A GREAT RIDE.

Hokitika Guardian, 13 May 1929, Page 7

A GREAT RIDE.

CALAIS TO PARIS ON THE FOOTPLATE. 187 MILES IN 185 MINUTES. OUTSTRIPPED. Through the courtesy of the Chief Engineer of the Nord Railway oi ifrance, I have just covered 187 miles in 185 minutes on the footplate of the ■Super-Pacific locomotive which draws he Golden Arrow train from Calais :o Paris (writes the Paris correspondent of the “Morning Post”). This run, which is among the fastest in the world,, provides a thrill which no aeroplane or motor-car can give Thousands of Englishmen are carried to Paris every week by this famous train, but, apart from noticing bow ill© crockery is apt to leave the table during the steep curve near Amiens, few can have any idea of what it feels like to be travelling in tho “cab’’ as the 500 tons Super-Pacific thunders along the track. M. Collin, Chief Engineer of the Nord, bad warned me to wear dungarees and a pair of aeroplane goggles. I was soon to thank him for his foresight. At Calais I was introduced to th© driver, and his fireman, and was told to climb up the five steps leading to the “cab” and take my stand immediately' behind the driver with my hack to a rail, behind which were foui tons of neatly stacked briquettes. On the opposite side stood Divisional Inspector Terby, who was to explain the journey to me as we went along. RISING SPEED. When the last passenger bad taken Ills seat* in the Pullmans behind, jwe glided out of Calais Maritime Station, threading onr way through tlie uneven tracks that lie between the harbour and the town. Almost immediately afterwards the needle of the speedometer (began rising 40, 60, 80, ICO kilometers an hour. I clung to the outer rail with one hand, and to the grid behind me with th© other. The footplates on ■vhich I stood began an uneven dance, the roar of the engine deafened my ears, and ns I looked down to the ground some fifteen feet below, fear caused a ooild shiver to run down my back. Forty-five kilometers 'from Calais to Boulogne. It was just before Boulogne that I got my first real thrill. Round a curve and through a tunnel as the speedometer was flickering round 110 kilometers an. hour. Soot and grit rushed across my 'face. q n rnes from the furnace curled round the holes in the ventilator, lighting up the grimy faces of my three comoanions and then four of the haisliest whistles I have ever heard that nearly burst mv ear drums and left a medley of dying vibrations as we shot into Boulogne station, rattled across points and thundered round a bend until I was convinced that we were about to crash into a wall. Twenty miles of uneven sand dunes on either side of us during our run towards Etaples where our speod declined to take the curve there, and then, as if in honour to th© great military cemetery, we Were brought almost to a standstill by a signal raised against us. 75 MILES AN HOUR. But five minutes later the speedometer was hack to 120 kilometers (about 75 m.p.h.). Ahead of us along the platform, of the little halt of Rue. a peasant woman with a black knitted shawl thrown across her shoulders was running up the platform for all she was worth. It seemed as if she was trying to get to 'Paris before us. but with a terrifying shriek we rushed past her, and the rush of wind blow her long skirts round her legs. Then we followed the road to our right, and a 40-h.p. ear was racing ahead. AVe passed it with long, nonchalant strides, and those 75 miles an hour along a track as straight as a die seemed to have dwindled into a mere thirty. Amiens, with its criss-cross of permanent way, was bewildering to a novice like myseTF, hut Crcil more so. for we went through it quicker. It. took us 44 minutes to do those fifty miles,” the driver shouted at me, but lie had to repeat it three times before 1 could hear him. A Blue Train flashed past us in the opposite direction. The speed between our own and this train was something like ISO miles an hour, and the tremendous buffet of wind almost caused me to lose my hold, hut the driver was busy lighting the end of a cigarette with a piece of rope lie bad thrust into the furnace door. It bad ceased to bold any terror for him. Up the gradient to Chantilly over the aqueduct, where one looks down on the forest as if from an aeroplane,, and down the slope into Paris —with the innumeiahle goods yards on either side, and the scores of stationary engines and empty restaurant ears. Then, as the Paris “A” box came in sight and the needle registered barely 30 kilometers, we scorned to he crawling. One felt one could jump out at that speed, and it was easy to picture how any but the most experienced driver can cause disaster through a niohicnt lack of judgement. There was hardly any sound from tlie brakes as we cam" to a standstill to the sound of “Portent-, Porteur” from a hundred throats. Our journey had taken ex nctly 185 minutes.