SYDNEY’S EASTER

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25214, 1 May 1943, Page 4

SYDNEY’S EASTER

BID FOR PLEASURE TRANSPORT SERVICES OVERTAXED (Air Mail) SYDNEY, Apl. 27. A large section of Sydney's populace which sought to make Easter a normal holiday found war-time restrictions on travel a bar to their pleasure. There was an attendance of 80,000 at the Randwick race meeting on Saturday and big crowds at the opening round of the football competitions, and thousands of people had to wait for hours for a conveyance to take them home. A record crowd flocked to the city for Sunday’s Anzac march, and thousands were again left stranded because transport was not equal to shifting them. Few cafes were open in the city, and these were so packed that many people were forced to go hungry. Train travel back to the city on Sunday and Monday from the Blue Mountains, the Hawkesbury River, and South Coast was a nightmare. Only normal services operated, and, although the carriages were packed to suffocation point, thousands of people were unable to get home. Women screamed and fought with men for places on the trains from Wey Woy, a Hawkesbury River pleasure resort. When a woman fainted there was no room to lay her on the floor of a carriage, and she was supported on the laps of other women. City theatres were packed at every session, and. long queues waited for hours for admittance. Thousands were turned away.