A LONG WAIT

Evening Post, Issue 17, 20 July 1936, Page 10

A LONG WAIT

When the guard of the train that normally leaves Waterloo about 8.15 a.m. for Lambton went through the train to collect the tickets this morning, he informed passengers that the train would arrive at the new platforms, and jocularly enjoined the passengers not to "get lost. But he wisely omitted to say when it would' arrive. The hundreds of passengers on the train naturally supposed that it would be somewhere about the usual timeperhaps a minute or two later, owing to difficulty in negotiating the new approaches. But late in starting the train got later, still through a wait of a few minutes on the northern side of Thorndon Station. When, however, it moved forward again interest in approaching 'the new station and platforms was aroused. But when parallel with the Thorndon platforms the train stopped again, this time for nearly half an hour.

Interest then waned and soon turned to wrath. "It's mail day and just the one day in-the week I don't want to be late," was one remark from a restive passenger. Another was, "Why couldn't they tell us that we would be hung up for- half an hour? We could have got out and caught a tram." As a matter of fact, quite a number of passengers did get out, and walked across the rails into Thorndon Station and thence to the trams. But just as the exodus was becoming general the train moved on slowly. It pulled up at the platform nearly three-quar-ters of an hour late.