EXPRESS TO SCOTLAND.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 231, 29 September 1928, Page 1 (Supplement)

EXPRESS TO SCOTLAND.

PERFECTION OF TRAVELLINGA NEW ZEALANDER OK THE CLYDE. MEMORIES OF SHIPS.

(By BARNACLE.)

To the colonial accustomed to comparatively alow travel nothing in England attracts him more than the wings given by the splendid railway systems; 100 mi log there is a mere bagatelle, a breather before breakfast. "Non-stop" is really so, as, for instance, that splendid run by the Flying Scotsman, King's Cross to Edinburgh. 392 miles without a halt, now made possible by a system of changing the engine crew while on the gallop. There is high-speed railway travelling in its essence, and the comfort of it.

There is a general idea that Hie Majesty travels free. This is very far from the truth. For the use of the Royal train maintained by each of the four big railway groups the King pays 13/4 per mile, in addition to first-class fare for all members of his suite and staff. Just lately he travelled north to Balmoral by the old route (the "L JJJS."), Euston-Crewe-Carlisle-fitir-ling to Ballater, bound on his annual holiday among the grouse (not many know that His Majesty is one of the best shots in England), using, of course, the palatini train —said to be the most perfect travelling suite in the world— provided by the London, Midland, Scottish Railway Company. It is, in fact, a small palace on wheels; everything which good taste would direct and engineering skill produce has been done. With its bedrooms, boudoir, day room, etc., and its suite for the equerries and other officials of the Court and telephone system from end to end, it represents the last word in efficiency and beauty. Drawn by the best of engines and signalled by hand over every mile of its long journey north, it Carries Their Majesties in perfect safety and comfort. And it ought to. Allowing for 50 persons in the suite, at that rate, the journey would cost the Royal purse somewhere about £800—and that would probably not include th£ cost of horses, carriages, servants and other transit.

A special was advertised to leave Euston, following the Crewe-Carlisle-Dmnfries route north, so, with little more than the rudimentary luggage of tooth 'brush and spare boot lace, 1 climbed aboard. In a way the run was somewhat disappointing, heavy traffic ahead often slowing down the big engine to a mere dawdle. But, at least, these delays had one compensation. Once over the saddle of the Lower Uplands and facing the valley of the Clyde, with a clear road before him the driver gave hie engine her hand. For over an hour, in the sweet early morning air, that big loco, did her best to make up for lost time. It was exhilarating. The splendid road-bed over which, rhythmically swaying, the coaches ran so smoothly, made possible a gallop exceeding quite often 70 miles an hour, but there was no jarring or jolting, notwithstanding the breathless speed. A Bit of New Zealand.

As so many have said and written the English countryside is perfect in its orderly, park-like beauty, but ia no way does it resemble a colonial (often very untidy)' landscape. But on this trip, while climbing the grades of the Pennine Range, in Westmoreland, the famous "Lake country" (a somewhat thin and hungry soil, I thought), I saw many far-reaching distances, green hill following green hill. <vith white dots moving here and there and sometimes a shepherd and his dog mustering a few sheep into an orderly mob, 1 say, in many instances 1 was reminded of iny own .land and of the high country typical of isheep raising country —only in this case

I missed the stumps; the stumps, that exemplar of colonial life, missed by some oversight from our escutcheon.

New Zealaiulers should always bear a warm feeling for Glasgow, for is not this braw Scottish city the home of the Bell Coleman (Bell, a butcher, and Coleman, a chemist) refrigerator? (The machine which made it posible to carry the first succulent mutton chop to Kngland.) The foundation of Jsew Zealand's wealth, one might say. was planted in Glasgow. Coleman's theory was if he could pump air from the insulated hold_of a ship, compress it to a very high degree—which of course produced a high temperature— and then, while compressed extract the heat by passing the air through tubes surrounded by running water, when passed into the hold and freed its exexpansion would produce a correspondingly low temperature. This is, of course, elementary physics, but it took . these canny Glasgow men, one with the money and the other with the brains, to apply the principle to the preservation of food. And thus was the beginning of our immense frozen meat trade first carried out in the holds of wool clippers, taking the

freshly-killed meat direct from sheeprun and farm; the huge storage freezing companies came long after.

A Forest of Gantry Cranes.

Like Aucklanders, Glasgow folk love to get afloat, and I found the small pleasure steamer lying at the city wharf crowded with folk. We were bound down the old Clyde to the estuary and the Kyles (or islands) of Bute, a matter of, say, 30 miles. Aiyl as we made our slow way down the river (it is so narrow that all manner of backwash is sternly forbidden), I thought of London docks of so many years ago, only in this case the forest of spars was a forest of spidery gantries, stockades of them, and lying within their circle, in embryo or perhaps receiving a final coat of paint, lay vessels of many types/and sizes. The Old Clippers.

Shades of tlie old builders and the China clippers! From this narrow river came so many lovely creations which made history in the old days of racing Home with the first crops of tea; Robert Steele and his perfect Titanias and Ariels; Connell-Hood and their masterpiece the Thermopylae; as also Scott and Linton, who built the even more famous Cutty Sark. Nearlng the estuary, on one of. the best of the forest of gantries saw stuck up the name "Robert Scott"; perhaps from just here the old Cutty slid down the ways. And then there was Robert Duncan, M - ho built so many of. the wool clippers trading to New Zealand in the 'eighties. But I must call avast; it would need book-length to write of the Clyde and the fleet and beautiful ships she sent out to New Zealand; but this I will say: I dreamed dreams, of old davs and old ships, of happy boyhood days in far-away New Zealand, and as was right and proper for youthful descendants of the Vikings, we boys talked of ships and the men who built and sailed them; and now. grey-headed, I found myself on the spot whence so many of those clipper keek first slid waterwards.; and it is all steam and steel now, and how often a vasty ugliness.

[ There is room cnougli now. room enough and water enough in the big estuary, with (ireenock and Gourock ahead, and further on the Kyles of Bute with Rothesay and Dunoon for halting places. High tea is served in the big saloon, all a-quiver with the glinting rays of the afternoon sun an<J the reflected merry white-caps over side; to port and starboard are the white wings of many deep-keelers heeling to the breezej it is the Waiteinata all over again, only here we have things 011 a grander and bigger scale, yet nevertheless so very like; but in the grey old castles and ancient piles showing "in wooded glade and rock promontory—some dating back perhaps to Robert the Bruce—we are a thousand years behind; and it is that touch of romance which gives such a charm to the really magnificent beauty of these famous waterways of the Kvles of. Bute; small wonder that the canny Glasgow folk are keen to go afloat.