As Picture Collectors See It.

The change-over at Wellington terminal of the N.Z.R. will be a milestone to railway picture collectors everywhere. For months past overseas collectors have bombarded their fellow collectors in this Dominion for pictures of the old and the new.

Local enthusiasts will complete their sets of construction photos, and mount them.

Considered as one unit the station, yard and deviation has offered the cameraman a wider scope then any New Zealand undertaking has done before. There was the old layout—two stations with a past, and a cluttered-up yard. Our next interest was the Tawa Flat tunnel, a work easily demonstrated pictorially. Then came the big steel bridges, double tracks and overhead equipment. Things started looking like a Union terminal job at an American metropolis. On top of that came a series of dramatic changes in track layout—all completed at the week-ends. Now we just need electrics and the web of steel.

Old prints will have more value. We will prize those pictures of express trains “doubleheading up the bank” out of Thorndon because they cannot be repeated. And many other photos, will benefit in historic value.

Fans at the other end of the Dominion will rely upon fellow collectors to supply prints. We have developed an organisation that works well. Real railway hobbyists are as rare in New Zealand as flies in winter time and they are widely scattered. But when a good photo, of something new comes along its existence is quickly known to other collectors, and a long series of exchanges ensues.

I was the only New Zealand collector in a position to supply photos, of rail-car trials on the Wairarapa line in August, 1936, and as a result I have supplied ninety prints to addresses scattered all over the globe.

The pictures that come back in exchange convince me that our old N.Z.R. is not behind the bunch even if our geography does make things awkward. My railway friends look the foreign pictures over and glance at the accompanying data. They usually say, “Not much different from our own, you know.” …“We have something as good as that.” … “Not necessary here.”

So collectors thank the Department for a long series of modern photographic subjects and also for the ready assistance that any true student enthusiast always gets.—R.J.C.