RAILWAY CENTENARY

Auckland Star, Volume LXI, Issue 219, 16 September 1930, Page 7

RAILWAY CENTENARY

Liverpool And Manchester Line.

TRIBUTE. FROM U.S.A,

(British Official Wireless.)

RUGBY, September 15,

In the course ot\a speech at the opening at Liverpool on Saturday of a national railway, week, which is being held to celebrate the centenary of the first passenger railway in the world— that which ran between Liverpool and Manchester—Mr. C. G. Dawes, United States Ambassador to Britain, said: —

"Great as have beep the beneficial changes in the life of Britain which the railways have wrought, the debt of distant countries to this achievement of British genius is, eVen greater than that of < the British people themselves. That first railway has become a model for world. imitation and has opened a new era for humanity in which both "■ the needs of mankind and the means of supplying them are immensely diversified and multiplied."

The celebrations include a remarkable exhibition of the earliest experiment in steam traction and . a pageant, on' tlie largest open-air stage ever erected in Britain, showing the development of •transport from the earliest times. Liverpool is en fete with the finest railway exhibition' ever witnessed. The sights include four main attractions. The first is a model exhibition of the most comprehensive collection of working models of old railways ever assembled. At Wavertree Park—which covers 100 acres —a railway fair is in progress, showing models of the "Rocket," the "Northumbria," and other early engines, drawing exact replicas of the old-time coaches. The celebrations also include a night pageant depicting the evolution of transport from the caveman to the aeroplane. This display is probably the greatest of its kind ever staged, the _ "hands"- numbering upwards of 5000, besides camels, elephants, sledge dogs, yaks, llamas, and perfect reproductions of palanquins, rickshas, Roman chariots, stage coaches, etc. Musical selections, and a dramatic unity secured by the. inclusion of a definite narrative background, interspersed with a number of lively and humorous incidents, cause this part of the programme to be regarded by the general public as probably the best in the fair. A forty minutes' fireworks display in which the evolution of the railway through the ages is depicted in a. blaze of flaming colour, is i also on the programme.