TRAVEL DE LUXE

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 132, 1 December 1938, Page 10

TRAVEL DE LUXE

AIR-CONDITIONED CARS

BUILT FOR MAIN LINE

One of the component parts of the Limited express which reached Wellington this morning from Auckland was a newcomer to the Capital City, and, indeed, to the railway service as a whole. This was a combined day and sleeptr car of a type deemed to be specially suited to New Zealand conditions, and of which several have recently been completed at the Railway Workshops. Three of these combined day and night cars are destined for Wellington.

The sleeping.portion of the new car consists of five two-berth cabins. One of the cabins is larger than the others, being just over seven feet long, and is furnished with.movable easy chairs and a card table in addition to the usual fittings. All the cabins are tastefully decorated—green being the prevailing colour—and- they are very completely equipped.

The first-class day compartment of these new railway cars seats eleven passengers. The seats are of the latest four-position revolving bucket type, with backs adjustable to four positions and with a folding tray. These seats have beeri-in vented and patented in New Zealand. The seats are covered with leather in two tones of brown. The walls of the compartment are also brown* and mottled red rubber covers the floor.

In the lavatories, which are finished throughout in green and white, hot and cold water is provided.

A feature of these new cars is their air conditioning. Fresh air is taken in through a louvre in the side of the car (clearly seen in the photograph) and is forced by a motor-driven fan through filters which remove all dust and impurities. The air then passes through two heating coils which are regulated by thermostats placed one in the air duct and one in the compartment, and is delivered to the day compartment and cabins through grills in the ceiling. The compartment thermostat is set to maintain a predetermined temperature, and regulates steam supply to the heating coils. The air outlet is through louvres in the bottoms of the compartment and cabin doors. The capacity of the ventilating fan provided in each car is 2000 cubic feet of air per minute.

The space between ceiling and roof is insulated with aluminium foil or asbestos spray, and the same materials are used on the interior surface of the outside steel panels of the car and on other parts of the vehicle. A dressing of white enamel paint is applied to the car roof as a further means of heat resistance. All windows, which are of the fixed type used in air-con-ditioned cars, are of toughened glass. There can be no question of one passenger wanting a window open and another wanting it shut: shut they stay all the time.

It is not only the interiors of the cars that have had such special attention paid to them. All the latest improvements known in railway car construction have been embodied in the under-frame. The cars, too, are fitted with automatic couplers, vestibules connecting with the adjoining cars, and anti-collision ends.

These new cars are certainly the last word in travel comfort, and their use in the immediate future on the chief expresses will remove the causes of many complaints which travellers have sometimes made against the Dominion's trains.