CONTEST PATRONS STRANDED

Hawera Star, Volume L, 26 March 1931, Page 4

CONTEST PATRONS STRANDED

SPECIAL TRAIN RECALLED

PREDICA3IENT O.F PASSENGERS

On account of the special north train, chartered to carry passengers from the Taranaki band contest last night, leaving before the contest finished a large crowd of people wa® stranded at the Hawera station. The train waited five minutes over tlie scheduled time (.10 45 p.m.) and as no people were in sight and the contest appeared to be over, it left on its northern journey. Twenty minutes later .over 40 people, including several Women and oJiildren and the whole of the Waitara band, arrived at the station to find the train had departed. Mr. E>. Dixon, chairman of the Hawera contest committee, was notified, and the railway authorities managed to recall the train, which had by that time reached Stratford at 11.30 p.m. When it left Hawera it carried six cars containing about thirty people. When it reached Hawera. on the return journey at 1.15 a.m., there were four people aboard, the remainder having disembarked at Eltham. Meanwhile the branch train at Lepperton junction, to carry Waitara people, was still waiting. New Plymouth and Waitara people constituted the bulk of the stranded passengers. The Stratford band and many Stratford people ; on finding their predicament, hired two buses, rather than wait 'for the return train.

Impromptu music was provided by members of the Waitara band during the wait on the Hawera station.