those who had stood the best part of threo or four hours in tho rain at the park., They left the park in an orderly fashion, walked ('own tho hill, and then boarded the cars, a long string of which were in .waiting nt tho foot of the bill, with the result that at one time there was a string of cars stretching from the Rintoul Street

junction right down to tho Basin Reserve. Probably never in the history of Wellington has a big crowd been handled so well. There was a big day’s receipts, but the amount, which should easily be a fourfigure total, will not be known until late to-day.