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The New Zealand Railways Magazine, Volume 5, Issue 8 (February 1, 1931)

Riding with Romance

Riding with Romance.

The New Year is like a railway journey, there is always something to look forward to.
“The umpire is an unbiassed spectator.”

“The umpire is an unbiassed spectator.”

page 11 In both cases you ride with Romance. Even the old scenes are new scenes. The wooded hill you saw shimmering like a mirage against the heat haze is capped with cloud, and glooms in sombre grandeur. The river that mocked you as it ramped between its quivering banks now lisps over the smooth brown boulders and titters shamelessly in the shallows. The fat flat lands swirl at your feet, but you hardly recognise them as the parched and golden sheets of your previous passing. Here is something new each time; merely the old remodelled, perhaps, but new to you; Nature in fancy dress—decked out for light opera, stark drama, or wearing the simple habiliments of the countryside. The world comes to you as you ride with Romance. You are Mohamed drawing the mountain; trees glide towards you as if they would brush your cheek; the blue distance rolls up its curtain and admits you to its veiled secrets. You are a wizard opening up magic vistas. You sit back in upholstered ease while the world peers in at the window, shouts, whispers, reaches out a hand, and passes. There are no pot-holes in the permanent way; the rails run clean and true. Metal skims metal as light as thought, when you ride with Romance by Rail.