PITY THE PORTERS

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 236, 24 December 1927, Page 9

PITY THE PORTERS

TONS OF LUGGAGE WORK UNDER DIFFICULTIES Pity the poor porters at the Auckland Railway Station! To-day is a nightmare for them. Among the great masses of luggage they are scrambling round like alpine climbers while impatient passengers demand their baggage. If there is any waiting to be done it is not the fault of the railway ofTicers. With coats oft and beaded brows, they were working like Trojans this morning, handling trunks large enough in some cases to house a family. When the thousands of passengers flocked into Auckland last night and again this morning they seemed to have brought all their household trunks with them and dumped them in the luggage office. When the office was too full to hold them the trunks and portmanteaux, the boxes and bags bicycles and sporting kit were piled on the platform. Unfortunately the porters are working in a congested area. The luggage office is not half big enough and is lighted with electric lights. The heat is appalling. No wonder the men toiled with beaded brows! This morning, when the Limited arrived, it would have taken a building twice the size to hold the luggage which had been left, and some of the packages were too big for one man to handle. The men working in the inwards luggage office are worthy'of a decoration each, for it is remarkable, despite the congestion, how little goes astray. There are similar scenes in the i-i----vvard parcels office, though the packages are not so large. Here the porters and clerks are handling an amazing variety of goods. Dozens of turkeys, with labels attached to their limp legs or round their gory necks, are hanging in a special room, all waiting to be called for. The noise of quacking geese, which poked inquiring heads through the bars of their boxes, drowned all conversation. The live ducks seemed to have given up complaining. Two fowls and a dead rabbit shared one sugarbag. On the floor were dozens of hams, sent in from the Leaning against the wall was a pine tree, easily 12ft high. Apparently anything

counts as a parcel. The outwards parcels office showed equal activity. Six barrowloads of crates of strawberries were waiting to go out on the Rotorua train. Yapping dogs tugged impatiently at their chains; everywhere there was noise and bustle.

During the last two days the officials of the Railway Department, from the newest clerk to the heads of departments, have been toiling against time and lack of space to safely transport thousands of passengers and hundreds of tons of goods and luggage. They pray that the new station will soon help them out of their difficulties.