EXODUS OF VISITORS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26708, 1 March 1948, Page 6

EXODUS OF VISITORS

TRAINS SOLIDLY PACKED NO TOEHOLDS LEFT Dunedin was swarming with visitors yesterday and the streets, usually deserted on a Sunday, were filled with people whose sole topic of conversation constituted, “ the show last night.” Special buses, which had come from points as far afield as Invercargill and Timaru, removed their quota of visitors while motor cars loaded with camping gear left the city in regular succession. Not even a toehold remained on the two expresses and one special train which pulled out from the Dunedin railway station yesterday. The 5.20 p.m. express to Invercargill consisted of 14 carriages into which were packed over 1000 passengers who not only occupied all the seating accommodation, bnt also formed a solid phalanx in the aisles and on the platforms.

The special train which left at 10.25 p.m., and the midnight express at 11.45 p.m. for Christchurch carried equally heavy loads, more thah 2000 passengers being taken away. Nearly a fortnight ago, the midnight was booked out and every seat m the

special train was reserved by yesterday afternoon, several hundred later applications being refused. The Daily Times was told last night that more heavily laden trains had never left Dunedin. An exceptionally heavy day was also experienced by the city transport and in the words of one employee, “we could easily have used Friday’s timetables and still have been overburdened.’’ The observation tours conducted by the city transport department were especially popular and other places of interest such as the Botanic Gardens attracted large crowds. More than 5000 people watched the surf life saving championship events at St. Clair yesterday afternoon and enioyed a spectacular exhibition. The Art Gallery and the Museum, where the British Rural Handicrafts Exhibition was on display for its final day, drew the more serious minded, and the municipal organ recital last night by Dr V. E. Galway was well attended.