ON THE "THROUGH" TRAIN.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLV, Issue 13839, 27 August 1908, Page 7

ON THE "THROUGH" TRAIN.

"THREE SHILLINGS WORTH OF j FUN." A young lady resident of Palmereton North, who visited Auckland for Fleet Week, has forwarded to a friend in the city an interesting and lively account of her journey down the Main Trunk line, over the recently completed portion, which j was hurried through in order to enable the train to bring the Parliamentary party to Auckland for Fleet Week. She was one of the passengers on the train which made the first through journey after the special. After describing the portion of the journey to TaiHnarunui, -where the. passengers, as usual, stayed for the night, the writer goes on to give details about the trip in the Public Works train, which, hitherto, had gone only as far as the Makatote viaduct. "They began (at Taumarunui) calling people up at 4.30 a.m., and from that on, Some- went by the Parliamentary train, some by the river boat, then the North train and the South train, so no one elept after four a.m. It was teeming rain, and we all got pretty wet and sloppy seeing to our luggage, etc. The Governor's train stayed at, Taumarunui all night, and went South a little ahead of ours. When we got to Makatote the rivers were too high for the coaches to cross, so they took us right through in the train, and we were the first paying passengers to go over the line. We had.great fun at Ohakune; everyone bought their coach tickets soon after leaving Frankton. and at Ohakune there seemed no sign of the coachowner to refund us our Bs, and after a lot of banter a man ; started to buy in. our tickets at 5s each. Nearly everyone eold—myself included— when along came the eoaehowner with a bag of coin to refund our Bs. The enterprising man cleared £4 10s on his deal. He came up to me at Waiouru, and wanted to give me 3s back, as he said he did not like taking a lady's money, but I wouldn't take it, said it was a sporting chance, and I was quite satisfied to stand by it. Later he wanted to shout me tea, but I wouldn't have that cither. I reckon we all got 3s worth of fun out of things. We had our photographs taken as the first through passengers. It was very bumpy and the train swayed alarmingly over the new part of the line; it was a big train, and we had only a baby engine. 1 think we all felt relieved when wo arrived safely at Ohakune. I had a foreman of the works sitting next to me, and he told me too many details of the unsafeness of things to make me feel altogether comfortable. From Taihape to Palmorston North, the journey was without incident. It rained all the time/'