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The New Zealand Railways Magazine is on sale through the principal booksellers, or may be obtained post-free for 6/- per annum.
Employees of the Railway Department are invited to forward news items or articles bearing on railway affairs. The aim of contributors should be to supply interesting topical material tending generally towards the betterment of the service.
In all cases where the Administration makes announcements through the medium of this journal the fact will be clearly indicated.
The Department does not identify itself with any opinions which may be expressed in other portions of the publication, whether appearing over the author's name or under a nom de plume.
Short stories, poetry, pen-and-ink sketches, etc., are invited from the general public upon New Zealand subjects.
Payment for short paragraphs will be made at 2d. a line. Successful contributors will be expected to send in clippings from the Magazine for assessment of the payment due to them.
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All communications should be addressed to The Editor, New Zealand Railways Magazine, Wellington.
I hereby certify that the publisher's lists and other records disclose that the circulation of the “New Zealand Railways Magazine” has not been less than 20,000 copies each issue since July, 1930.
Deputy-Controller and Auditor-General.
25/3/35.
“The figures as a whole seem to demonstrate that the railways are recapturing much of the traffic which severe competition had diverted from them. They may be regarded also as a practical vindication of the progressive policy which the Railways Board has adopted in organising frequent excursions. In this respect the Board is familiarising the public of New Zealand with a practice which has been extensively developed by the railway companies in England and which has proved highly popular. In railway management, as in every other form of commercial enterprise, it is necessary to study the wishes and requirements of the general public. Not otherwise can the goodwill of the community in the mass be won and retained.”
“There is cause for gratification in the fact that the railways continue steadily to gain ground, and there will be no reluctance on the part of the public to commend the Board for the vigour with which it has put its full policy into effect, for the improvements it has made in the comfort and efficiency of its rolling stock, and for the importance it has attached to a well-planned publicity campaign. The Board's record is one of enterprising administration, and the results achieved so far have proved the wisdom of the change in the system of control.”
“To have achieved an increase in revenue of £600,000 during the two years when general recovery in trade and industry has been slow is further justification of the non-political control of the State railway enterprise.
“A most encouraging feature is the improvement in passenger traffic, thus showing that the comfort and reliability of railway travel is once more making an appeal to the travelling public.
“The progress already achieved should give the Board courage and hope for the future, and the taxpayers' confidence in its management of the largest State undertaking in the Dominion.”
His Excellency the Governor-General, Lord Galway, At Tawa Flat.
On Wednesday, 16th May, the Governor-General, Lord Galway and Lady Galway, accompanied by Lieut. Sir Standish Roche, A.D.C., visited Tawa Flat to witness the welding of the last rail-joint on the new deviation. The Vice-Regal party were welcomed at Lambton Station by Mr. G. H. Mackley, General Manager of Railways, Mr. G. J. Bertinshaw, Chief Engineer, and Mr. G. W. Wyles, Signal and Electrical Engineer, and travelled to Tawa Flat in the General Manager's Rail-car. The illustrations show:—(1) The Rail-car entering the first tunnel; (2) arrival at Tawa Flat; (3) watching the rail-welding process; (4) welding plant being attached to rail; (5) examining a welded joint; (6) watching the assembling of the welding plant; (7) listening to an explanation of the welding process; (8) turning the Rail-car for the homeward journey.
This question is addressed to you, reader, and (lest you be in any doubt as to its meaning) we tell you right off that it refers to features of this Magazine and not to entrants for the Grand National.
The fact that tastes differ, naturally leads to an endless variety of efforts to cater for those tastes. Herein lies the spice of life. Yet in regard to any particular commodity, idea, presentation or production, there can usually be found a substantial majority for, or against it; and the successful caterer to the public taste—whether it be in hats or homes, meals or magazines—is he who can discover and supply just what that majority wants—at the time they want it.
Of course there are endless ways, also, by which tastes can be cultivated and dislikes turned to likes. This is usually a gradual process, however, and can best be done by a judicious admixture of the bitter with the sweet—a lot of what is liked and a little of what you would like them to like, that is, the sweet predominating. The first essential is to find your majority and gain their confidence. After that you are free to experiment along the margin which separates the known from the unknown—choosing always a route that leads towards the main objective.
These general principles are stated as a preliminary to an invitation to readers of this Magazine to send along their candid opinions of its contents.
What is there in it that you like, what do you dislike, to what are you indifferent, and what new features would you appreciate?
Increasing circulation amongst the general public is one indication that the popular taste is being met, but it is our desire to obtain, from correspondents, something of a plebiscite upon the general contents, with a view to still further improving the reader interest of the publication. We feel that nothing can assist better to this end than the expressed opinions of readers.
Of course, it must not be forgotten that the principal purpose of the journal is to create and maintain interest in the railways as the largest and most important industry under one control in the Dominion, and as the industry in which the greatest amount of national capital has been invested.
But closely associated with this objective is the New Zealand interest which the Magazine sets out to stimulate, and the love of country it aims to inspire, for accurate knowledge of New Zealand's favoured position and truly magnificent resources cannot fail to strengthen national patriotism.
When you send along your opinions, these will be closely examined and classified, and then an endeavour will be made to extend the features showing the greatest measure of popularity.
Much of the development of the Magazine up to the present has followed the line of expressed opinion by well-informed readers who have taken the trouble to write giving their views regarding various issues. You are invited to follow their lead and so take a hand in making the publication nearer to your heart's desire.
The present is a time when there appears to be an insatiable appetite for information on all kinds of topics. In fact, to be abreast of the times, one must follow the news rapidly, as progress is proceeding in almost every line of endeavour at very high speed. The romance of life nowadays lies rather in the achievements of experimenters, investigators, manufacturers and transporters than in the imagination of fiction-writers, whose plots can vary but little—the triangle love-story of earlier days has become a polygon, and the mystery story is driven for originality to a multiplicity of murders or suspects or both, but in both types the writers usually lag behind woefully in knowledge of practical things, and cause in the more sophisticated either a sense of irritation or a superior smile because of the gross errors made whenever a technical subject is involved.
So topical articles are displacing the short story in many successful magazines, and judged by increasing sales, popular taste has found the general scheme of short articles and paragraphs, sketches and half-tones in the “Railways Magazine” rather to its liking. And so now, once more, we ask, “What do you like?”
The very favourable reception accorded by the Press to the recently published results of the railway financial year (which ended on the 31st March last) may be taken as indicating general public approval of the Board's policy as applied to the administration of the Department and of the satisfactory service given by railwaymen in securing the considerable measures of increased business which the figures reveal.
But in the keen competition for business, as it is now carried on, there can be no such thing as resting on one's laurels. Internally and externally there must be a constant pressure kept up to hold what we have in the way of custom and customers, and to secure more wherever possible.
Some recent changes in executive and district re-organisation have been made public. They have grown out of this need for effort towards expansion. For instance, the re-appointment of a Transport Superintendent, the increase in the inspectorial duties of the Staff Superintendent, and the other changes made to strengthen the personnel at headquarters represent not merely an effort to make the internal management and supervision still more efficient, but also they are part of an intensified drive along the whole front of the railway transport organisation to ensure that, wherever it touches the public, it may be sensitive to every transport requirement or opening, and ready with offers of cheap and reliable service of the kind the public will desire and appreciate.
Just as the purveyors of new commodities do not usually find a market ready waiting for them, but have to set about creating a demand, so the Department, in pioneering new transport services, has found means to create a demand not previously existent and to build up profitable new lines of business. It has only been by effort of this kind that the progress recorded in recent years has been possible, and it is only by continued effort in the same direction that the future can be secured.
I take this opportunity of thanking the public, on behalf of the Board, for the splendid manner in which they have stood by their own railways, and to the staff for their good work in securing that goodwill.
A Rail-Served Resort of Many Attractions.
Some views of Okoroire—reached from Frankton Junction (top)—on the Auckland-Rotorua Line. The illlustrations show the hotel and golf links, the hot swimming pool and the Avenue. (See article on page 10).
Rly. Publicity photo.)
This all started in a Main Trunk Sleeper where I encountered the English envoy of a large exporting organisation.
“I would like to meet,” he said, “the crossword puzzle genius who worked out your junction systems here. You never seem to have the waits that happen in other countries, and no matter what hamlet you wander into, you can pick up a train somewhere handy that lands you out again on a main line.”
He added that, more than once, as a result of a bright idea in a club, or, in one well remembered case, a surprise telegram on the train, he had changed his routine completely, and was relieved to find how little time was lost making the switch in his connections.
We are all accustomed to mild wonder at the Napier getting in one hour and some odd minutes before the New Plymouth, and we have all looked up the fractional times at which you change at Marton for Wanganui or Palmerston North for Napier, and so on. It had never dawned on me, however, that there was such a vast problem of intricacy and difficulty about these arrangements, until I did some thinking as the result of my English observer's remarks.
I decided to pay a tour of inspection of some railway junctions, and have what is called in the film world a “close-up.”
I looked over the railway map, and discovered a nest of junctions in Central Waikato. Frankton, Ruakura, Morrinsville, and Paeroa (as will be seen in the accompanying map) are a closely set quartette, compactly linked and serving a district that promised to be interesting.
So I and my friend of the camera set out on this railway junction Odyssey, and a fascinating experience it has all been, a revelation of human ingenuity, ceaseless human effort, and unstinted, indefatigable loyal service to the public.
Incidentally, I went among scenes of unforgettable beauty and interest, giving me still more comfort in the unapproachable variety and the diverse loveliness of our country.
The Waikato is the greatest dairying district in the world, and had for many years a time of universal prosperity, accompanied by bustling progress, unique in New Zealand from the fact that its development has been so recent. Only twenty years ago, Waikato lands were looked upon as somewhat poor areas, and capital for development was a difficulty. However, a sounder knowledge of the use of artificial fertilisers, and the rapid advance in scientific farming practice, produced a revolution. The extent of easy, flat, or gently undulating land was enormous, and the whole great basin of our largest river, flowered into endless richness.
The late development made its organisations grow on the more modern models of big business, and such a concern as the New Zealand Co-operative Dairy Company has a just claim that it is the largest dairy company in the world. It is American in scale.
The Waikato is a district of contrasts. Much of it is very old with a wealth of tradition and the sweetness that comes from age. Much of it is new with the efficient air of ultramodernity and (this is not said in malice) giving the impression that the main objective is commercial utility.
Perhaps the best way to tell the whole story is to keep to the chronological order of my journeyings.
From the Main Trunk train, we stepped off at Frankton Junction. As is usual in New Zealand, the station buildings are useful and that is all. A sporting writer would describe their architecture as more within the category of the mule than the thoroughbred. Still, the workaday mule was of more general utility in the war than the handsomest cavalry charger.
The place is a network of shunting lines, and there is a dense city of trucks, vans, and all manner of goods-carrying vehicles. Here is where I began to see life in its railway junc-
Rly. Publicity photo.)
Hamilton is the capital of the Waikato. It is an up-to-date small city. Its handsome main street has the usual surprising massive blocks of commercial buildings, fine hotels and shops, and the whole place has a self-contained air of commercial competency.
Its outskirts are very beautiful and the noble river, with parks along its banks, and rows of fine dwellings overlooking the water, give the town a distinctive atmosphere.
It has all the amenities of a metropolitan centre in any part of the world—water supply, deep drainage, electric light, gas, paved roads, many wonderful parks, golf links, trotting and galloping racecourses, and automatic telephones. The churches and schools are imposing, and St. Peter's Cathedral is the seat of the Bishop of Waikato and Taranaki. In short, it is a very fine specimen of a New Zealand provincial capital.
We drove to Cambridge along an ideal road, through one of the fairest prospects in the world. The pastures are emerald green, the hedges trim and well kept, the farm houses handsome and spic and span, all with vivid and orderly gardens, and splendid trees are everywhere. The rich autumn colouring of the English trees checkered the varying greens of the native foliage.
The entrance to Cambridge, through a towering colonnade of English trees, is worth crossing oceans to find, and the whole bonny place is endowed with similar beauty. I dare to say that this is a lovely English town, with improvements. This place of three thousand souls can claim a list of-amenities of the same standard as its big neighbour, Hamilton. It has three excellent hotels, and all the business establishments usually found only in very large centres in the Old World.
Its park, ringing a gem of lakes, is, and should be the pride of Cambridge. Our pictures show some of its beauty. Here are kauri trees making normal growth. Here is a veritable cedar of Lebanon of great age and height, and there is a forest of the lords of the tree world, all grown to be giants.
It was the first of May when we paid our visit and the sanctuary waters of the lake were dotted with hosts of wild duck who must have in some way got possession of a calendar.
There is a well attended Hunt, and every variety of outdoor sport with rod and gun is within walking distance. Cambridge is a red-haired girl among the comely towns of our Dominion. No one ever leaves it, once having gone there, and I can understand why.
We went from Cambridge, hating to go, and got out at Ruakura Junction. Through this isolated outpost of the railway front, twenty-six trains pass daily, most of them laden to the Plimsoll mark. The officer in charge has a job rather like that of a sentry, relieved by bursts of uncoupling, leaping on and off brakes, and other forms of physical exercise.
The outward train from Auckland picked us up after a few minutes, and we joined the train which runs to the Bay of Plenty, splitting at Paeroa to take travellers to Thames. The latter is a sweet and clean little place with a fine racecourse, and also, of course, all modern sources of comfort.
But it was on our return to Morrinsville that I got to the true inwardness of railway life. We joined there a
Hamilton and the Waikato River as seen from the air.
Along the banks of the Waikato River at Hamilton.
At every stopping place, vans and lorries were waiting. Privates in the railway army and the indefatigable guard leaped here and there, the engine roared and whistled, while trucks were detached, pushed along side lines, more put on, all proceeding with speed and efficiency. Cinquevalli could take lessons from our folks who handle with such defitness and precision, those heavy milk cans. A flick of the wrist and an apparently effortless heave, and one goes in and an empty comes out. In a twinkling a mountain of the clumsy things appears and disappears. It was highgrade entertainment.
Waharoa, with its sky-scraper factories surrounded by enormous trees, provided us with a new movie star. This was Mac, a collie with a wise eye and enough brains to understand a book on economics. Mac's owner is the sole officer at Waharoa and his duties often take him down the lines a bit. Let the tablet machine ring, and Mac appears on the platform barking the announcement. If there is no response, he darts after the boss, and tugs his coat, explaining the urgency. After the points are changed he takes up a sentry position and woebetide anyone making even a gesture towards the levers. More than once an emergency call has been taken no notice of by humans waiting about the platform and Mac has filled the breach.
We had a look at Matamata, the newest of the Waikato towns. I liked its flagged pavements, pretty central avenue in the main street, its plenty of dainty homes. It has a city theatre and other amenities.
Nightfall came, but still the ceaseless activity went on with our cavalcade on iron wheels. Torches flashed here and there, the engine ran a fireworks display, moving in short spasms, furiously energetic figures belonging to railway heroes jumped, ran and did and undid things, all in vast good humour, all in the day's work. I registered a vow never to complain again about a missing case or a day's delay in the arrival of a couple of wild duck. These latter, by the way, appeared here, there and everywhere on the second of May. The Waikato sportsman's idea is to make their bag travel, for peeps at the addresses proved them to be a directory of New Zealand.
Next we reached Tirau, from which you go to Okoroire. One of these days the line will pop across the short intervening distance between Cambridge and this place. Okoroire Hot Springs Hotel is three miles by a good road from Tirau station, and was an unalloyed surprise.
Here is a miniature thermal regions township, a pocket Rotorua or Yosemite Valley.
It is complete. The hotel is commodious and has the air of a large rambling country house. Down a marvellous avenue of tall trees are the hot springs, which as the rhyme says of the best things in life, are free to guests. There is a fine sandy bottomed swimming pool, of apparently hot champagne, and there are others of varying degrees of heat, all housed in roomy bath-houses. A stream rushes close by, in a series of terrific, picturesque rapids and swirling cauldrons of crazy waters. The golf links are across the fence, a neat nine hole course. There are bowling greens, tennis lawns and other recreational facilities. There is shooting a furlong away, and a trout can be landed fifty yards from the lounge.
I want once again to mention that in our beneficent climate the exotic trees in fifty years have the growth
The lake in the gardens at Cambridge.
A scene in the Public Gardens at Cambridge.
Next day brought us back to Morrinsville, a bustling town with the inevitable brace of cinemas, good hotels and up-to-date business places. All these bright little centres should have a statue of a Golden Cow in the Public Gardens.
The trip ended at Hamilton. Here again we found the same tireless servants of the department, waiting late trains recking not of hours and caring only for the service.
These are my abiding impressions. First of all, there are the vast complexity, the enormous technical skill, and the patient supervision required to keep the iron network of this complex circulation system free from confusion.
And I was astounded at the service given by the rank and file. A small oversight by a tired man at one station makes endless work at another. There is no grousing. Grimy-faced warriors, kept long after their proper hours are done, “hop into it.” When trains are delayed, no one realises that for miles up and down the line, railway servants are waiting till the early hours of the morning to put things right, and doing it cheerily and often.
I was staggered at the cargoes meandering about this one New Zealand area. Not so very long ago, the whole Hamilton-Cambridge road could not have held the concourse of animals and men needed to move that colossal mass of goods our one wheezing engine dragged along those miles of rail.
And lastly, what a country we have in New Zealand! I went through New Zealand once with an American who loved the out-of-doors. After twenty miles or so he said:
That is how I feel as I continue my little journeys. We have another England here, another “green and pleasant land.” We have its soil and are of its people, and we have added blessings in more sunshine, milder airs and grander natural features.
We surely can do something towards strengthening our determination to cherish and maintain our precious heritage when we stress its claims.
We should, as our cousins across the Pacific say, “Tell the World.”
Two busy railway junctions—Morrinsville (above) and Paeroa (below).
Things are quiet in the garden just now. It is the period of pause when the turnips cease from turning and the radish takes a rest. With the exception of the somnolent drip of a winter leak or the muffled throb of a stymied beetroot, there is practically nothing doing in the vegetable world.
But is the go-getter gardener resting on his laurels and lettuces? Is he idly ensconced in the inglenook, dreaming of pumpkins so swelled that they have to be handled by a breakdown gang, and cabbages calculated to put a band rotunda to the blush? No sir! He is planning his winter campaign against the forces of insecticidal disorder among the rows and ridges of the ancestral acres. For, according to such authorities as Ho On and Un Yun, “You catchum sluggie to-day—you savem cabbagee to-mollow,” which is one of those inscrutable wisecracks of the East, so bursting with poetic thought yet stagnant with age-old truth. For how true it is that the lone earwig of today produces the crowded auditorium of to-morrow. And so the gardener who is “au fait” with his onions, and allied fruits, lies in wait behind the parsley to slug the slug, get the wood on the wood-bug, and generally waylay the gastronomical gangsters of the garden, before they can select soulmates and produce bed-loads of bugs and slugs for the spring offensive.
Science plays many parts, and research has not been idle in the realms of the rhubarb. To you, dear reader, whose gardening is confined to the idle petting of the potted petunia, it may seem simple to slug a slug or bag a bug; but the Men of Garlic know that there is a right and a wrong way of making the world safe for celery. And so one should study the lives and loves of the garden gobblers. You may imagine that one simply hits a slug a dong on the dome and leaves it for dead.
But it is difficult to know where a slug's dome is domiciled, for it is practically all dome. Thus the scientific method is to make a noise like a sprig of young parsley behind a selected slug and, while it is looking over its shoulder, to fling a lighted match in its path; the slug walks into the flame and is burnt to death. This method is hard on matches, but, after all, matches are easier to borrow than cabbages.
Snails demand a somewhat different technique because, whereas the slug is an all-out snail, the snail can be in and out at the same time—like a bad tenant when the rent collector calls. So the snail-stalker is advised to rap smartly on the back door of the snail's house and then run round to the front door and chalk “to let” on it. When the snail returns to the front and sees “to let” on the door he naturally concludes that he is in the wrong house, and immediately vacates. The snail hunter then seals the shell with chewing gum and leaves the snail to perish from exposure.
When the gardener goes earwigging he changes his tactics. No doubt, perspicacious reader, you have noticed that an earwig moves with the swift grace of a homing hippo, or a policeman who has heard an acid drop in a lolly shop at midnight; also that it has that faraway look in its eyes common to dwellers in the great open spaces. In short, it depends more on its ears than on its eyes for protection. Thus the knowing gardener strews his week's whisker clippings in its path, and lies at the extreme end of his garden with his ear to the ground, exposed to the delighted gaze of the homing earwig which, hurrying towards its natural habitat, hits the whiskers head on and breaks its neck.
Wireworms demand a more subtle system of insecticide. Wireworms, as their name implies, have their own telegraphic code of inter-communication. They are too wiry to be readily destroyed even by wireless, so the
Wood bugs are easy prey for the astute rhubarb raiser. As you know, patient reader, wood bugs spend their existence running up and down pieces of wood. This is their fatal mistake; the wood-bug hunter obtains a bundle of chair legs and sticks them in the ground at suitable intervals. The wood-bugs run up the chair legs, naturally assuming that where there are chair legs there must be chairs; but when they reach the top and sit down for a breather—well, this is where the gardener gets the wood on the wood-bug.
Centipedes present a problem which can be solved by psychology. Everybody knows that a centipede has a hundred legs and the same number of feet—unless it is deficient in understanding. Contrary to natural supposition, it does not perambulate with super-celerity, because it takes a good deal of thought to manipulate a hundred feet in consecutive rythm; it has to count its footsteps to see that every foot does its duty. Thus it is easily caught; after which the gardener ties two of its legs together and releases it. When it moves off again it counts up to ninety-nine and, when it puts down the hundredth leg which isn't there it misses its step and takes the count.
So much for the garden plot. Let us now turn to the lawn. A lawn is a plot (almost a conspiracy, in fact) which grows grass in the winter when nobody wants to sit on it, and withers up in the summer when the lawn-sitting season is in full swing. The common worm (or sward-swallower) delights to cover a nice smooth lawn with earth-moulds, until it resembles the floor of a conference room at a convention of chewing-gum salesmen in U.Say.. Of course worms are useful for perforating the pericardium of the greensward to admit oxygen from the air and beneficial juices from the upper reaches. A worm's life, in fact, is just one good turn after another. When it comes to turning, a worm is capable of making Dick Whittington look like Lot's wife. It fills itself with mud, worms its way to the height of its ambition, holes out in one, and returns for more—and so on, “add spinfinitum.” From this habit arises the adage, “Every worm has his turn.”
But when too many worms turn simultaneously in the precincts of the paspalum they are liable to make a lawn's sylph-like skin look like an air view of the Tibetian border. The only way to take the wind out of the worm's spinaker is to creep out and turn the lawn over while it is asleep, thus confusing the worm's ups-and-downs so that, when it thinks it is coming up it is really going down; the worm thereafter keeps on going until it strikes rock-bottom and dies of shingles or gravel rash. This rids the lawn of worms until the next annual migration arrives from Wormwood Scrubs.
Briefly put, the gardener who refuses to adopt scientific measures is nothing more nor less than a boarding-house keeper for bugs. But,
The future of our railways is a topic of first importance, alike for railway managements, employees, and the general public. After a century of service, railways the world over continue the principal means of movement for mankind and mankind's belongings, and it seems certain that, for long years to come, rail transport will hold pride of place as the most convenient, efficient, and economical system of haulage. During the past few years, many perplexing problems have had to be tackled by railway managements and their staffs. Trade depression has been universal, while the rapid development of road transport on both the passenger and freight sides has also come as an obstacle to railway prosperity.
Probably the biggest problem facing railways to-day is that which concerns future methods of traction. There are two main lines of development open to the railways. One covers the utilisation of autonomous, or self-propelled, traction units, like the steam or oil-fired locomotive; the other embraces electrification, depending upon central generating stations and a radiating system of overhead feeders. Which of these arrangements is likely to be favoured? It is a significant fact that, at the present time, the majority of the big British and American railways are fighting shy of the immense initial capital expenditure involved in main-line electrification. There are exceptions to this situation, of course, as witness the continued electrification expenditure of the Southern Railway of England, and the Pennsylvania Railroad of America. In the main, however, trunk route electrification is, to-day, definitely under a cloud, interest everywhere being turned towards the development of more powerful and more economical self-propelled traction units, such as the steam locomotive and the Diesel engine.
Prophecy is apt to prove dangerous, but it would certainly seem as if a very promising future lay ahead for self-propelled traction. In particular, one is impressed by the obvious advantages and economies offered by the internal combustion Diesel engine. These self-contained motive units can get along without any elaborate system of overhead transmission lines, and usually even the most severe climatic conditions prove only a temporary obstacle to regular schedules. Improvements and refinements in self-contained units may be at once taken advantage of, without costly alterations to electrical machinery or transmission lines, and altogether there appears a very strong case for self-propelled traction as against universal electrification.
Steam locomotive design is making marked progress in Europe. In Britain, the London and North Eastern Railway are leaders in the search for more powerful and more economical steam locomotive units, while across the Channel the railways of France are to the fore in this direction.
On the Paris-Orleans, Nord and Est systems, clever design has resulted in an increase in locomotive power of from thirty to forty per cent. The Nord is at present experimenting with steam engines capable of hauling 700 ton trains at 75 m.p.h. High-powered Diesel-electric locomotives are also being turned out in considerable numbers for service on the French lines. One batch of these consists of experimental engines of 800 h.p., capable of drawing trains of 200 tons at 75 m.p.h. Other experiments aim at turning out light engines capable of handling 150 ton trains at speeds up to 95 m.p.h. A good deal of main-line electrification has been tackled in southern and central France, but these latest experi-
Streamlining of fast passenger trains has definitely come to stay. The most searching of tests under actual working conditions have proved beyond doubt the utility of the idea, and to-day most of the larger European railways are introducing streamlined passenger trains into their main-line services.
Old-established servcies such as the “Flying Scotsman,” the “Royal Scot,” and the “Cornish Riviera Express,” that have brought fame to the Home railways, may shortly be maintained by new streamlined locomotives and carriages. As yet, however, only partial streamlining has been attempted in Britain. Complete streamlining has made exceptional progress in Germany. Because of the success of the “Flying Hamburger” train, Germany is now introducing eleven new streamlined passenger trains in long-haul service. These trains will consist of saloon cars, having two seats on each side of a central gangway. The trains will run at an average speed of 75 m.p.h., and will operate between Berlin and Koenigsberg, Breslau, Dresden, Munich and Cologne.
Hand-in-hand with streamlining, goes the employment of aluminium and aluminium alloys for carriage construction. This results in a great saving of dead weight. The Danish and Norwegian State Railways have recently acquired numbers of aluminium carriages for express service. The latest Danish aluminium cars give accommodation for 235 passengers, as against the 168 passengers accommodated in the older and heavier type of vehicle.
That exceptionally active organisation, the International Railway Congress Association, recently published a comprehensive report on the general railway situation in Europe, and the measures taken by the railways to combat trade depression and road competition. Dr. Cottier, of the Swiss Federal Railways, and Reichsbahn-direktor von Beck, of the German National Railways, are the authors; and they state that in several European lands the economic crisis reached its peak in 1932, and since then it has become less serious. In Britain, Germany, France, Austria, Switzerland and Norway, increased business is now coming to the railways. In other European countries, however, the economic situation and traffic condition show no improvement.
After noting that the bettered conditions in Britain and the other lands named have largely been secured through lowering railway rates and charges, the report remarks that passenger traffic losses are due mainly to the growth in the number of private motor-cars and motor-cycles. The losses the railways suffer through bus competition are regarded as slight. On the freight side, losses have been caused by the modern arrangement for large commercial undertakings to operate their own fleets of collection and delivery motors. As regards road transport contractors, the competition of these organisations is keenest in the long-distance services and for merchandise paying the higher rates.
Certain of the European railways are fortunate in covering territory as yet unconquered by the road carrier and the private motor-car. The Swiss lines present several examples of this character, among which may be named the picturesque Montreux - Bernese Oberland Railway. This remarkable line runs from Montreux, near Lausanne, to Interlaken, with forward connections to beautiful Lucerne. Operated by a private company, the Montreux-Bernese Oberland Railway is electrified throughout. Three-phase current at 8,000 volts, 50 cycles, is generated in the company's power plant, and this is transformed to 750 volts in six sub-stations. Electric locomotives haul trains over the route at speeds up to 45 m.p.h., and some of the most luxurious of passenger stock is employed in the tourist season now in full swing.
Obstacles to fast running everywhere abound on this unique Alpine line. Tunnels, bridges, viaducts and cuttings are constantly met with, while at vulnerable points special protective works have been built to combat the winter danger from falling avalanches. In the summer season, travel over the Montreux-Bernese Oberland line is a sheer delight. Wonderful Alpine panoramas meet the eye on every side, while the tiny roadside stations are a picture of cleanliness and floral beauty.
The railway station of to-day is a very different affair from that of a decade or two ago. Not only has equipment of every kind shown immense improvement, but from the viewpoint of cleanliness and general appearance the modern station is one hundred per cent, better than its nineteenth century counterpart. An attractive railway station can do far more to attract business than at first sight appears to be the case. At Home we have evidence in abundance of the value of an alluring shop-window, such as is presented by a well-kept station.
In Britain the annual competitions for the best-kept railway station have for long been a feature. Some of the smaller stations annually present the most delightful of floral pictures; while in city areas, hanging baskets and platform tubs take the place of the more conventional garden beds.
Dr. Peter H. Buck (Te Rangihiroa), D.S.O., Doctor, Soldier, and Ethnologist.
The mingled blood of Pakeha and Maori has given New Zealand some very gifted and distinguished men, who have risen to the highest offices the State can bestow on them. None of the brilliant little band of native sons has given greater service to his country, than Dr. Peter Buck, D.S.O., whose Maori name is Te Rangihiroa. He has nobly helped his people along the paths of health and renewed hope in life. He has a record of splendid service in the Great War, on Gallipoli and in France, both as Medical Officer and combatant officer. He was second in command of his Maoris, the Pioneer Battalion, with the rank of major. He was director of Maori Hygiene on his return from active service. For many years he has been engaged in scientific research among the islands of Polynesia, for the Bishop Museum in Honolulu, and to-day he stands foremost among Maori-Poylnesian ethnologists; a great and scholarly and gallant figure whom New Zealanders would like to see at the head of Pacific anthropological studies in his own homeland.
PEter Henry Buck was born in 1880, at Urenui, North Taranaki, the son of William Henry Buck, a veteran of the Maori wars, and the chieftainess Ngarongo-ki-tua. His race-blend gave him, for one thing, one may suppose, his love of adventure and for another the poetic trend of mind and the eloquent tongue that are the hereditary gifting of the Maori. As a youth he had his sound schooling at famous Te Aute College, and he continued his studies into the University. His taste was for the medical profession, and in that excellent school, Otago University, he obtained his M.D. diploma. He was for a time house surgeon in Dunedin Hospital, and then, after the late Sir Maui Pomare had initiated the beneficent crusade of health and new life for the Maori people, young Te Rangihiroa became a health officer among his mother's race, holding this position for three years, 1905–8. He married in 1905 Margaret Wilson, of Milton, Otago, and that lady has been a true co-partner with him in his varied career. While he was on the fighting fronts in the Great War she was constantly engaged in hospital and other useful work for the New Zealand soldiers, and since then she has assisted him in his anthropological research duties in the Pacific. A lady of fine courage; she fearlessly toiled beside him in the smallpox epidemic among the Maoris in North Auckland when he became a Government health officer.
It was in grateful recognition of this great self-sacrificing work for the native people that the Ngapuhi and their allied tribes invited Te Rangihiroa to become their representative in Parliament. This was after the death of the popular Hone Heke, who for many years had been member for the Northern Maori district. So the Doctor turned politician, and more than mere politician; he developed a statesmanlike outlook which embraced a wider range than New Zealand, in his concern for the well-being of the ancient race. Besides representing the Maori people, he had under his care as Minister the Cook Islands and other Polynesian isles over which New Zealand's flag had been raised.
Then, after six years of politics, came the Great War, and Te Rangihiroa was one of the first to offer his services to the country and his race, when the Government yielded to the enthusiastic desire of the tribes to meet Britain's foes in battle overseas. He left with the First Maori Contingent for Egypt in February, 1915, and it was four years before he saw the shores of New Zealand again.
It was on July 3, 1915, that the First Maori Contingent landed at Anzac Cove, Gallipoli. The boom and crash of artillery that was to be a familiar sound for the next three years on the Peninsula and in Europe first startled and delighted the Maoris' ears that morning. “At last,” they said, “here is the real thing!”
From that day on there was the almost continual ordeal of intense shell-fire, varied by sharp infantry fighting.
At Sari Bair the Maoris went into the attack on Table Top, their first battle with the bayonet, in a mood of savage determination and delight. They had endured shell-fire patiently; now was their opportunity for utu.
They went for those Turks, bayoneted them in their lines, and cleared the trenches, and burst into a haka
yell of “Ka mate, ka mate! Ka ora, ka ora!” then silence as they pressed on to the next point.
“… We could hear our men doing splendidly,” Captain Buck wrote in his diary (August 26). “Rattle of musketry, then silence, and the loud English cheer, followed by a Maori haka. Owing to the Maoris being distributed, the hakas came from every ridge. Everybody is pleased with our men.” Captain Buck had a most strenuous time of it with the wounded; he tended many besides his Maoris.
Sunday, August 8, saw the Maoris in the fiercest fighting of all, the desperate attack on Chunuk Bair, as a preliminary to the general assault of Koja Chemen Tepe, the apex of the range held by the Turks. The fighting continued till on the 10th the Turks made so strong a counter-attack that the ground won by the New Zealanders and others had to be abandoned. The Maori casualties were severe in the four days' fighting—the first battle in Europe in which Maoris were ever engaged. During August 6th—10th they had 17 killed, 89 wounded, and two missing, out of 400 men, the total strength of the Battalion.
The Maoris' medical officer was in the thick of it, attending to the wounded. Of the work on August 9, he wrote: “We had a very bad time with shrapnel which burst all about our gully, the aid post. Only the fact that we were dug in a little saved us.
… The shrapnel bursts were only a few feet beyond us. Once, while I was dressing a wounded Ghurka, I had to lie down beside him, as the shrapnel was striking the ground just beyond us.”
Mr. John Masefield eloquently joined our Maoris with the other fighters of the Empire when he wrote in his “Gallipoli,” describing the storming parties in the battle of Sari Bair: “Men of all races were banded together there. There were Australians, English, Indians, Maoris and New Zealanders made one by devotion to a cause, all willing to die so that their comrades might see the dawn make a steel streak of the Hellespont from the peaked hill now black against the stars.”
Later on, in September, there was some of the most severe fighting in the campaign, and the Maoris suffered severely. The Australians were camped near them, and Captain Buck tended some of their wounded under heavy artillery fire. Then came the dramatic evacuation scene, on October 3, a rest on Lemnos; and departure for Egypt.
Captain Buck wrote from Egypt to the New Zealand members of Parliament representing the Maori race:
“All who have come through the Gallipoli campaign where Pakeha and Maori have shared the fatigue, danger, and incessant vigil of the trenches, side by side, recognise that the Maori is a better man than they gave him credit for, and have admitted him to full fellowship and equality… . One of the finest incidents in the history of the two races took place when the Maoris left the trenches during the Anzac evacuation. Their pakeha comrades who were remaining behind for a later shipment carried their packs down into the gullies and many stood clasping hands when the moment of
full of aroha to express themselves in words.”
In February, 1916, when the Maoris were reorganised for service in France, and were constituted a Pioneer Battalion, under Major G. H. King, Captain Buck was appointed second in command, and now became a combatant officer, Captain H. M. Buchanan (from the Otago M.R.) taking his place as medical officer. Major King was promoted to Colonel and Captain Buck to Major.
Thenceforth the Maoris' work was trench-digging on the Western Front, with now and again a raiding party by way of relief from the trying trench labour under heavy artillery fire. The story of that long and harassing service of the Maoris until the Armistice is told in full in the official history “The Maoris in the Great War.” Heavy shelling was the daily and nightly experience, for month after month. There was a constant drain of casualties.
There were innumerable narrow escapes; for example an incident during trench work on Bezantin Ridge (September, 1917). Major Buck and Lieut. O'Neill were returning to camp down “Fish Alley” when a “whizz-bang” grazed O'Neill's right shoulder, knocking him down, and burst in the ground just in front of Buck's feet. O'Neill, who was walking behind the Major, sustained an abrasion of the shoulder. Twelve days later O'Neill was killed by a shell.
In June, 1917, the Pioneers had their share in the great battle of Messines; their casualties in three weeks were 17 killed, 88 wounded, 45 gassed. In October the New Zealand Division had its part in the third battle of Ypres, where the artillery hammering fell heavily on the Pioneers.
The New Year of 1918 saw the Maoris hard at work around Ypres; hard indeed, for the ground was frozen. On January 17, Major Buck left the Battalion on transfer to the New Zealand Medical Corps, after a period of most courageous and useful service with the Pioneers. All his comrades deeply regretted his departure. He was the ideal officer, never sparing himself, always looking to the welfare of his men, and often battling with the higher powers for decent treatment for them. Thenceforward to the end of the war he was on medical duty at the front with the Ambulance and in the New Zealand hospital. He received the decoration of the D.S.O. in recognition of his long and gallant service. At the same time Mrs. Buck's work in England was rewarded with the honour of Member of the British Empire Order.
On his return to New Zealand after the great adventure of his life, Dr. Buck was engaged by the Government to attend to the health of the Maori people, and he went into the duty with the same zeal and devotion he had displayed in his life as a soldier. But another and even more absorbing occupation presently claimed him, anthropological exploration in the Pacific, with special reference to the Maori-Polynesian zone. His unexampled knowledge of the Maori in his own country and his excellent lectures and papers in the “Polynesian Journal” on various branches of native culture attracted the attention of the authorities of the Berenice P. Bishop Museum, in Honolulu. He was invited to become a temporary member of the Museum ethnological staff, and since 1927 he has been engaged
But it is field work among his beloved Polynesian cousins that is Te Rangihiroa's most absorbing pursuit. He delights in that life for which most of us have longed at one time or another, cruising in the glamorous tropics. It is not always glamour; and the Eastern Pacific inter-island auxiliary-screw trading schooners are very different from comfortably-appointed yachts. But “Pita” and his wife are content to take the rough with the smooth, and there is always a warm welcome for them in the islands, everywhere from Hawaii to Rarotonga (you can at least reach those places by mail-steamer) and from Penrhyn of the pearl-lagoon away south-eastward to Tubuai and romantic Mangareva or Gambier islands. Te Rangihiroa has made intensive studies of the various branches of culture in several groups, particularly Samoa and the Cook Islands, and the French islands that make a Pleiades of archipelagos across the chart of the Eastern Pacific. From Tonga in the west to the almost countless atolls of the Tuamotus, or Paumotus, his range of scientific explorations extends.
When Dr. Buck visited New Zealand at the beginning of this year, I remarked to him that the only Polynesian scene he did not seem to have visited in his anthropological cruising was Easter Island, famous and mysterious Rapanui. “Yes,” he said, “and I am disappointed that I have not been able to set foot there yet, but it is not an easy place to reach; and then there was a French expedition there last year, and the Bishop Museum heads thought that probably its members would be able to carry out the work necessary.”
But then no one with Te Rangihiroa's special knowledge and qualifications has yet visited Rapanui. All the previous scientific inquirers have required interpreters to communicate with the native inhabitants, and research under these conditions is never satisfactory. No wonder the savants who tried to unveil the secrets of Rapanui described the natives as reticent, often sullen. I am sure a sympathetic New Zealander like Te Rangihiroa—speaking the tongue that is practically identical with that of Rapanui, and besides that conversant with the various other dialectical forms of Maori in the islands—would soon establish good accord with the remnant of the Easter Islanders on that melancholy wind-swept mountain top of theirs, last peak, perhaps, of some long-vanished land. I hope Te Rangihiroa will yet be able to see these farthest-east Maoris for himself.
But, setting that aside, we have a vast amount of recorded information about the Polynesian isles for which to thank our far-travelling fellow-New Zealander.
An example is his very complete yet concise survey of the people of Mangaia, that strangely formed island of the Cook group where the Rev. W. Wyatt Gill long ago gathered so splendid a series of legends and folksongs. “Kila” and “Pita,” how they would have rejoiced to meet each other! The liberal-minded missionary's spirit still haply haunts his beloved Mangaia. He and Te Rangihiroa between them have made that coral land and its hospitable people live for the great world of readers who will never set eyes upon its curiously-walled tropic garden.
Te Rangihiroa is serving a noble purpose in his ethnological researches under the Bishop Museum auspices. It is unfortunate that New Zealand has not been able to offer him any inducement to make this country his base of scientific work. Truly, clever New Zealanders are too often insufficiently appreciated in their own country. The foreigner knows their gifts and worth, and quickly secures their services. It is a reproach to this country that Honolulu should be the headquarters of Polynesian research, instead of New Zealand, which by situation, traditions and associations is the natural base for scientific as well as commercial connections with the South Sea groups. Private munificence made Honolulu the research centre of Polynesia, remote as it is geographically. The late Professor Macmillan Brown was strongly of opinion that New Zealand should become the chief home of Polynesian studies, and to that end he bequeathed a large sum to the Canterbury University College. But handsome as that gift is it is inadequate for its purpose as yet.
Some day I hope to see State and private generosity combine to provide a school of Maori-Polynesian studies here, and perhaps then if our distinguished native son Te Rangihiroa is still available we may have him with us to direct and develop those branches of research which lie closest to his heart.
(This photo. was taken by Mr. James McDonald, of the Dominion Museum, who died recently at Tokaanu.)
A Doctor, a barrister, a banker and an engineer boarded the Limited together at Auckland with gun cases, fishing rods and bags labelled “National Park.”
As far as Frankton Junction they played some very solid bridge, but after leaving that station, the doctor, who was a merry looking little man with ruddy cheeks and snow white hair, trumped his partner's perfectly good nine and endeavoured to conciliate that gentleman's wrath by explaining that he was thinking of something else!
This seemed to the others a good enough reason for relaxing—and after some good-natured chaff at the doctor's expense—urged him to divulge whatever it was that had so engrossed him.
But the doctor had a better plan. He admitted that he could probably tell a yarn or two—but his modesty forbade his being the only performer, and he suggested that they should each in turn recount some incident or happening, and, to make it more interesting, cut the cards to decide the order in which they should do so. The pack was shuffled accordingly and each member of the party cut for himself, the doctor calling “Aces low.”
The barrister drew a knave, the banker an eight, the engineer an ace, and the doctor a three.
The engineer was a burly grizzled man of perhaps sixty-five and having drawn the lowest card, it fell to him to tell the first story. For some moments he gazed out of the window, straining to catch the fleeting forms of trees inky black against the receding lights of Te Awamutu—and then, turning his head, regarded first the card in his hand and then the faces of his companions with an enigmatical smile.
“The Ace of Diamonds,” he mused. “I'll tell you a story of how the ace of diamonds saved perhaps a whole train-load of people from disaster—months before the first train ran right through from Auckland to Wellington—nearly thirty years ago.”
“Raining - raining - raining - always—well raining
From early in the mor-or-ning—till … .”
The singer, who framed his words to a well-known hymn tune, stamped his feet upon the floor of the running-shed locker room to rid them of the thick paste of clay and cinders that stuck all round his boots.
“You can cut that right out,” remarked the Loco. Foreman, appearing suddenly from nowhere, “and clear that mess outside. Everything has to be in apple-pie order round here tonight.”
The singer—who was that humblest of creatures, a junior cleaner—silently obeyed, and the foreman strolled past him to the doorway where he remained some minutes gazing out into the streaming darkness.
There was certainly some truth in young Simmonds' ditty for it seemed as though the rain had made up its mind to go on for ever. Day after day it had pelted down almost incessantly—bringing down slips, washing out ballast where culverts had blocked and turning streams into roaring torrents which battered at bridge piles with great boulders and the trunks of up-rooted trees.
No one could say with any certainty when trains would arrive or depart—all up and down the new line station yards were blocked with delayed freight, loops were congested and everywhere distraught railwaymen were battling day and night to preserve schedules, the track, and the tempers of marooned passengers.
Such a state of affairs naturally had its repercussions in the running shed—but Morgan, the foreman, whose routine was completely thrown out of gear by engines which arrived at odd hours all round the clock, looking as though they had been ploughing, felt it was a little hard that it should coincide with the visit of the engineer. And the engineer in his turn felt it was a little hard that such a state of affairs should coincide with the travels of a certain Very Important Personage who was passing through on his way south that very evening in an ornate car that would be tacked on to the rear of the little Public Works train, thus bringing the train up to a weight which, in this weather, necessitated an extra engine to work it over the heavy grades to Taumarunui.
“And where the deuce,” growled the engineer, “am I to find an extra engine at this time of night?”
The train was due out at 7 p.m., and at 6 o'clock the stationmaster telephoned the running shed to say that a ballast train from the north, from which they could filch the engine would arrive in half an hour. The engine, he added, was old 123.
The engineer groaned, but conceded that it might be worse—an opinion which was almost immediately confirmed when the hospital rang up to say that McAhster, the senior driver, who might have driven No. 123, had just been admitted with a broken leg which he had sustained at the South Road cattle stops.
“Who else is there?” snapped the engineer.
“Ordinary times,” replied Morgan, “there would be two relief drivers—but these ain't ordinary times, and they may be doing anything at this moment—even digging themselves out of a slip or playing three-handed poker with a goods guard in some God-forsaken siding up in the bush.”
“Well the driver of No. 123—who is he?”
“Jack Randall—well he's only a junior,” said the foreman evasively—the engineer caught the tone.
“Anything wrong with him?”
“No—no—of course not,” answered Morgan hastily.
“All right,” said the engineer, buttoning his coat and turning up his collar,
As Morgan stood watching him pick his way across the tracks to the station he thought of Jack Randall's kid. A little golden-haired, blue-eyed imp who used to play with his own youngsters on the hill-side at the bottom end of South Road. She didn't play any more now, but lay very quiet in a cot on the verandah watching with wistful eyes the little blight-birds and occasional fantails that tumbled in and out of the foliage of big clumps of tree lucerne.
They had told Jack Randall a lot of long-winded terms up at the hospital; but it didn't really mean anything but lack of money—money to send her away to the high country and a sanatorium where they could massage some life back into those pretty limbs. Money that in the circumstances was as far out of reach as the moon.
That was why he had tried to save Jack from extra duty—for he knew the fever the big fellow was always in to get home—hoping against hope—that there might be some change—that by some miracle she would be standing up, holding out her arms to him as he entered the gate.
His thoughts were interrupted by a whistle which sounded beyond the South Road crossing—and peering from the window he saw the blurred beam of an oil headlight moving slowly beyond the sidings. He listened intently—it was a train beyond doubt—but which (and what was more important) who drove it, he could not say.
He hurried across the yard and arrived at the crossing as the engine lumbered off the main line into the siding—and swung himself aboard.
Joe Allen was at the throttle, grey and haggard, with 24 hours' stubble on his chin and seams of grime in the tense lines about his mouth.
“Joe,” said the Loco. Foreman, “would you assist the regular back to Taumarunui with old 123?”
“Like hell, I would!” retorted the driver—“I've been sixteen hours on the road now—I'll tell you what it is,” he cried angrily, “a man needs to be a wooden god with a master mariner's ticket to drive a train these days—” “I know—I know—“said Morgan conciliatingly—and as Allen, shutting off steam, turned to face him—told him how things stood with Jack Rand-all and the extra duty.
But Allen though sympathetic was obdurate—“It's not a fair buck”—he protested—“I'm sorry for Jack, we all are, but a man can't go on for ever. For two whole shifts I've been punching this old ‘P’ over a journey that ought to take five hours. I've been blocked and side-tracked, stuck in the mud and nearly starved to death, and now when I just manage to get in, with no water in the tender and hardly enough steam left to whistle with, you want me to turn round and do it all over again with a train of nabobs!”
As they argued, the ballast train from the north rattled in on the far side of the station— “There's Jack now,” said Morgan dropping through the gangway, “I'll see you over at the shed.”
Twenty minutes later when Allen backed his engine alongside the coaling ramp he found Jack Randall and the foreman waiting for him. Randall was a tall athletic looking man—but under the gas lamps that lit the ramp, there seemed to be a weary stoop to his shoulders and his step lacked spring. He greeted Allen diffidently.
“You got nothing on me,” remarked that worthy as he descended from the cab of the “P”—“I wouldn't take your old engine out to-night for Father Peter.”
“Now listen Joe,” said Morgan, leading the way to his office. “Just put yourself in my position for a minute. I've always given you boys as fair a deal as I could and it's up to you to help me now.
“You've been out sixteen hours Joe, but it hasn't been all driving. Jack's been out ten, and he's got a wife and sick kid to worry about. You're both the same grade and I'll leave it to you—or rather to chance!” He grinned faintly and produced an old pack of patience cards from a drawer.
“You cut,” he said to Allen “aces low.”
“Aces low,” echoed Joe and cut the ten of spades. Randall, bit his lips, and, with a hand that trembled slightly, cut—the ace of diamonds.
Something like a spasm of pain passed over his features, but he pushed back his cap with a short laugh.
“Here,” cried Allen impetuously, “I'll go—you get home, Jack.”
“No chance,” responded the other, “but you can lend me your push bike—I'll leave it at your place on the way back.”
“For the love of Mike don't be late,” cried the foreman, “you've only got half an hour!”
On the tick of 6.30 p.m. the “regular” swept in—a long line of gleaming cars,
But Randall over in the siding and 123 hardly noticed it. His thoughts were back in the spotless kitchen where his wife sat waiting over the glowing range, tired out, but too anxious to sleep—and the little form beneath the blankets in the day cot, whose solemn, dark eyes roved the ceiling restlessly.
The engineer came crunching down the clinkers, his oilskin flapping.
“Come on!” he cried clambering up, “get a move on—we'll hook on to the ‘W.F.’ out at the tanks and back down together”—he glanced at the driver sharply.
“Feel al—right?” he demanded.
Randall was freshly shaved and in clean overalls, but his face showed dead white beneath the visor of his cap.
“Sure—I'm alright,” he replied, tugging at the throttle lever.
But he felt far from alright when, with “W.F.” behind him straining like a wiry terrier, they snaked the old four-wheeled cars complete with the V.I.P.'s coach, out of the station and gingerly threaded the points at the South Road crossing.
Out ahead, beyond the vast bulk of old 123's diamond funnel, the rain came down in a steady slanting stream shutting out sight and sound of everything except the twin threads of the rails; objects leapt out of the gloom with startling suddenness—white painted farm gates—the twisted arms of a dead tree.
“Take it easy,” said the engineer kindly, “let the other feller do the pulling—just keep off him till we strike the grades,” and then as 123 settled into her stride and began licking up the miles, he talked easily and kindly, telling Randall that Morgan had told him of his trouble and how he had been unlucky enough to cut out. “Life's like that,” he said, “seems to take a delight in piling things on us, until we feel we can't stand it any longer, and then blowing them all away in dust.”
Randall nodded, easier now. “It's a funny thing about that ace though,” he said, “if there's one card I can depend upon to let me down it's the ace of diamonds—not once, but dozens of times. I've seen it drawn to fill up an ace-high straight when I was sitting on three cards. I've seen it drawn to make three card hands and full houses—and the funny part of it is that it is always the deciding card—it's never there beforehand. But if it's in the pack and I'm anywhere near it always turns up to put me in a bad spot.”
For an hour or more they drove steadily across the lowlands and then the track began to rise, twisting right and left between high banks and cuttings as they reached the foothills.
There were evidences of storm havoc on either hand now, and talk died away as they peered through the streaming cab windows at rubble and tangled fence wires and the watercourses bubbling with yellow froth.
At the top of the ridge they spied flares and with steam shut off drifted through a little knot of bedraggled men toiling to clear a mass of earth and tumbled roots that spread fanwise from the top of a bluff almost to the edge of the rails.
From the top of the ridge began a long switchback of twenty miles which led at last down through bush clad slopes to a limestone cutting and the river, spanned by a wooden bridge.
It was a difficult piece of track at the best of times and under adverse conditions it became a veritable nightmare, for as they drew nearer the river, patches of fog hung in the hollows beneath the dripping trees.
Twice at the bottom of a grade Randall checked violently with the air, and the second time the engineer asked what the deuce he thought he was doing.
“I thought I saw a red flare, shining through the fog,” said Randall sheepishly.
Once they were across the river matters would be simpler—it was all straight-forward pulling then through solid rock cuttings. It was this sliding downhill through sodden greasy country that might be expected to cave in at any moment that tried a man's nerves. So thought the engineer, and the next instant pitched forward against the back of the firebox. Randall, with his left hand frozen to the air-brake and with his right working the lever into reverse, was leaning back in his seat as though by the very backward thrust of his body he could bring his engine to an earlier stop.
The engineer, rubbing his nose, came over and stared through the glass on the driver's side.
“If this is another of your fantasies,” he foamed, “I'll put you back on the cranes for ever.”
Randall, wrestling to bring the heavy train to a stop, made no reply and the engineer peering over his shoulder whistled softly, so that the fireman sticking his head out on the other side exclaimed suddenly—
“Why, blow me Jack, if it isn't your ace of diamonds!”
At last, with much grinding and squealing of brake-gear, they brought the train to a stand, and remained for some moments staring out ahead.
They were in the mile-long limestone cutting that led down to the bridge, and wreaths and whirls of fog were rolling up it like steam from the mouth of a volcano. Every now and again as it lifted, a queer red gleam shone out—low down on the left hand side—and there could be no doubt that it did resemble a diamond in shape.
The engineer quickly dropped to the ballast and Jack and the fireman followed him. As they did so, they became immediately aware of the sullen roar of the river rising above the hiss of steam like the menacing roll of distant artillery.
The red gleam, as they hurried down the track seemed to recede will-o'-the-wisp fashion before them, but it was almost immediately forgotten in the peculiar behaviour of the permanent way as they approached the bridgehead. It writhed and quivered, the new ballast seeping and chuckling, and oozing gouts of mud.
A fog wraith enveloped them and they halted, lost in a clamorous, unstable world of damp vapour, and then froze in horror as it suddenly cleared and they saw, vaguely, the bridge.
Where the decking and rails should have been there raced a yellow flood that foamed against the struts and bows like an angry sea; and the struts and bows themselves were not the firm, upright supports they should have been—for the whole bridge was adrift and rocking. It heaved and groaned with each fresh onslaught—canting alarmingly and rolling back like a ship in a gale.
They stood fascinated by its contortions for some minutes, and then became aware of the small crowd who were making their way down the cutting. The fireman off the “W.F.,” the guard, drowsy passengers; and, rather enjoying it all with a macintosh over his pyjamas and ridiculous pumps flopping and slapping in the mud, the Very Important Personage himself.
It was the latter who, while the rest of the crowd gaped and shuddered and pretended to laugh, buttonholed the engineer and asked him some very pertinent questions, and presently seeking out Jack Randall, congratulated him, and walked back slowly with him to the engine.
They stood for a moment in front of the cowcatcher and looking back towards the crowd at the bridge saw the ace of diamonds wink slyly at them from the cutting wall.
Randall started, then raising his eyes, regarded intently the old-fashioned oil head-lamp that burned steadily above their heads.
Just off the centre of the glass, where the metal reflector at the back would concentrate the beam, appeared a dark smear. Randall climbed quickly over the buffer beam and examined it more closely—“it's blood, I think,” he said, and stooping, picked a broken feathered body from the plate below the smokebox door. Reaching up, he rubbed his finger over the smear—and looking forward again found the ace of diamonds had vanished from the white glistening wall of the limestone cutting.
“It all ended very happily,” concluded the engineer. “We backed the train out of the cutting and spent the rest of the night in the bush. I had to go back and be entertained in the V.I.P.'s private car, and somehow or other, for we all became very matey, as people do in those sort of circumstances—the story of Randall's kid must have leaked out—because not long afterwards he got a letter all done up with seals and things, with a pretty useful sort of cheque inside it.”
“He is driving this train to-night,” he added glancing at his watch and listening a moment to the beat of the wheels, “and in an hour or so his big ‘K’ will be crossing the steel bridge that was built on the site of the old wooden one, and Jack's kid married the son of the engineer who built it!”
His story finished, the engineer relaxed into his seat and the steady rhythm of the train rose like a sonorous accompaniment in the silence. Presently from out ahead came the deep-toned baying of the locomotive and a tremor ran through the car as the Westinghouse brakes gently checked the full rush of speed—pinpoints of light flickered in the gloom beyond the windows.
“Te Kuiti,” observed the engineer. “I can do with a well-earned cup of tea. And it will give you time to think up your yarn, Doc.—it's your turn next.”
Some day, as likely as not, there will be a story of adventurous New Zealand written around a certain relic of pioneering days at Matamata, the tall square tower built by the first white settler of the district, Mr. J. C. Firth. It stands in the old homestead grounds at Matamata, between the modern busy little town and the Waihou River. It is nowadays a true “ivy-mantled tower,” and I can well imagine that its thick and tangled garment of foliage harbours a moping owl that “doth to the moon complain.” It looks a place for moreporks. On the day I visited it the leafage that densely covered the concrete hold was humming with bees, busy about its sweet sticky flowerets. So luxuriously have the creepers grown that it is not easy from a distance to make out the square of the tower; it resembles a close grown grove of trees.
“Firth's Tower,” standing alongside the old station homestead, is of comparatively modern construction; it was intended as a kind of baronial keep, perhaps, by J. C. Firth when it was built in the early Eighties, for there was then no danger of attack by hostile Maoris. It replaced a timber tower built in the ‘Sixties, when there was real fear of the Hauhaus; this building was burned down. It could stand a little siege to-day. This loopholed concrete tower with walls eighteen inches thick would be safe against fire as well as firearms.
The square tower is nearly fifty feet high and is sixteen feet square. There are two floors above the ground floor and on top there was a small watch-tower. The upper parts are pierced for rifle fire. These firing apertures are about fifteen inches long by four inches wide on the outside; they slant inward to larger dimensions, in order to give play to the defenders' rifles, after the usual design in the old military blockhouses. A stairway, now removed, gave access to the upper storeys.
Firth's Tower seems to have been modelled somewhat after the plan of the old stone keeps and peels on the Scottish border, such towers as those to which the merry raiders retired after harrying their neighbours, and within which they were safe as long as food and water held out. Some day it may figure as a rallying place and refuge for the local farming community—in a romantic New Zealand cinema thriller.
Our pioneer settlers, in the spacious days of the past, thought little of long horseback journeys. In that era, long before railways and motor-cars had made transit easy and luxurious, the horse was the only long-distance time-saver for the New Zealander; and they raised good horses in those days. Some of us have covered a few thousands of miles on horseback in our time, but the growing-up generation knows little of the saddle. (Perhaps our new Governor-General, Lord Galway, a famous lover of good horses and the hunt, will do something to stimulate a healthy return to horsemanship in the Dominion.)
A veteran of the pioneering years in the Upper Waikato, a friend of mine, cast back in his memory the other day and recalled some incidents of the ‘Seventies.
“There were two brothers,” he said, “who had come from the Tamaki, near Auckland, and who had undertaken ploughing contracts on the Roto-o rangi estate, on the old Frontier line, before they settled on their own farms, which had to be broken in from a wild state. The elder brother was courting his Kate at the Tamaki but it was a long way to go, quite a hundred miles. Yet he did it frequently, riding the hundred miles on the Saturday and returning to the station by Monday. He'd leave very early in the morning, ride the tracks and cross the unbridged streams—there was only a punt on the Waikato River at Ngaruawahia, and the other rivers had none—travel the Great South Road, and reach the Tamaki at night, do his courting, and off again next day.”
There was a quick-travelling lover for you; but the hardy lads of those Waikato days did not regard it as anything out of the way. They bred splendid horses then, hacks that could carry a man's weight and last the long day at a steady tireless gait. Good riders, too, who could nurse a horse along.
The other brother, also, used to make week-end trips to the Tamaki to see his parents. On one occasion he rode down there from Roto-o-rangi on the Saturday. On the following evening the men at the frontier station were astonished to see his horse, without rider or saddle or bridle, come trotting up and put his head over the gate. He had got out of the paddock at the Tamaki farm, apparently not finding the company or the feed to his taste, and made a quick journey home. Two hundred miles in two days may seem a knock-out journey for horseflesh, yet they could do it in those times. He must have swum the Waikato River at Ngaruawahia on his return journey; the puntman would scarcely be likely to give a stray horse a free passage.
At the Wellington Police Court the other day while a witness was under examination, counsel suddenly hurried across to the “box” and told him he was “on fire!” Smoke was actually issuing from the man's coat pocket although he was blissfully ignorant of the fact. When he hastily pulled out his pipe it was half-full of burning tobacco. It appeared that he had removed the pipe from his mouth when he entered the Court, thrust it into his pocket, and forgotten all about it. Smokers are often very careless in that way—and in another way. They'll go on smoking tobacco reeking with nicotine and never realise their danger until their health gives way. Nicotine, it cannot too often be insisted, is poisonous stuff and brands rich in it should be rigorously avoided. The safe and sure way is to smoke the genuine “toasted.” The five brands of the real thing—Cut Plug No. 10 (Bullshead), Navy Cut No. 3 (Bulldog), Cavendish, Riverhead Gold and Desert Gold are unapproached for quality, and being toasted are perfectly harmless.*
Christchurch, as that Blonde Whom Gentlemen Prefer, used to say, is divine. It is chockful of beautiful and astonishing things, so that I do not know whether to begin with the Illuminated Fountain or Professor Shelley, the Provincial Council Chambers, or Mr. Shurrock's overall.
Perhaps I had better begin in the municipal manner and introduce you to the Square. The Christchurch Square is a large open space bounded on the north by the Post Office, on the south by the “Press” newspaper (wherein sits my dear John Schroeder who wrote the best poem about a monkey ever produced outside heaven). There! That monkey has done it again! One puts on one's grandest municipal manner in order to introduce the reader to the Christchurch Square, and here is John's monkey clamouring for your attention. I perceive that this story cannot proceed until he has done his little song and dance. John Schroeder produced this delicious little piece when he heard that Mussolini had forbidden Italian organ-grinders to leave Italy. (Notice the capering, pattering movement of the verse):—