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The New Zealand Railways Magazine, Volume 8, Issue 5 (September 1, 1933)

A Midnight Rail Fantasy

page 41

A Midnight Rail Fantasy

Snapped in the railway yard, Raetihi, after a recent heavy snowfall.

Snapped in the railway yard, Raetihi, after a recent heavy snowfall.

I Opened an eye, closed it, and again gave myself to the sensuous pleasure of the cradle-like swaying and the rhythmic pulse of the racing wheels, From my rugged and semi-somnolent companions came faint stirrings and smothered grunts, and from afar I heard a snore of unmusical cadences. Some mysterious mechanism, known only to wheel-tappers and brakesmen, emitted a series of sighs which I promptly echoed. I yawned, shifted my hired pillow further into the nape of my neck and idly wondered as to the time and where we might be. Curiosity overcoming drowsiness, I cupped my hands and pressed my face to the mirrored window.

And maybe I audibly gasped—I will never know—but in a flash I had forgotten my journeyings, my improvised couch, and my fellow-travellers.

From the frame of my protecting fingers, I saw a world of mystical lights and shadows. The waning moon was beyond my vision, but her soft rays were spread, cloakwise, over a sleeping land. As I gazed, there stole upon me the lonely, eerie quietness of unpeopled places in the dead of night.

The flying fields of tasselled reeds, wiry tussocks, bush and briar, surely held no earthly semblance, and, in strange contortions, each fantastic shape seemed to nod and beckon in the queer half-light.

The trees—feathery birches, slender kahikateas, heavy pines, and drooping willows—now turned to ebony, cast huge and broken shadows on the silver carpet of the native grasses. They were real, yet unreal; their natural colour gone, the contour of their boughs and branches were as clear against the night as against the sun.

Then it seemed from nowhere that a bill appeared, and, like pearls gleaming on a bed of dusky velvet, so a twisting, winding stream shone against the sombre background. Yet, even as I likened it, it shone again—and passed.

Came a string of fairy lights, and scattered firefly gleams—a village wrapped in slumber; the beacon street lamps alone to tell the world that here was life—tired souls resting before the dawning of another day.

Then out of the dimness sprang a fearsome thing—huge and terrifying. I shrank, but dare not close my eyes. A hiss and roar, its fearful glare had blinded me, and—the monster passed; the line was clear.

Once more upon the open plain, peaceful, silent—empty. But I knew the air was good, sweet with the carried scent of fern and bush. I almost breathed it.

And still the fairyland moved on. A clatter fell about me; between the bars that flashed so regularly across my eyes, I saw, beneath me, the shining waters of a river, placid, smooth, a band of molten silver. A smoke trail drifted by a wide lagoon; a shower of sparks fell into it and were as quickly quenched. Then, in a highwalled, man-made cutting, I was left to follow the path of a winking, wayward star which leapt and trembled in a most distressing, tipsy fashion. Yet, out upon the plain again, I found my star as well-behaved, as steady and sedate as the most be-jewelled and stately dowager.

My smile had scarcely died, when towards me came a stack of silver ingots, pile on pile. A frosted grotto, with sloping roof like gleaming crystal, lay behind a black and silver garden. Thus wrapped in phosphorescence, it surely was the palace of some demi-god or woodland king.

Moonlight on a timber mill!—was I truly dreaming? But no, I did not sleep! My soul had truly steeped itself in beauty, and now, for all time, I knew the secrets of a moonlit countryside upon a midnight journey.

The Railways For Service.

From Mr. Will Appleton, Wellington, to the Publicity Manager, New Zealand Railways:-

A recent experience which the writer has had with your Department may be of interest. I wished to arrange for my two elder sons, who are farming—one at Levin and one at Wanganui—to have a holiday at Rotorua, and as neither could connect directly with the Main Trunk I had to arrange for different sets of tickets. I explained the position at the Central Booking Office, Wellington, and they equipped me with everything that was required. The result was that the lads had a most enjoyable holiday, and there was no hitch whatever in the Railway arrangements.

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