SCENERY TRAINS

Hokitika Guardian, 17 October 1932, Page 6

SCENERY TRAINS

EXPERIMENT IN ENGLAND. IDEA NOT SO APPLICABLE IN N.Z. “It has at last occurred to <a British railway company, in' search for bright notions in th e effort to compet e with the motor-coaches, to use the trains as a sort of moving grandstand from which to look at .scenery,” says a London paper, pointing out that there are not very many better ways of looking at the landscape than through the windows of a slow-moving train, which will stop by the way to allow of a swim or tea. The experiment' was tried by the L.N.'E'.R. Company, and- its success suggests a thought las to how applicable such an idea might be d*> New Zealand conditions.

A prominent official of the Railway Department in Christchurch yesterday expressed interest in -the English, experiment ; but he doubted wheth ;• the same plan could be applied iu the Dominion.

“In England,” h esa'd, "they have a large population, and a close network of railways, with which they can send trains round many districts, following more or loss circular routes, and pieasantly varying .land and seaside scenery. “Also, in other countries the railways have special observation cars ■which are open in the'r design, allowing an unrestricted view of the countryside ; shut here in New Zealand such cars could not. be used because of the tunnels which have to be passed. This official pointed out that most of New Zealand’s best scenery was mountain scenery, and that trains negotiating those slopes were compelled to go at a- slow pace, go that passengers had full opportunity of viewing the fights "on either hand. Hie said Arthur's Hass was one of the best scenic trips in the South Island, and that the trains on that section ‘had to travel at a comparatively slow speed. Apart from that trip, one of the beet stretches of scenery was that between Talmerston and Dunedin, along the cliffs above th e ‘sea, and between the d e nsely-wooded hillsides round albout Purakanui, and between the iMihiwaka tunnel and Port Ch'almers. Here again the trains had to slacken speed, so that there was no need for •special" slow-moving scenery trains. Another point advanced was that the peopl e of New Zealand, as a whole, were familiar with their countryside, so that there could not be a great demand for such services.

At: the same time, the trains of unnamed and mysterious destination which the Railway Department had been running on Sundays during recent, weeks h'av e been well patronised, and the annual report of the New Zealand Railways Board revealed that for the year ended March 31st last no fewer than 171.290 passengers travelled on the Sunday excursion trains on main lines, easily the largest number (55,257) using the Christchurch-Timaru trains. The other figures ' were:—Auckland-Hamd-ton, 36,078; Wel’ington-Palmerston North, 47,822 ; Dunedin-Oamaru, 32,133.