Co-operation With Railways.

One result of the appeal of Mr. H. H. Sterling, Chairman of the Government Railways Board, for public support of the railways has been seen in the King Country recently, says the Auckland Star's correspondent at Te Kuiti. The King Country representative Rugby team (selected from an area of 10,000 square miles) was transported by rail to Te Aroha to play a representative team from Thames Valley. By the co-operation of the Railways Department the King Country team left and returned home the same day. On another occasion the Ongarue team travelled to Manunui ground, which lacks a dressing shed. Again the railway officials co-operated by placing a car on the siding at Manunui for use as a dressing shed. King Country footballers warmly appreciate the railway's co-operation during these difficult times.

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Road or Rail.
Stratford Firm's Experience in Parcels Charges.

That, in many cases, charges for parcels by rail were cheaper than those of the road transport companies, was the statement made to the Stratford Evening Post by a local business man recently.

In view of this, he pointed out, the duty of local business houses in supporting the railways, and by so doing supporting themselves, was never so necessary as at the present time, when every loss made by the railways was passed on to the public in the form of extra taxation.

The following is the text of a letter which this particular firm forwarded to one Auckland business house, at the same time instructing other North Island firms in similar terms:-

We wish to draw your attention to forwarding parcel per road transport. The same parcel would have come by rail for 25 per cent less. The rates are very reasonable now by rail, and apart from that, if we would only use our railways more it would eventually relieve taxation. In future, please forward all our parcels by rail.

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The Danish State Railways.

Danish trains keep to the right-hand track, instead of the left-hand, as in Britain. Maximum passenger train speed is sixty miles an hour, and the principal expresses are composed of luxurious refreshment, drawing-room and sleeping cars. Copenhagen, the capital, has a very fine central passenger station, which is the headquarters of the State Railway system. Through carriages are run daily between Copenhagen and Berlin, Hamburg, Oslo, and other points, and many of these trains in the course of their journeys pass over the famous Baltic train-ferries that link Denmark with neighbouring countries.

Probably the outstanding feature of Danish railway travel is its unexcelled cleanliness. The Dane is a particular person in his habits, and every railway station has its row of waste-paper baskets and sand tubs ranged along the platforms, while the interiors of passenger carriages are absolutely spotless. The Danish railway tracks are neatly fenced off from the fields, and the roadbed is well ballasted, the rails of the flat-bottomed type being spiked to wooden sleepers. The heaviest rails weigh 911b. per yard.

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