Rails into the past

Press, 19 February 1983, Page 16

Rails into the past

Kings of the Iron Road: Steam Passenger Trains of New Zealand, By J. D. Mahoney. Dunmore Press, 1982. 147 pp. $19.95. (Reviewed by Rob Jackaman) Jack Mahoney, co-founder of the New Zealand Railway and Locomotive Society, has written a systematic and wellinformed account of steam-hauled express trains on the N.Z.R. He covers the period from the inauguration of the Christchurch to Dunedin run in 1878 through to the final running of the “South Island Limited" (predecessor of “The Southerner") in 1970. In the first half of the book the nine North Island expresses are described, while the second half is devoted to the six South Island ones. Each chapter includes a timetable, descriptions of the motive power and rolling stock involved, and a fewanecdotes from the author's extensive personal experience of travelling on the trains in question. The Jext is clear and well-written, and nicely supported by 100 or so carefully chosen photographs of considerable historical interest. Particularly amusing is a reproduction of an advertisement for the overnight express between Auckland and Wellington, couched in alluring — if misleadingly unrealistic — terms: “Fortunate indeed our traveller who, having lightly supped in the cosiness of a two-berth cabin, attends to her mystic rituals in spaceplanned comfort, then surrenders to bedded warmth and slumbers untroubled — forehead serene — into a new day ... a new day beginning with an exquisitely hot cup of tea ..." ' As Mr Mahoney wryly remarks, how different was the typical experience of the ride, when the hapless passenger was likely to be either toasted or frozen because of the seemingly demonic variations of the steam heating system, as he "sought elusive comfort with the N.Z.R. pillow." Another revealing document reproduced

is an extract from the Conditions of Lease for N.Z.R. Refreshment Rooms: in exchange for the concession, a proprietor is obliged to provide for passengers — at a cost of 2s 6d — soup (or fish) and a roast with potatoes and vegetables, bread, butter, cheese, marmalade, and a large cup of tea or coffee. The text continues. “A hot joint must be on the table on the arrival of the through passenger-trains, and the other articles in lieu thereof' must be in readiness; and the lessee will have to provide attendants to carve expeditiously, and wait upon the passengers" — rather a different phenomenon from the latter-day Taumarunui pie scramble. In fact, the degeneration of the catering service sets the dominant tone for the over-all story that J. D. Mahoney tells: inevitably, it’ is one of decline. While the track miles of the N.Z.R. network may have risen steadily to a maximum of 3558 in 1953, improved air and road services meant a falling off of patronage. In Rotorua, for instance. 35.554 N.Z.R. tickets were issued in 1929: 33.242 were issued in 1939; but in 1959 the figure had dropped to 6342; and in 1968 passenger services to the town ceased. Over the system as a whole, the pre-World War II average of eight million passengers a year — let alone the wartime peak of 18 million in 1944 — was an astronomical figure never to be reached again. All in all, the author — and the Dunmore Press in Palmerston North — have produced an attractive and interesting volume. It is neat, clean, and unmarred by the absurdly Jlowery language and cloying sentiment often characteristic of such undertakings. The book certainly is not in the class of W. W. Stewart’s classics, “When Steam Was King” and “Grand Old Days of Steam"; but it makes a pleasant addition to the growing number of volumes devoted to New Zealand's pioneering past, and at a price which by today's standards is not exorbitant.