MAIL MOTOR COACHES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XL, Issue 12266, 9 May 1903, Page 4 (Supplement)

MAIL MOTOR COACHES.

NORTH-EASTERN'S UP-TO-DATE EXPERIMENTS. Great interest is manifested in the experiment of running: rail motor-coaches, which is being tried by the North-Eastern Railway between the two Hartlepools.

The coaches will be nothing more or less than huge motor-cars, built with flanged wheels. They will be of about 25-h.p., and will run at a speed of thirty miles an hour.

" We believe," said an official of the company, " that they will be moreweconomical and more efficient than the existing service of trains, and will enable us to deal more satisfactorily with the fluctuations in the passenger traffic." The North -Eastern is making railway history in other directions also. At King's Cross Station there was on view a new composite carriage fifty-two feet in length, which has been built for this company. I* comprises three first-class, one luggage, and four third-class compartments, with clerestory roof throughout. The first-class section contains eight unfixed cane-seated easy-chairs, with soft cushions, and the compartments seem wonderfully airy compared with those which have the conventional heavily upholstered seats.

All the compartments contain highly artistic carbon photographs, each twenty-t-wc inches by six inches, of places of interest on the railway. In a reduced form the views will be sold at all North-Eastern stations as picture-postcards.