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The New Zealand Railways Magazine, Volume 7, Issue 3 (July 1, 1932)

Trainland—Our Children's Section

page 45

Trainland—Our Children's Section

Dear Girls and Boys!

Isn't this a splendid surprise?

You see, the Children's Gallery is so popular that everyone is wanting to know more about the bright young Railway people.

Would you like to be one too?

Any girl or boy, anywhere and any age, is warmly welcome to write to the Children's Section of this Magazine.

Your news and ideas are needed to help our two pages along.

Trainland is yours—yours to write for—yours to read about and yours in which to make new and interesting friends.

We will be using our real names instead of pen-names, so that we will all know one another when we meet on our travels.

Now, I wonder who will be the very first one to write? I will tell you next month!

With happiest hopes for Trainland's future,

From your new friend,

Beula Hay.

The Hobbies Corner.

Was there ever a boy or girl without at least one hobby? What is yours? Every month this corner will be kept for chats about hobbies.

Stamp Collecting.

This is a hobby which needs the keenest observation. Young stamp enthusiasts have often been the means of discovering forgeries and assisting postal officials.

A stamp collector finds it necessary to study the currency of nations; the different methods of printing and the many varieties of paper. Collectors learn much concerning different shades of colour, inks and dyes, and collectors also study postal history and postal methods as well as many other fascinating subjects.

Apart from all this, stamp collecting is interesting because most girls and boys want to collect things. Every boy's pockets are chock-full of odds and ends.

Free Railway Tickets.

Who wants a free holiday trip during the school holidays?

You do? Why yes! Of course!

Well, whatever you do, don't miss next month's “Railway Magazine.” In it will be the first of our fine competitions for you children.

And the prizes! Everyone will be talking about them!

“Hold-ups.”

One of the most exciting movies showing in the picture theatres at present is all about a Chinese express. Bandits there are a-plenty and when this train is suddenly pulled up at dead of night the passengers think it is another hold-up and out of the carriage windows they pop their sleepy heads to investigate.

But it is not a bandit hold-up after all. It is only a cow and her little calf standing on the railway lines. And the time they take to move them! The Chinese will not let their animals be frightened or disturbed because, over there, they are so very valuable. When the express, with its hiss-hissing of escaping steam, does thunder on, fowls which have been roosting on the rails are sent flying in all directions.

This reminds us of what people told George Stephenson, the man who invented the railway engine. They said that the smoke from his engine would poison all the farm animals, cows, hens and pigs and that birds would drop dead, killed by the fumes. Men of importance also said that the engines would burst and blow the trains to pieces and that they would set fire to the countryside as they passed.

When George was building his famous “Rocket” he had all kinds of ridicule hurled at him. However, his beloved “Rocket” won the £500 prize which was offered to the man who made the best engine. It drew a load of thirteen tons at as high a speed as twenty-nine miles an hour. A remarkable achievement at that time.