Arailway event of outstanding importance to the citizens of Auckland and of Rotorua, and, in fact, of all New Zealand, was the inauguration, on 5th May, of the new service of luxurious express trains between Auckland and Rotorua—New Zealand's famous thermal wonderland.

These trains, which were specially built at the Railway Department's Workshops at Otahuhu, Auckland (to designs prepared by Mr. G. S. Lynde, until recently, Chief Mechanical Engineer of the New Zealand Railways), are fitted with all the most up-to-date improvements that the ingenuity of the railway coachbuilder's art can devise, and are, perhaps, the finest trains of their kind in the Southern Hemisphere. Indeed, globe-trotters of world-wide experience who made the inauguration trip to Rotorua, enthusiastically acclaimed the new accommodation as being quite equal, if not superior, to that provided on Continental, American, or British railways. This is not exaggerated boosting, for the Town Clerk of Auckland, who has travelled over all the great railways of the world, said to the writer: “Auckland is singularly fortunate in having these remarkably fine coaches for the Rotorua service; they are veritable ‘wonder trains’.”