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The New Zealand Railways Magazine, Volume 5, Issue 9 (April 1, 1931)

The Great Victoria Falls

The Great Victoria Falls.

The train arrives at Victoria Falls at 10.30 p.m. The hotel adjoins the station grounds. A swarm of “boys” take your luggage to the finest hotel beween the Cape and Cairo. The Turkish carpets are soft under foot, the fountains throw their spray on gorgeous palms, the plaza is ablaze with light, and bright silk frocks page 31 move across into the shadows—the home of the “lotus eater” and the palace of the Alhambra.

Mosquito nets are in evidence, for it is a fever country, and only 1,200 miles from the equator.

Time and space would fail to tell of the beauty of the Falls. They and the railways are the two striking features in a great country. After viewing the former an American tourist cabled to his President, “Scrap Niagara.” On the railways some £25,000,000 a year is spent. The distances are great—from the Cape to the Zambesi, and back is a journey of 5,000 miles, and east and west are further distances—distances not measured in miles, but in days. The railway guides read: First day, second day, third day, and so on. There, “The Over Lords of all the Earth,” contend with the great spaces of a continent without a rival, and when you have come

“To the home of the floods and thunder,
To her pale dry healing blue—
To the lift of the great Cape combers
And the smell of the baked karroo.
To the growl of the sluicing stamp-head,
To the reef and the water-gold,
To the last and the largest Empire,
On the map that is half unrolled,”

the South African Railways will carry you through.
Publicity Methods On The New Zealand Railways. The striking flashing electric sign recently erected by the Department on the Central Booking Office at Auckland.

Publicity Methods On The New Zealand Railways.
The striking flashing electric sign recently erected by the Department on the Central Booking Office at Auckland.

The Farmers And The Railways.

“We farmers are to blame to a large extent for the position of the railways,” was the candid admission of Mr. D. B. Higgins, a Matamata farmer, who was a member of the deputation which waited upon the Government recently, at which four Cabinet Ministers were present.

“There was a general feeling,” said Mr. Higgins, “that it was possible for the farmer to have made the railways pay, but they had taken the traffic from the railways. Mr. H. H. Sterling, General Manager of Railways, had met them to discuss the matter, and they were going to ask all farmers in their district to put their freight on the rails. If they showed a little consideration and supported the railways, they would soon put some of the American lorries off the roads, and would enable the railways to work at fuller capacity….”

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Here and There on the Auckland-Rotorua Line, New Zealand Some interesting snaps obtained during a recent trip on the “Rotorua Limited: (running daily between Auckland and New Zealand's Thermal Wonderland). (1) Mr. T. D. Street, the driver of the “Rotorua Limited”; (2), (3) at Frankton Junction; (4), (13) Mr. T. A. Cox (guard) giving familiar signals to the enginedriver; (5), at Hamilton Station; (6) descending the Mamaku Hill; (7) crossing the Waikato River at Hamilton; (9) at Morrinsville Junction; (10) at Matmata; (11) at Rotorua; (12) at Putaruru.

Here and There on the Auckland-Rotorua Line, New Zealand
Some interesting snaps obtained during a recent trip on the “Rotorua Limited: (running daily between Auckland and New Zealand's Thermal Wonderland). (1) Mr. T. D. Street, the driver of the “Rotorua Limited”; (2), (3) at Frankton Junction; (4), (13) Mr. T. A. Cox (guard) giving familiar signals to the enginedriver; (5), at Hamilton Station; (6) descending the Mamaku Hill; (7) crossing the Waikato River at Hamilton; (9) at Morrinsville Junction; (10) at Matmata; (11) at Rotorua; (12) at Putaruru.

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