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The old term “a rational being” was quite easily and clearly understood to mean someone in full possession of his mental faculties—in other words, a commonsense person. Consequently, when the long-drawn out, ugly and haphazardly constructed word “rationalisation” was coined to describe a type of industrial development, it was a simple matter of transposition to treat the word as meaning the application of common-sense to industry. This meaning is in line with the general statement published by the World Economic Conference of 1927 that Rationalisation was understood as “the methods of technique and organisation designed to secure the minimum waste of either effort or material. It includes the scientific organisation of labour, standardisation both of material and products, simplification of processes, and improvements in the system of transport and marketing.”
It is one of the surprises among word and meaning confusions to find that this word was first used, in its German form, in connection with the quota system for “rationing” production amongst the industrialists of the Ruhr during the French occupation. So these two words “ration” and “rational” so different in meaning, though related in appearance, became, through chaotic world-building, hybridised into that polysyllabic conglomeration of suffixes known to the industrial world as “rationalisation.”
Germany's post-war reconstruction was made possible of quick and effective accomplishment by a practical application of rationalisation. This was probably much more easily accomplished in Germany than it could be in English-speaking countries, because of the German's natural liking for regulation. The greatest effects of British industrialism in the past have been secured by individualism in enterprise, secretiveness regarding processes, rigid enforcements of patent rights “to make sure to each his own,” a large and often fetish-like belief in the law of the survival of the fittest in a “fight or fail” attitude towards all business relationships, and a generally scornful and completely antagonistic outlook towards all regulations promulgated “for the general good.” Business was a battle, not a boxing match, and all that the contestants asked for was to be left alone by those not in their line of business and for freedom to fight, untrammelled by hampering conventions, for supremacy against all competitors in their own field.
The pooling of knowledge, methods and resources in the interests of national
“Co-operative action” has been described as “a fundamental condition of successful rationalisation.” Hence regulation of transportation or industries by law must be placed in another category. But the marked success of rationalised undertakings where it has been possible to create a friendly atmosphere and point clearly to general benefits for all to be obtained by pooled knowledge and resources makes the extension of the principle to important Dominion undertakings well worth further serious consideration and study.
In view of the efforts being made to secure transport of race-horses by road, instead of by rail, it is well that the owners of race-horses should know some of the difficulties and risks experienced by those who sometimes have been tempted to desert the rail for the road.
A case in point is that of Messrs. Alexander & Dixon, who on 7th October last, railed six race-horses from Ellerslie to Napier. These were conveyed by the 7.40 p.m. express from Auckland to Palmerston North, and thence to Napier by the Wellington-Napier express which arrived there about 5.0 p.m.—less than 22 hours being occupied on this 450–mile journey.
For the return journey road travel was experimented with by the route via Taupo, but about three miles south of Tarawera the float ran into the channel of the road and, owing to its falling on its side, the horses had to be unloaded and walked to Tarawera whence they were reloaded. Both owners, it is understood, have made up their minds against using road transport in future, and since the above date they have utilised rail transport for the conveyance of their horses.
On the other side of the Tasman the Trainer of Phar Lap secretly transferred this wonder horse from Caulfield to Geelong on the morning after his recent Melbourne Stakes victory. To do this a road motor float was used. But when bringing his charge back by the same means for the Melbourne Cup race, “The Bulletin” remarks that engine trouble was experienced on the journey, and proceeds: “Geelong is 50 miles from Melbourne, and if the engine trouble had been very bad Phar Lap might not have reached Flemington in time for the Cup.” Presumably Trainer Telford will also be reluctant to take a similar risk in future when the ever-reliable train service is available.
We are pleased to find that advertisers are finding the magazine increasingly valuable as a medium for making known their wares and services. The present issue is carrying our record space in this respect.
The accumulating evidence of general decline in prices the world over and the lessened trade and partial slump conditions in many formerly thriving industries, have had an inevitable reaction on transport business to which the railways have been no exception. We have had to shorten sail to meet the high wind of adversity and weather the storm. This has entailed readjustments in every branch of the Service and has demanded, from all, patience and fortitude in the difficult task of reducing expenditure in conformity with the demands of a lessened and less resilient traffic. This task is now on the way to accomplishment, the latest figures indicating that our total expenditure during the last four-weekly period has been decreased by no less than £80,000.
Unfortunately, there has also been a decrease in our revenue, though for the period mentioned this decrease was £20,000 less than the decrease in expenditure. From a purely operating point of view this is undoubtedly a very creditable performance, but from the point of view of general financial results it is disappointing. An examination of the incidence of the decrease in revenue shows that it can only be ascribed to the prevailing depression which has resulted in a shrinkage of trade. For the results of such conditions we, as a transport concern, can no more be held responsible than, say, the Customs Department can be held responsible for a shrinkage in customs revenue due to the same cause. Nevertheless, it behoves all concerned to be active to reduce to a minimum, the effects on our business of such circumstances as I have mentioned.
To improve our position there should be no slackening in the check upon expenditure by those in a position to control it, and a concentrated effort by personal solicitation supported by judicious advertising to secure a larger share of the transport business along the routes which we serve.
There is an increasing willingness observable amongst all sections of the community to recognise the national importance of using the railways wherever possible in preference to competitive road transporters, many of whom end up in financial collapse, but who, during the period of their operation, drain the Department of vital revenue.
The case for railway patronage is especially strong where special concessions are granted. These concessions are based on the general benefit which they bring to the community. From this point of view everybody has an interest in bringing about the results for which the concessions are designed, and bearing in mind that the ability of the Governmental finance to maintain these concessions has a limit and that the position is vitally affected by the condition of the railway finances, I appeal to the public to take the long view in this matter when considering the question of placing their transport business.
The Auckland Station was opened during last month and I desire to express my great satisfaction with the work done by all ranks of the staff in connection
The appointments at the new station are of the most modern design and I believe will be appreciated both by the public and the staff as enabling us to give the former a still higher standard of service and the latter pleasanter and more convenient working conditions.
The Hon. W. A. Veitch, Minister of Railways, has expressed a desire that I should convey on his behalf, through the medium of the Magazine, the Season's greetings to all connected with the Railways either clients or employees of the Department, and to express his best wishes to all for a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
In these seasonal greetings my Executive Officers and I heartily join.
General Manager.
New Zealand's Finest Railway Station.
(Rly. Publicity Photo.)
View of the new Auckland Station building, shewing high and low level street approaches, and train leaving for Newmarket by the old route. The station was officially opened on 24th November, 1930, by the Hon. W. A. Veitch, Minister of Railways.
In the Cause of Humanity.
Her Excellency, Lady Bledisloe, examining at Government House, Wellington, the first sheet of Christmas Seal Stamps issued this year in aid of the campaign to raise funds to establish holiday camps for New Zealand children suffering from chest complaints. The Hon. A. J. Stallworthy, under whose patronage the campaign is being conducted, is shewn on the left in the picture.
Official Opening Of Auckland's New Station.
(Rly. Publicity photos.)
The illustrations shew (top) : the Hon. W. A. Veitch, Minister of Railways, addressing the assembled guests in the Main Lobby of the Station. (Below): Guests listening to the Ministerial address.
The opening of its new railway station is a great day in the history of Auckland. The event is the culmination of a long period of railway development during which the facilities available for the transaction of transport business in and around the Northern metropolis had gradually become quite inadequate for the requirements of the times.
In providing this magnificent building and modern railway terminal facilities heavy expenditure has been incurred. It remains for the people of New Zealand, and particularly the people of Auckland Province, to see to it that the enterprise which has made available to the public this superb station, with its magnificent platforms, extensive yards, intricate systems of power signalling and interlocking, and modern passenger amenities, together with the waterfront railway outlet from the city, is justified. Such justification can only come from public patronage.
The designers and builders of the station yard and deviation believed that the need of the times was for just such facilities, that they would meet the public demand, and that they would augment business sufficiently to more than pay interest on the capital outlay. I sincerely trust that this faith may be justified and that the people of the Northern province, in whose hands the success or failure of railway operations associated with Auckland station largely lies, will show their pride in this noble addition to the transport facilities of their main city by supporting the railway to the utmost.
I wish here to pay a tribute to the officers of my Department, who have vied with each other in efforts to make the new station worthy of the scale and importance of the business which will be transacted there.
The outward revenue collected in Auckland station during the financial year which ended on March 31 last amounted to the substantial sum of £690,259, or one-twelfth of the total gross earnings of the railways for all New Zealand. Ten years ago the revenue was only £475,703; twenty years ago it was £195,685; whilst in 1900 it was only £55,518. Yet the station which last year accounted for 324,361 ordinary passengers, 18,068 season ticket holders, and 660,070 tons of outward and inward goods, was the same station, with but slight additions as to structure, which served Auckland when the passenger business (as in 1900) was less than half and the goods tonnage less than one-sixth of what it was last year. One disquieting feature, the drop in ordinary tickets, which the survey of successive years reveals, is chiefly due to competition by public or private road vehicles. It is to be hoped, therefore, that the fine effort now being made to supply a service of super-excellence for the convenience of passengers will again deflect this traffic to the rail and that substantial improvements in the financial situation may result to the lasting benefit of the whole Dominion.
Minister of Railways.
Auckland's New Station.
Snapshots at the Official Opening Ceremony.
(Rly. Publicity photos.)
Top: The men who controlled the building operations at the Station. (Below): Members of the official party. (Inset): Political amity. (From left): The Rt. Hon.
Bearing in mind the great importance of Auckland in its three major aspects as the largest city of the Dominion, the principal railway centre in northern New Zealand, and the main port for the export of the primary products of the premier dairying province, it is very gratifying to me to know that at last the railway facilities provided there, have been brought into line with those supplied by railway managements for overseas cities and ports comparable with Auckland in their size and dignity and scale of trade.
The opening of the new station is the culmination of a long period of preparation, during which, by stress of change-over conditions, coupled with increasing congestion due to a rapidly developing traffic, the work of transport by rail at Auckland has been carried out only with the greatest difficulty and by the adoption of temporary expedients. These, while avoiding a breakdown owing to pressure of business in cramped quarters and with inadequate facilities, have nevertheless been incapable of providing that full measure of service to the public which I feel to be their due as patrons of the Department, and without which the railways cannot make the best of the business available.
Twenty years ago it was felt that, as a result of the big impetus to traffic which the completion of the Main Trunk line gave, the Auckland station and its southern approach were not adequate to meet the demands of the times; yet since then the number of trains handled in and out of Auckland daily has increased over 50 per cent., the goods traffic has increased from 254,000 tons to 660,000 tons annually, and the revenue of £690,000 collected last year at Auckland station is over three times as much as the amount collected in 1910. These figures speak for themselves, and draw attention to the crying need which existed, and was recognised, even before the Great War, to exist, for vital improvements at Auckland.
The latter event, with the subsequent long period of post-war reconstruction, held up the prosecution of major works in railway improvements to existing lines, but it did not ease the pressure upon our limited resources. One effect of this unavoidable delay was to give an opening for competitive services, even for classes of traffic in which, with adequate facilities, we should have held our own.
As a result of the improvements now made I expect to find the traffic at Auckland develop still more rapidly, and so justify the faith of those who have planned and worked through so many difficult years for this great objective.
I desire to offer my congratulations to Auckland City and Province, and, indeed, to New Zealand, upon obtaining this magnificent addition to the already fine general traffic and transport facilities for passengers and goods, both local and overseas, at New Zealand's great northern entrepoct.
General Manager, New Zealand Railways.
Dear reader, this is an age of elimination; Man is a painless extractor. He has extracted much of the thought from the brain, the perspiration from inspiration, the sweat from the brow, the debt from the cow (?), and the Put from the Take. Also, he has converted concentration to syncopation, cherubic content to cubic content, happiness to “snappiness,” and imagination to agitation, imitation and the Talkies. He has denaturalised Nature, aerated the air, substituted sport for thought, speedom for freedom, mass extinction for class distinction, and Thought for Food for Food for Thought. He has short-circuited the past and the future, and blown out the fuse on the switchboard of the present. In less short-circuitous parlance, he has peeled the pericardium of Progress to lighten her load and promote pace. But in so doing he has omitted to eliminate Noise from the Scream of Things.
The Modern Whirled is a bedlam of blatancy, a din of discordancy, a tumultiplication, and a roar deal. It is fairly safe to assert that when Man was first projected on the screen he was a more or less silent film; but owing to his deep-rooted passion for absorbing his own echo, he has developed into a hundred-per-cent. Talkie. Man presents the greatest argument in favour of the dumb animal. His articulation has grown in proportion to his emancipation, and, intoxicated by his power of expression, he has overlooked the flower of suppression. Truly he is the Big Noise in the Cosmographical Choir, and all his works bear the brand of blatancy. He produces clamorous cough-drops, cans of bangs, metallurgical meteorites, cram cars, motor jars, radiodiums, aeropains, and other madical instruments. When Nature fitted Man with spoons for scooping up head-noises she did not anticipate such din, else she would have provided him with dinner plates, tuning forks, or splutter dishes.
Man is like the dizzy bee who bursts his B flats listening to his own buzzing. As witness the apiarian apothegms of Alice in Thunderland:—
If the world is a stage. Man built the uproar house.
The railway engine is the exception to the general rule of loco-commotion. The railway locomotive moves with the greased precision of an oiled eel. It is melodious but not smellodious. It is the personification of Power Without Pandemonium. It sings at its work, but never yelps, and it never rails although it runs on rails. Although it possesses the oilyness of the eel, it also boasts the agility of the antelope and the elements of the elephant; it combines speed with strength and smoothness with both. The lesser animals follow on the track beaten through the jungle by the mighty elephant, but this fact does not detract from the mightiness of the elephant.
The railway locomotive combines wisdom with whizzdom. It possesses the deep wisdom of experience; for ages it has followed the axe through the primitive back-reaches of the land; it has drawn the pioneers to the outposts of civilisation. It has sped undismayed through the untenanted silence of Nature's last strongholds; it has braved flood, fire, and landslide; it has transported the weapons of tillage with which Man has tamed the wild heart of Nature. It links the Future with the Present, and the Front Line with the Commercial Base. All this is true, dear reader, and lest we forget let us remember, lesser forms of transport followed only after the railway engine drew the means and the men for making the highways fit to speed on. Strength, purpose, power; these are the characteristics not only of the engine, but of the men who drive and conduct it; also of the men who hewed the track where the ancient rimu brooded in hoary solitude and the stratified cliffs towered aloof and unbelieving. Shouldering, boring, pressing on, despite the reluctance of resisting Nature, the railway drove into the heart of New Zealand; it took from Nature, but it has given more than it took. To the railway is the credit of the Golden Fleece, the Golden Calf, the Sacred Cow, the Lands of Milk and Money, and New Zealand's credit in the market places of the world.
Tradition and Romance are the weft and the woof in the fabric of the Empire. So with the Railway, there is History buried in every yard of the permanent way—history of hardship, hope and accomplishment; the best traditions of the race are welded into the miles of metal, and the Romance of the Rail echoes in every beat of the wheels, for those with ears to hear. Romance and Tradition are twins. Thus, dear reader, a train is much more than a mere mass of metal capable of propulsion along parallel rails. It is part of our lives, and has helped to make us what we are, whatever we are. Without the railway we would be babes in the woods, left to our fate by the wicked uncles, Stagnation and Isolation. We would stand as much chance of keeping the sunny side up as a cataleptic cat in a capsized catamaran. With Christmas about to foreclose on the mortgage of moil and toil, the railway comes to the aid of the People, offering capital enjoyment and attractive interest. Sport and transport, high jinks at low prices, fresh air for stale care, and a thousand miles of smiles. Lads and lassies, the price is right and the goods are proven.
Speaking of sport, let us touch lightly on the form of nagriculture known as Golf. It is said that every man has his vice. Some dabble in dog-fights, some gamble with the lambs, some favour burglary and other forms of cribbage—and come commit Golf. Speaking wildly (as golfers often do) golf is a form of psycho-paralysis rather than a game. Good men and true have left their hearth and home more or less permanently simply because the niblick has nibbled at their vitals, or the “iron” has entered their souls. Naturally the game originated in Scotland, but why it is hard to say. At first it was played with hard-boiled eagle's gizzards, which the grizzled highlanders knocked from crag to crag to test their spiritualism.
America's Gold—Does it Kill Trade?—Debts Dilemma Universal—Busy Italian Cradles—Feverish Transport—The Search for the Best Yet.
The central problem of the world today can be summed up in the little word of four letters, “debt.” It is the oldest and the newest of world-problems. Its post-war development is stupendous. Pre-war economists would never have admitted that such debts could be. And yet they are. Writing about five years ago, after the decay of the “Reconstruction” hopes of 1918–20, H. G. Wells (in The World of William Clissold) philosophised on the open wound that debts represent in the body of society. The wound is still unhealed. Hitherto the ultimate creditor, the United States, has been represented as implacable. But a new note was sounded on 20th October by the Washington correspondent of The Times. He stated that the United States Treasury and banking leaders were “discussing a draft plan for a possible moratorium on the Allied debt payments to U.S.A.”
Falling prices (accompanying the return to the gold basis) have increased the burden on debtor countries, and the ultimate debtor, Germany, bears the full brunt of this. Consequently, in the cabled speculations, Germany's demand for relief is bracketed with the suggestion that the United States should grant such relief. The Americans and the Germans are at either end of the chain. Britain is in the middle, as a debtor-creditor country. France, it is cabled, will look to America for relief proportionate to any German relief. France is one of the few European countries reported as being without unemployment; the others are Norway, Sweden, and Denmark. Germany is reported to have considerably more unemployed than Britain has. Owing to price-falls, Germany's reduced (Young) debt is at the moment a heavier real debt than her larger (Dawes) debt used to be.
Another pertinent fact about debts is that Germany and France have both, by deflation of their currencies, made wholesale reductions in their internal indebtedness. These European internal liquidations are still so recent and immense that the world has hardly grasped them, and has not yet read their meaning for the future of civilisation. Equally complex are the pros and cons of the tremendous aggregation of gold in the United States. But mark the comment of the London Daily Telegraph that United States banking opinion may have at last concluded that the flood of gold to U.S.A. is
Memory goes back a quarter of a century to Mr. W. J. Bryan's metaphorical statement that the world is “crucified on a cross of gold.” Like his silver coinage campaign, and his silver voice, that figure of speech of the great Democratic orator is forgotten. There is little oratory in political economics to-day. No one could be less like Bryan than is President Hoover, now facing the second depression winter of the United States. The Hoover plan for dealing with unemployment is the plain and prosaic plan of finding money to find work. His statement of 17th October does not gild the pill. He seeks to strengthen “Federal activities for employment” in order to “prevent hunger and cold” this coming American winter. He says nothing about that glut of gold.
Not less interesting than the expressions of the Washington correspondent of The Times is a subsequent presentation of the French standpoint by the Paris “special” of the Daily Express, who says that France apprehends that the United States will not grant her a moratorium without attaching a condition that money not paid to U.S.A. must not be expended on French armaments. Thus a pull on the economic string sets in motion the disarmament Punch and Judy. French armaments hinge on Italian, and the whole Geneva problem reappears. Italy is not one of the fully employed countries —far from it. And the Italian excess of births over deaths for the first nine months of 1930 was 388,394, compared with 266,282 in the corresponding period of 1929.
“Death is swallowed up in victory,” and from a national point of view this is true of the forty-odd victims of R101, for as pioneers of progress they can claim that the little bit of France they died on is as glorious as any that was consecrated by the Great War. But whether their victory is to have a commercial expression is now uncertain. All the old criticism of the practicability of the airship has been revived, and no one knows whether, when the big inquiry has reported, the policy of working towards commercial airship services will be continued or not. Air lines to India are fairly secure with the growing adaptability of heavier-than-air machines. Will the British Government, with national persistence, press on the airship campaign, or leave it to Germany and Dr. Eckener?
Flying in the wake of R101, Kingsford Smith created a new England-Australian aeroplane record. He did this notwithstanding the loss of a considerable number of hours in sportsmanlike attendance on a crashed competitor, Hill. Kingsford Smith chivalrously said that though Hill failed at Australia's front door, Hill's performance, allowing for all circumstances, was more meritorious than his own. Equally generous is Kingsford Smith's tribute to the victims of R101, photographs of the wreckage of which he carried with him to the Sydney press. But he has no faith in “gasbags.”
Although it seems that really self-de-pendent civil flying services are few or non-existent, flying continues to extend on a subsidy basis, and Imperial Airways Ltd., “for subsidies for two years of £940,000,” will have aeroplanes early in 1931 flying on the African wing of its Eastern service. Of the £940,000 required for this Cairo-Cape venture, Britain is to contribute £270,000, and “the remainder is recoverable from the Governments through whose territory the service passes.” Thus will be created a new pawn in the great game of chess called transport. At the same time South Africa proposes to bridge the Zambesi at a cost of nearly a million and a half, which is quite modest compared with Sydney's harbour bridge. Although many land and sea services have ceased to pay, and flying has never yet paid, capital still pours into transport. Lloyd's figures indicate more shipbuilding than ever.
The over-production alleged to exist in commodities is certainly capable of being attained in transport machinery, but the continual exploitation of new competitive forms (example, the motorship in sea trade) seems to be capable of luring capital into constantly expanding efforts to construct “the best yet.” The spirit of innovation is almost as feverish on land and sea as in the air. The speed urge and the military urge are insatiable. In mechanisation the British Army, which staged a show for the Imperial Conference delegates on 18th October, claims to lead the world. Propaganda for British motor vehicles—now bent on recapturing Dominion markets—includes a claim that British speed machines on land (Golden Arrow), on water (Miss England), and in the air (Schneider Cup), symbolise the regained ascendancy of British manufacture.
From left: Messrs. W. R. Davidson, M. Inst. C.E., Asst. Chief Engineer, N.Z.R.; C. R. Ford, F.R.I.B.A., W. H. Gummer, F.R.I.B.A., Architects.
The great name of the late Lord Balfour is associated with Zionist Palestine just as much as it is with the debts question discussed above. Lord Balfour created for Britain a lofty ideal of trusteeship, and it is not easy to live up to, as between Jew and Arab. In these days political freedom means nothing unless it has full economic expression; and when the British Government declares that Jewish settlements and reservations of land leave for the Arabs insufficient land to maintain them—having regard to “present methods of Arab cultivation”—a grave impasse is indicated. “The Jewish settlers have every advantage of capital, science, and organisation.” The Arabs have little save a high birth rate. The Jew measures up more closely to criteria of progress and claims liberty to grow. But can he afford to have a sullen Arab populace?
The above illustrations shew the development of the Auckland station yard during the past 56 years. In 1874 the yard contained 1½ miles of sidings and 20 points and crossings, and in 1930, 32 miles of sidings and 338 points and crossings.
“Here's hearty Christmas greetings to reader friends, old and new, in all corners of New Zealand. May good cheer and good fellowship surround you this Christmastide, and your cup of happiness be filled brimful throughout the festive season.”—Our London Correspondent.
The year that now draws to a close has been one of real progress in the railway industry throughout the world, and for the Home railways 1930 has also been a year of great historic significance. As previously noted in these letters the Home railways have recently celebrated the one hundredth anniversary of the opening of that great pioneer line, the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, whereon Stephen-son's “Rocket” locomotive made secure the foundations of steam haulage. Not for many years will the festivities associated with the Liverpool and Manchester Railway centenary be forgotten, for all Liverpool made holiday in celebration of the affair, and by the Corporations of Liverpool and Manchester and the London, Midland and Scottish Railway, there was produced a colourful pageant of transport on really unique lines, entailing a cast of 3,500 men and women, together with camels, elephants, dog teams, horses and specially built models of hundreds of types of vehicles, representative of every age and country.
This ambitious pageant included sections depicting Egyptian transport in the days of Cleopatra; Spanish transport of Don Quixote's time; an episode depicting a Red Indian attack on a covered wagon convoy; the hold-up of a stage-coach by highwaymen in approved Dick Turpin style; events in the building of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway; and a fine show representing the opening of the pioneer line on September 15, 1830. In addition to the pageant, there was opened, for public inspection, the most comprehensive railway exhibition ever assembled, while a fine display of modern locomotives and rolling stock from many lands provided yet another attractive feature of the celebrations.
The London, Midland and Scottish Railway, which includes in its system the Liverpool and Manchester line of 1830, is the largest of the Home railway groups. It owns some 19,700 passenger carriages and 300,000 goods wagons, and serves a very large area of England, Scotland and Wales. The L.M. and S. Railway has effected considerable economies through grouping, notably in locomotive, carriage and wagon building and repairing. Through the introduction of better machinery and more scientific working methods, as well as through
Prior to grouping, each of the hundred odd railways of Britain maintained locomotive and carriage and wagon shops of their own, in which they performed all necessary repairs and renewals, as well as much new construction. The methods of operation differed greatly in the different shops, and hundreds of varying types of locomotives, carriages and wagons were favoured by the different systems. Today, many of the smaller shops have been closed down, and the four group lines have centred their shop activities in a relatively small number of works situated at suitable points. Locomotive types have been cut to a minimum, and through standardisation and labour-saving methods valuable economies in time and money have been effected.
A RELIC OF STAGE COACH DAYS.
“Rob Roy” stage coach in the York Railway Museum. Coaches of this type were frequently employed a century ago in co-ordinated rail-road services.
In a recent paper read at the Institute of Transport Congress in Glasgow, Mr. E. H. Lemon, Carriage and Wagon Superintendent of the L.M. and S. Railway, outlined the effects of grouping on the railway shops, and told of the reorganisation and standardisation effected on his own system. In the past, if a gang of men engaged on repairing carriages was unable to proceed with the work (owing to waiting for component parts), the men would transfer their labour to other vehicles until the required material was forthcoming, and would then return to finish the job. This resulted in carriages taking up valuable space without any work being done to them. With the growth in numbers and the total average length of the modern carriage, it became necessary either to increase the shop area and the staff or devise some quicker means of dealing with the cars passing through the shops. To meet this development, a progressive layout was planned by the L.M. and S. Company for the lifting and repairing of carriages. Definite principles were followed, the chief being the elimination, as far as possible, of manhandling of materials; allocating definite work to a given position; supply of materials to be anticipated; the allocation of men to specific operations; the first operation to balance with the last; and all movements to be regular and at definite intervals.
The system of repairs adopted on the L.M. and S. line enables work on all carriages in the shops to be carried out simultaneously. The carriages are selected according to the class of repairs required, and placed on roads outside the repair shop. Once this is done, a carriage cannot be side-tracked, the first carriage placed on the road being the first to enter the shop and the first to go out as a repaired vehicle.
At the big shops at Manchester, thirteen tracks are used for the progressive system of repairs. Four of the tracks on which repairs to the bogies and underframes are executed are equipped with electric drive for propelling the bogies and underframes from one end of the shop to the other, at the rate of three inches and six inches per minute respectively, without interfering with the men working on the job. A definite number of operations is allocated to each road, each operation having a time limit which is denoted by clocks placed at the end of each track.
In few branches of the railway industry has such striking progress been recorded as in the design and construction of passenger carriages. Luxury travel is now the order of the day on every main line, and in Europe some marvellously comfortable vehicles recently have been put into traffic. Following the introduction of de luxe day cars on the “Flying Scotsman” trains, the London and North Eastern line has now put on to its Anglo-Scottish routes new sleeping cars of quite a novel style which really are nothing less than sumptuous bedrooms on wheels.
These new cars, built in the railway shops at Doncaster, are 63½ feet long, and are mounted upon two 4-wheeled compound bolster 8ft. 6in. wheelbase bogies. The underframe is of steel, and the body of teak, while the space between the double floor and the inner and outer sheeting of the roof and sides is packed with asbestos felt, eliminating vibration and reducing the noise of travel. Four entrance doors at both ends are provided, and each car carries ten completely private bedrooms, arranged in pairs, which, if so desired, may be converted into five double rooms by means of communicating doors. An attendant's compartment, lobby and toilet room is installed, and the whole of the metal fittings of the cars are chromium plated. In each bedroom a complete full-size walnut bed is provided, including a box spring mattress with hair and wool overlay and two blue Witney blankets to match the colour scheme of the room. The snow-white bed linen and pillowcases are finally covered with a fawn embroidered bedspread. There is a white porcelain wash-basin with hot and cold running-water in each room; a large frameless bevelled mirror; and two convenient folding tables. Each bedroom measures 6ft. 7¼in. by 4ft. 6in., and the new vehicles represent the very last word in modern sleeping-car design.
Drawing-Room Comfort.
First-class compartment on the 1930 “Flying Scotsman,” running non-stop between London and Edinburgh.
The luxurious vehicles put into traffic by the Home railways in recent times represent but one activity in the efforts of the respective lines to attract the traveller. In almost every branch of railway working, this attempt to retain public favour is clearly apparent, and now there is to be recorded the introduction of another facility which promises to prove a real boon to railway patrons.
This facility takes the form of an arrangement for the acceptance by the railways of consignments of highly perishable traffic, such as meat, soft fruit and cut flowers (up to 2cwt. in weight) for
Modern methods such as these are of real worth in meeting the menace of road competition. All over Europe this competition is felt very strongly, and until such times as the European railways themselves take over the job of road transport on a big scale, facilities of this kind will go far to retain traffic to the rail route.
A winter scene on the Stockholm-Gothenburg electrified section of the Swedish State Railways.
Just how the European lines are suffering through road competition is demonstrated by recent figures from Italy. During the year ending June 30, 1929, some two million less passenger tickets were sold than in the previous year, while freight tonnage also was considerably reduced through road competition. According to a report just issued by the British Department of Overseas Trade, the Italian State Railways had a total trackage at June 30, 1930, of 15,969 kilometres. Of this trackage some 1,625 kilometres were operated by electricity, the introduction of electric traction reducing locomotive coal requirements for the year by about 60,000 tons. Steam and electric locomotives, numbered 6,660; passenger coaches 8,842, luggage and postal vans 4,372, and goods wagons 154,509. In 1928 there were some 86,000 motor cycles in Italy, 142,000 motor cars, 6,800 motor buses, and 40,000 motor lorries, carrying an annual traffic of roughly 5,000 million passenger kilometres and 700 million ton kilometres of freight.
The spa town of Te Arohza, on the banks of the willowed Waihou River in the shadow of a grand mountain range, is a greatly popular place of resort for its beauty of situation as well as for its pleasant warm mineralised bathing springs and its drinking waters. In this article Mr. Cowan tells some little-known Maori legends of Te Aroha which enhance the interest of a visit to the pretty town. The Pakeha town dates back just fifty years; the Maori history of the place covers six centuries.
Fastness of Maori tribes from immemorial times, refuge of broken clans in war, fairy haunt invoked in poetic chants of the Maori, Te Aroha—“Mountain of Loving Greetings”—is a place whose human interest heightens its landscape beauty. This three-thousand-feet wooded blue bastion of the Moehau-Hautere range, that builds a high skyline a hundred miles long in the eastern part of Auckland province, is more than a mere rugged mass of rock and soil and tall timber. It is one of those mountains with a personality, like Taranaki's lone peak, the type of mountain that came naturally into the animistic mythology of the olden race. It looked to them a giant watchman overlooking riverside and valley and plain.
Some people have fancied the name Te Aroha a reference to the love and pity symbolised in the fact that the mountain was a refuge for defeated and hunted tribes in the days of continual warfare. Undoubtedly its ravines and forests often gave secure sanctuary to Maoris retreating from their enemies. But the origin of the name antedates the intertribal wars; and there are definite explanatory traditions.
Five centuries ago a chief of the Arawa people climbed to the topmost peak of Te Aroha range, and surveyed with wonder the vast expanse of territory that stretched west and south and north as far as vision could carry. His name was Kahu-mata-momoe, which means “Sleepyeyed Kahu.” But the adjective belied this explorer of old; he was by no means one of the dozing kind. “Kahu”—“Hawk”—described him well, no doubt, for, like most Polynesians, pathfinders of that most adventurous epoch in Pacific Islands history, it was his habit to ascend as high as possible above the lower world. Kahu was the son of Tama-te-Kapua, the captain of the Arawa sailing canoe, who had died and been buried on the summit of Moehau (Cape Colville), and he was on his way home to Maketu from a visit to a kinsman at the Kaipara. As was his way, he kept to the tops of the ridges on his travels, and when he came to these parts he ascended the mountain heights that loom like a blue cloud above the Upper Waihou River.
When he felt the soft sea breeze fanning his cheek he murmured words of affection for the friends and places far away, his father, whose grave was high on cloudy Moehau, and the words “Muri-Aroha” came to his lips—love for those left behind. As he stood on the mountain top he thought of his kinsfolk on the distant seashore, and he said, “Let this mountain peak be called ‘Aroha-tai-o-kahu’“
That story of the naming of Te Aroha is the Arawa tribe's version. The Tainui canoe crew's descendants, the Ngati-Maniapoto and allied tribes, have a different narrative, attributing the name-giving to Rakataura, the priest of Tainui, six centuries ago. Rakataura, when his people had settled at Kawhia after their voyage across the Pacific from Tahiti, explored the great expanse of the interior now known as the King Country, from the West Coast to Lake Taupo. He lived at various places with his family and he then went on eastward to the great range that extended like a wall beyond the plains.
He ascended the loftiest peaks of this range to survey the surrounding country, and as he stood on the heights he chanted songs of affection and sorrow for his distant kinsfolk, and he named the inland-looking peak Te Aroha-i-uta, and the other Te Aroha-i-tai-the names which the Arawa attribute to Kahu-mata-monioe. If this story is correct, then Rakataura of Tainui would seem to have prior claim to the fame of the name-giving.
There are tales of fairy foresters. The Maoris call them Patu-paiarche or Turchu (a term which means fairies, enchanted people, furtive woodsmen), and sometimes mohoao, or wild people of the bush. I have a legend of Te Aroha which peoples the mountain with a fairy tribe, whose chief was called Ruatane. He was the chieftain of all the fairy people inhabiting the Colville Range. No doubt these Patu-paiarche were really fugitive tribes of the ancient people who preceded the Hawaiki Maoris in New Zealand. The legend refers to them as a mystic people, skilled in enchantments. Ruatane once seized a woman of the Nati-Matakore tribe, far away in the Rangitoto country, south of the present King Country boundary and bore her off to his village high up on cloudy Aroha. But there was another fairy chief, Tarapikau, whose home was in the Rangitoto Ranges, and he pursued Ruatane, and by stratagem and the exercise of powerful hypnotic charms, which steeped the abductor and his tribe in deep slumber, he recovered the stolen woman and restored her to her tribe.
An angry fairy was Ruatane when he awakened from his heavy sleep, and he made war on Tarapikau, and he hurled from the top of his mountain a burning dart that set fire to a rata tree on which his foe was perched on the top of Rangitoto, fifty miles away!
On the top of Aroha-i-uta peak, overlooking the Waihou Valley, a chief named Ruinga long ago built a strongly stockaded pa. It was called Nga Tukituki a Hikawera, and it was the fortress of a tribe who lived on the products of the bush.
In this pa, according to the traditions of the Ngati-Tamatera tribe, there was a great pahu or signal gong, a large oval piece of timber, hollowed out somewhat like a shallow bowl, and made as thin as possible, on the principle of the sounding-board. This pahu was suspended from a stage on the middle of the mountain stockade, and was struck with a heavy stick when it was desired to give a signal such as calling the tribe together in the event of an enemy's invasion.
An old man of the Ngati-Tamatera—the Ohinemuri tribe over whom the grim warrior Taraia was chief last century—gave me some previously unrecorded names of the Aroha region. That high hill to which so many holiday visitors to Te Aroha town climb, the spur just above the Government baths and Domain, was called Whakapipi. On its summit once stood a fortified place occupied by the
The little stream which flows down between two sharp ridges and through Te Aroha town into the Waihou River, was called by the Maoris the Tutumange-ongeo. It is not an enticing name for the tyro in Maori pronunciation, nevertheless it is a curiously interesting title that should be preserved, for it holds a story. My old Tamatera informant said that the stream derived its name from a combat between two long-ago champions who met each other in front of their war-parties on the creek side. Both were armed with long spears. They fought so desperately that each was fatally pierced by the other's spear, and both died on the bank of the bush stream. And in memory of that duel of long ago the name-givers combined the root-words “tu,” meaning wounded, and “mangeo,” meaning pain, or acute smarting”. Also, there is a form of the word meaning to tickle. Let us reduce the formidable Aroha brookname, there-fore, to its most agreeable form and give it a down-to-date translation as “Tickled to Death.”
(Rly. Publicity photo.)
Te Aroha as seen from the historic mountain.
The first mention we have on record of the health-giving waters for which Te Aroha has attained fame as a spa, goes back to the year 1849, when Sir George Grey, then Governor of the colony, made a journey overland from Auckland to Taranaki by way of this Waihou Valley, Rotorua and Taupo.
An account of the tour was written by Mr. G. S. Cooper, the Governor's Assistant Private Secretary, and this, with a version in Maori by Pirikawau, a native interpreter, who accompanied the party, was published in 1851, in a little book (“Journal of an Expedition Overland,” etc.), which is now one of the rare treasures of New Zealand libraries.
This is an entry in Mr. Cooper's diary narrative, under date December 12, 1849. The party was then camped on the Waihou banks, a short distance above the present town of Te Aroha:—
“It was raining this morning harder than ever, and continued to do so without
Karakia:
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The Government Spa at Te Aroha—famed for its curative mineral baths and drinking waters.
“The above ceremony, which is called ‘Tupuna Whenua,’ is used by persons on their first arrival at a strange place, for the purpose of appeasing the spirit of the earth, who would otherwise be angry at their intrusion.
“On examining the spring we found that the water was not hot, and could hardly be called tepid, although it was not quite cold. We found a small quantity of sulphurous deposit in the mud, through which its water wells up.”
That unfragrant Throat of Hura is today the famous mineral-water of Te Aroha, which thousands of visitors sip for their stomachs’ sake and out of curiosity. The bathing waters Grey's party did not see or sample; there was not much inducement, evidently, to go exploring at the flood-sodden base of the mountain.
“It is the most romantic and outstanding railway achievement on the globe.” writes Lorne Bartram in the London “Daily Express,” of the non-stop run of the “Flying Scotsman.” The following are some vivid and intimate impressions from his article (obtained during a recent ride on the footplate between London and Edinburgh) of the locomotive men who operate that famous British express.
Every day at ten o'clock the “Flying Scotsman”—the train which makes the longest non-stop run in the world—leaves King's Cross for Edinburgh.
Fourteen coaches and a giant locomotive totalling altogether nearly 600 tons, race info the north from morning until evening for nearly 400 miles without the wheels once coming to rest.
It is the most romantic and outstanding railway achievement on the globe. The train runs for eight and a quarter hours, sometimes reaching speeds of eighty-five miles an hour, sometimes dropping to a crawling pace of fifteen miles an hour as it threads its way over tortuous lines through stations, such as York and Newcastle.
But it never stops!
There was something proudly benevolent in the attitude of the official of the London and North Eastern Railway when he formally presented me with a blue card permitting me to ride on the footplate of the great engine which performs daily this remarkable mechanical feat.
“You're a lucky man,” he said wistfully. “I wish I were going with you.”
It, was nine-fifty o'clock railway time when the long green locomotive No. 4472, with the driver's cab buried behind a massive boiler and a tender as big as a railway coach, backed into platform No. 10 and hooked on the end of the train.
Ben Glasgow one of the company's crack driver's with a faint glint of humour in his steely eyes, stepped down from the cab with his oil can.
“This is Mr. Glasgow,” said the company official, introducing me.
Ben, as I afterwards got to know him, looked at me, pulled out his watch, and walked over to the first driving wheel and tenderly dropped a spot of oil on the bearing.
“And this is Mr. Eltringham.”
I turned to meet the “relief” driver—short, with white hair and fine Grecian features. He shook me effusively by the hand and greeted me in broad Yorkshire.
“Sleep,” he said, and disappeared into a carriage behind the engine labelled “Train crew, reserved.”
I showed my blue permit to a policeman who stood by the entrance to the cab. He examined it reverently, saluted, and I stepped onto the footplate.
Albert, the first fireman, was resting easily on a leather seat on the left hand side of the cab.
I looked up at an impressive row of gauges.
Ben Glasgow climbed aboard, lit his pipe, and pulled out his silver watch.
“Same as the late Sir Henry Segrave had,” he observed. My heart thumped,
A crowd of women, grey-haired men. and small boys stood on the platform looking on.
“We get a send-off every day,” said Albert, as he looked behind watching for the signal to leave.
Suddenly he sat upright. “Right away, Ben,” he called over the noise of the hissing steam and the roar of the draught across the top of the fire-box.
The signals had been dropped. Ben grasped a long, shining steel control lever—the regulator—and pulled firmly.
The massive bulk beneath my feet shivered slightly, and we started to move—slowly, gently, with the growing rumble of heavy wheels beneath.
Albert climbed down from his perch now and motioned me into his place.
“I never sit down once we start,” he shouted above the deep roar of the exhaust from the squat smoke-stack ahead.
Trembling, breathless from the effect of the sudden cataclysm that had taken place, awed by the thunder of machinery and the piercing shriek of steam, I crawled on the seat as we plunged at once into the inky blackness of a tunnel.
I looked across at Ben Glasgow, the man at the controls of this great express, and the man with 350 lives in his hands.
He was leaning over the edge of the cab window gazing ahead. His left hand was holding the handle of the regulator. His grim face was set in relief by the firelight, and I could see his bushy eyebrows lowered as he peered into the darkness ahead.
Albert reached over and shut off the cylinder cocks. He reached up and opened two valves, listening carefully like a man tuning in a radio set. I looked at him inquiringly.
“The injector,” he bellowed, cupping his hands over his mouth close to my ear. “Takes water into the boiler.”
The massive driving rods were moving faster now, and the exhaust from the engine had deepened into a low, throaty roar.
We rattled over the points at New Barnet, with the long trail of nut-brown coaches running smoothly behind, and climbed on. Ben Glasgow still leaned, motionless, like an inflexible image, from his window, gazing ahead.
Albert shut off the injector, examined his gauges, and took up his shovel again.
“Five tons must go in that door before we get to Edinburgh,” he yelled at me.
I inhaled deeply, shifted myself into a fixed, firm position, grabbed the steel window-sill, and waited.
The thunder of the driving-wheels grew louder. The sway of the giant engine increased. Ben Glasgow stood up now and pulled the whistle cord as we raced through a blurred row of buildings which I knew must be Hatfield.
We hit a curve with the velocity of a high explosive shell, lurched, and rounded it on to a straight stretch for Hitchin.
Ben Glasgow was sitting down again, and Albert was placidly working his shovel from the tender to the fire-box. The gauges were steady now at top running speed.
Albert leaned over confidentially and shouted:
I nodded. I didn't doubt it for a moment.
I summoned my courage, braced myself, and leaned out for a swift look at the driving-wheels of the engine. They were spinning furiously, yet with the ease of a sewing machine.
“Offord,” said Albert. “If we don't slow down on this curve we will start on a tour across the fields.”
Peterborough, then Grantham, then Newark. The Flying Scotsman flew on steadily, thundering its way to the north, with Ben Glasgow silently pulling at his briar pipe and staring ahead.
Shortly after 1.30 we rumbled slowly through York, cleared the maze of points in the yards, and rolled out again on the main line.
Twenty minutes later John Eltringham, the Yorkshireman, came forward from the train, passing through the narrow corridor that leads through the tender from the coaches, and emerging with a quiet smile on his face.
He produced a large bottle of cold tea, set it near the boiler to get hot, looked at the gauges above him, and silently took over the regulator from Ben Glasgow.
The relief fireman nudged Albert in the ribs and picked up a different shovel.
Jack, the Yorkshire fireman was singing softly to himself as he climbed back into the tender to push the coal forward. Half of the supply was gone by now.
It began to drizzle as we ran slowly into Newcastle over the lofty bridge over the Tyne.
The rain brought on an early dusk as we climbed over the border and settled into the final lap for Edinburgh. Once or twice we accelerated and for a few minutes sped like the wind round rocky crags, through winding valleys, and past the North Sea hundreds of feet below.
The London-Edinburgh “Flying Scotsman” crossing the Royal Border Bridge at Berwick-on-Tweed.
Edinburgh Castle stood out in the rain ahead—a cluster of twinkling lights set far up on a mount of velvet-like gloom. There were signs of the city, omnibuses, cottages, and then streets and tramcars, crossings, and multiple signal towers, then the black, yawning opening of the domed station itself.
The “Flying Scotsman” panted slowly to the platform.
Ben Glasgow appeared and passed a word to John Eltringham, I handed him a cloth he had lent me on which to clean my hands, shook the coal dust from my clothes, and stepped down on to the platform of Waverley Station.
“Come again some time,” said Ben, relenting. His steely eyes twinkled as he waved good-bye.
Ben Glasgow, John Eltringham, Albert and Jack, took their locomotive to the engine-shed and slept in Edinburgh.
Up in the morning, back to the footplate, and the same long record-making journey begins back to King's Cross.
What vigorous heroes of everyday life those four railwaymen are—Ben Glasgow, John Eltringham, Albert and Jack.
(Rly. Publicity photo.)
A recent view of Wellington shewing (on the left) a portion of the Thorndon reclamation works.
The celebration of the centenary of the official opening of the Liverpool-Manchester Railway was held in Liverpool from 13th to 20th September, 1930. It will recall incidentally the first railway fatality. To comprehend the sensation it caused one must bear in mind that though the victim, Mr. William Hus-kisson, was only a private Member of Parliament at the time, he had been Treasurer of the Navy, President of the Board of Trade, and Leader of the House of Commons, and, as a “Tory with a Liberal Jaw” he had been responsible for important changes in the fiscal system. When he made a little speech at the Liverpool Exchange two days before his death every word was reported (says the London Daily Express).
At 10.40 a.m. on September 15, 1830, eight locomotives drawing carriages designed after the fashion of stage coaches, and containing 732 people, left the mouth of the Great Tunnel at Liverpool to go to Manchester, the thirty miles route being lined with fully half a million people. On the north line was a gorgeous, circus-like carriage whose principal occupant was the Duke of Wellington. In front of it was a carriage containing a band. The other seven trains were on the south line. At Eccles, seventeen miles from Liverpool, it was planned that the procession should stop for the engines to take in water, and the printed programme specially requested that guests should not leave their carriages.
Eccles was reached at 11.35. It is not unreasonable to suppose that Mr. Huskis-son, who had been largely responsible, as a Liverpool M.P., for getting the railway company's Bill through Parliament, thought that the restriction was not intended to apply to him. Perhaps he forgot it. And certain it is that he had special reason for wishing to greet the Duke of Wellington. Two years previously the Duke had misinterpreted a remark Huskisson had made that it was only after securing “guarantees” that he had entered the Duke's Ministry, and the Duke, being wholly in the wrong, had not been ready to heal the quarrel that had ensued. Huskisson was anxious, on this great public occasion, to be civil.
Accordingly, with the other Liverpool M.P., Mr. Holmes, he dismounted, and after talking with others who had done the same, went over to the State carriage and extended his hand to the Duke, who shook it cordially.
At that moment the Rocket locomotive was seen approaching, and it appeared afterwards that the driver shut off steam when he saw people on the line. Mr. Holmes, Prince Esterhazy, and the others jumped into the Duke's carriage. Mr. Huskisson dashed forward in order to go in front of the carriages on the south line, only to find his way barred by a steep bank. “Get in, get in,” shouted the Duke. Huskisson opened a carriage door just as the Rocket came along and struck it. He was knocked down and very seriously injured.
Mrs. Huskisson was a witness. The injured man, who retained his composure remarkably well, was placed in a carriage with Dr. Brandreth, who had been fetched from the rear of the procession, his wife, and others, and taken by rail to Eccles. There, after increasing spasms of pain, he died at 9 p.m.
Did Huskisson have some premonition of the accident? On the previous day he had made a codicil to his will, and had remarked, “What would I give to have the next fifteen hours over?” Maybe he had in mind his extraordinary proneness to accidents, for he had had fully half-a-dozen serious ones since childhood. And he had not fully recovered from an illness.
Huskisson was buried in the New Cemetery at Liverpool. There is a commemorative tablet at the spot where the accident occurred.
(continued.)
Further evidence taken by the Provincial Council regarding the Lyttelton to Christchurch railway was from persons interested in shipping and opposed to the railway scheme. Their evidence was on much the same lines as that of Mr. George Gould, referred to previously.
Robert Latter, merchant. Lyttelton, considered that the existing port was unsuitable for deep-sea wharves, that goods would always require to be lightered from, and to the ships in the stream, and that it would be cheaper to send the goods direct from the ship's side up the Heathcote River. He considered the existing steamer service to Heathcote and Kaiapoi quite satisfactory. He did not agree with the estimates of land sales, as when the most favoured spots had been bought only the most distant lands which would not be benefited by the railway, would remain. He thought the charging of an infant settlement with an expenditure so far above its ordinary revenue would prejudice investors. He admitted he had not made himself familiar with the estimates of revenue for the next six years as laid before the Council. He would accept them with some reservations. He did not doubt the estimates, but parties might draw different conclusions from the same data.
Mr. E. J. Jones, wharfinger, of the Union Wharf, Heathcote, stated that his business was chiefly confined to sailing vessels. They charged from 10/- to 1 2/6 per ton for freight from ship's side at Lyttelton to wharf at Heathcote. Wharfage at Heathcote was 3/4 per ton, and cartage to Christchurch 5/- or 6/- a ton. Steamers charged a higher freight on account of giving better despatch. The sea freights mentioned did not include insurance. New Zealand vessels could not insure at ordinary rates to cross the Sumner Bar. The charge for wharfage could not be reduced unless wages were reduced. It included handling and a week's storage. Carts could make two trips a day between the wharf and the city. A good load for two horses would be 2½ tons. The carts usually came back empty.
There was a considerable timber business at the Union wharf, and vessels bringing timber from other provinces took back produce when it was available, but there were slack and busy times. Freight on timber from Auckland was 6/- per 100 ft. to Lyttelton, and usually 1/- more to Heathcote River. Sailing vessels had been detained as much as three weeks inside the bar waiting to cross outward, but he could not mention any case recently of more than a week's detention. By some improvement of the river, vessels of 150 tons could be brought up to the wharves. There had been as many as twenty-five vessels in ten days at the Union wharf.
Mr. J. C. Aikman, wharfinger, of Aikman's wharf, stated that when he commenced business as a wharfinger, three years previously, carriage from Lyttelton to Christchurch, including delivery, was 3 4/6 a ton. The present rate was 25/- a ton. With a sufficient quantity of goods it was capable of still further reduction. With 30,000 tons of goods annually, and the same number of steamers, it might be reduced to 16/- a ton. This would give a better return on capital than at present. There were three steamers trading up the river, and they were barely holding their own. The “Mullough” steamer, for which he was agent, had made one trip a week, occasionally more, for the last six months. The steamer “Planet”
Outward freights to Lyttelton were:— Wool, 5/- per bale; wheat, 3/- per bushel; potatoes, 8/- per ton, or 10/- per ton weight from farmer's cart to ship's side. The principal shipments of produce were to Wellington and Auckland. They went direct from the river. Of 11,000 bushels already shipped, only 700 or 800 bushels went to Lyttelton. The greater number of purchasers, or their agents, were owners of vessels. The “Mullough” cost the present owners £1,600. Mr. Aikman was questioned by the Provincial Secretary (Mr. John Ollivier) as to the suggested charge of 16/- a ton from Lyttelton to Christchurch, and stated that he could carry at that rate only if he had a monopoly. He admitted that he did not think the wharfage and cartage rates could be materially reduced. Allowing £10 for insurance, and £10 for profit, the expenses of the steamer would be £120 a month. He could not say that she would earn that, making two trips a week at a 10/- freight rate.
Mr. Andrew Graham, who commenced his railway career as a porter in Dunedin, rising to the position of station-master, in which capacity he served in various parts of New Zealand. He retired in 1912 from the position of Stationmaster, Timaru.
He did not consider deep-water wharves could be worked at Lyttelton, even if a solid pier were run out from Officers’ Point. If a bonded warehouse were established on the Christchurch side the only cargo which would then be landed at Lyttelton would be for Lyttelton town and the small ports south thereof.
He was at one time proprietor of the ferry over the Heathcote River. In 1858 the passenger traffic was about 9,000 a year, and the charge was 3d. a passenger. It has fallen somewhat since then owing to the banks and some of the merchants removing their headquarters from Lyttelton to Christchurch. The reduction began even before the road under the hills was made.
When the resolution, previously mentioned, was before the Council, an amendment in the following terms was submitted, viz:—
That this Council, having taken evidence on the proposed railway from Lyttelton to Christchurch, is of opinion that it is not expedient to proceed with the undertaking at present for the following reasons:
Because no sufficient evidence has been produced to show that the mercantile interests of the province will derive any advantage from the undertaking commensurate with the outlay required for its construction.
Because irrespective of the evidence of Messrs. Gould, Jones, Latter, and Aikman being decidedly hostile to the project, it appears from the testimony of the Provincial Engineer that if the Sumner Road were completed goods could be collected, conveyed, and delivered at £1 per ton between the two towns, this being only 3/6 per ton above his estimated charge for railway carriage.
Because by the evidence of Captain McLean, steamers could convey freight and pay at 10/- per ton 50 per cent. below the sum required to cover the cost of working the railway, with interest and sinking fund, supposing a traffic of 30,000 tons and 125,000 passengers.
Because no sufficient evidence has been laid before this House to show that such a quantity of goods and number of passengers can be safely relied upon.
Because the financial statement of the Provincial Treasurer is altogether so conjectural as not to justify this House in acting upon it, especially for the following reasons:
This amendement was negatived by the Council by fourteen votes to two (Messrs. Thompson and Ross). The resolution, previously quoted, requesting the Superintendent to obtain the necessary legislative authority through the General Assembly and agreeing to the loan proposals was then carried.
Pearson level crossing signal at Palmerston North.
Possibly one reason for again dealing at length with the railway proposals was that the Lyttelton and Christchurch Railway Loan Ordinance of 1859 was for only £70,000; the balance of the requirements was to be obtained from revenue. But when the matter had to be re-opened, the Superintendent submitted an amended proposal to borrow the whole sum required for the undertaking, in order that
It was not till 2nd October. 1860, that the Colonial Secretary wrote that His Excellency the Governor, in the name of Her Majesty the Queen, had given assent to the Lyttelton and Christchurch Railway Act. 1860, as passed by the House of Representatives and the Legislative Council.
Meantime, as the Provincial Government was unable to complete the conditional contract with Messrs. Smith and Knight, that firm relinquished the work. The Superintendent undertook the liabilities of the firm with regard to the workmen brought to New Zealand, and arranged to continue preliminary work at the tunnel until fresh tenders could be invited. It was decided to advertise in the neighbouring colonies and provinces
Left to Right.—Back Row: Messrs. G. V. R. Fraser. G. T. Champion, A. A. Boult, Jas. McLellan, J. H. Leopard, G. N. Gash, and A. B. Casey. Front Row: R. Simpson, Geo. Bowles, F. J. Parson, A. V. Macdonald, S. P. Evans and J. W. Lowry.
When the Superintendent opened the 15th session of the Provincial Council on 14th May, 1861, he announced that he had concluded an agreement with a substantial and capable contracting firm of Melbourne for the whole of the works of the Lyttelton and Christchurch railway, and that he had committed to the Union Bank of Australia the agency for the negotiation of the Railway loan.
The contractors were George Holmes and Edward Richardson (trading as Geo. Holmes and Co.), and they undertook to construct the railway (with the exception of the stations) in five years for the sum of £240,500, of which the tunnel was to cost £195,000. The work was commenced at Heathcote Valley on 17th July, 1861.
Make safety Your responsibility.
Wanted! the name of a man benefited by an accident.
In Peru, South America, rise many great mountains which provide scenery of the most gorgeous nature. Through this difficult country has been driven a railway line, one of the highest in the world. In the following article (extracted from the London “Daily Express”) is given a brief description of this unique railway.
Through the genius of Henry Meiggs, Peru can boast of having the highest broad-gauge railway in the world. The Ferro Carril Central del Peru—running from Lima to Huancayo—is the only railway which takes one in a single day through such a variety of scenery, ascends so many majestic peaks, or reaches a height of 15,865 feet above sea-level.
In the course of its construction Meiggs had to overcome countless difficulties. The men protested that he could never span the gigantic gullies, that he was attempting the impossible. But Meiggs went on.
“If we have to hang the tracks up on balloons,” he said, “we'll do it!” It was necessary to blast some sixty-five tunnels through the massive mountains, while some sixty bridges were erected to span the seemingly bottomless ravines.
In many places the men had to be lowered down with ropes to work at excavations. As the train passes the Chaupichaca bridge passengers may look down 400 feet to the shattered remains of an engine which came to grief during the construction of the line.
A second bridge, which tells its own sad story of long since, is the Puente de Verrugas, or “Bridge of Warts.” In the course of its erection the men engaged on the bridge work died with a species of internal warts, caused, it is believed, by the bite of a fly which is found in the crevices of rocks in that ravine.
Leaving San Bartoleme (4,959ft.) the train begins the first of a score of zig-zags—the only method of ascent on account of the steep incline. Partly backing up the ledge of a mountain, stopping, then going forward again, the train shunts backwards and forwards until the passenger can look down to count five or six tracks of line seemingly parallel.
As a variety, the powerful engine crosses the River Rimac at Oroya, disappears through a tunnel, and emerges at the other side of the mountain to recross the Rimac by the Chaupichaca bridge.
Before attempting the journey passengers must make certain that their hearts and lungs are sound. Normally, however, the only complaint is “soroche”—a form of mountain sickness caused by the rarity of air—which, incidentally, has a worse effect than sea-sickness,
A Prize Winning Railway Exhibit.
One of the most interesting displays in the recent Mardi Gras procession At Gisborne was the miniature train constructed and operated by members of the Gisborne railway staff. The exhibit (which was suggested by Mr. G. W. Hart, Foreman Carpenter, Gisborne). was awarded first prize in Class A, and the champion prize. The above snap shews the crew who ran the train in the procession.
Mr. J.S. Wilson, of New Plymouth, who recently lost a roll of bank notes, which was found by a member of the New Plymouth railway staff and subsequently returned to him, writes to the Stationmaster, New Plymouth, in the following appreciative terms of the “honest people on the railway”:-
On the night of the 26th September I had the misfortune to lose a roll of bank notes and postal notes amounting to £28 16s. This roll was picked up by one of your staff in the Main Street and returned to me the following morning by Mr. Luders of the New Plymouth staff. I was lucky my roll was picked up by an honest man, and one of your staff. There are a few honest people in the country yet, and you have them on the railway. I thought I would pen you these few lines to let you know how I appreciate Mr. Luders’ honesty.
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From the Hon. Secretary, Manawatu Ladies’ Hockey Association, Palmerston North, to the General Manager of Railways, Wellington:-
On the return of our team who visited Invercargill for the Championship Tournament, the manageress expressed her great pleasure and satisfaction with the kind manner in which your service attended to the requirements of the party. They received every consideration from your staff at all times, and the civility and attention called for special mention. The staff at Palmerston North station and your local agent, Mr. P. S. Larcomb, went to a great deal of trouble on our behalf, and we wish to extend to them, and all your servants right through, our very best thanks.
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From the Manager, Dalgety and Company, Wanganui, to Mr. Gilmore, Transport Office, Ohakune:-
We would like to place on record our appreciation of the manner in which our request for sheep wagons to meet the heavy demands of purchasers at our recent Raetihi Ewe Fair, was granted.
We are more than pleased at the special efforts displayed by you and the results achieved in satisfying our demands on that occasion.
All stock was moved with the utmost despatch, and it is very gratifying to us to be able to express our clients’ and our own utmost satisfaction at the results achieved.
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From the Secretary, New Zealand Fruit Export Control Board, Wellington, to the General Manager of Railways, Wellington:-
I have been instructed to convey to you my Board's appreciation of the services rendered by you and your staff during the fruit season which has just terminated. Although little inconveniences do arise during the busy time, these do not mar my Board's appreciation of the efficiency of the New Zealand Railways in transporting a record export crop from Hastings and the Wairarapa Districts to Wellington without any undue delay at any time.
A group of powerful flashing light signals was brought into operation at the Petone level crossing on the main Hutt road, Wellington, on Thursday, 6th November. These new flashing light signals will replace the existing “wig-wag” light and bell signals, and it is considered that they will add greatly to the safety of vehicles negotiating the crossing.
The Railway Department has set aside a certain amount of land from the area formerly occupied by the old Railway Workshops. The effect of this has been to improve the view of the line at the crossing. In addition to this, it is believed that the new automatic flashing light warning signals, of improved design and placed in a better locality, will produce at the crossing conditions so favourable in regard to warning that there will be no real danger to any road user who exercises a reasonable standard of care when using the crossing.
On the Wellington side of the crossing the flashing lights are three, placed in a triangular form above the six-foot standard. The upper light will flash in unison with one of the lower lights. All the lights from this warning signal show along the road towards Wellington. The lower pair shine directly on the road, while the upper light is directed at a slightly different angle from the lower pair, and is so pointed that it will indicate in the direction of road vehicles when they are swinging at the bend to take the crossing.
On the four lamp standard on the other side of the crossing the upper pair of lamps shine northwards towards Lower Hutt. The lower pair point along the sea-front road. The lamps in each pair of these are 2ft. 6in. apart.
As each of these red lights shines alternately for about one second and is synchronised with its mate in such a way that one light of each pair is always showing, there will be a very definite and clearly distinguishable red light showing along every road approach to the crossing whenever the crossing is obstructed or is about to be obstructed by a train. All the lights are effectively hooded to ensure and enhance visibility by day as well as by night, and they are at the height which puts them in the direct line of vision of approaching road vehicles.
This type of crossing warning signal is considered by the Railway Department to be the best yet devised. At the Mangere crossing on the main road south from Auckland a signal of this type was installed recently, and it is understood that the Auckland Automobile Association and other road users are well satisfied about its efficiency for the purpose.
The crossings at the Square in Palmerston North are now similarly equipped, as are several in the South Island.
The decision to so equip the Petone crossing is the final action taken in the protracted negotiations regarding the question of the present necessity for a ramp at the Petone level crossing.
It is claimed that the installation of the new type of crossing signal will reduce the risk at the crossing to a minimum, and that the residuum of risk, applying only to those who do not exercise a reasonable
The Railway Department itself takes no chances in working this crossing with its road vehicles, all buses being required to stop for fifteen seconds before passing over it, in order that the drivers may satisfy th