TAURANGA TRAIN.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXIX, Issue 5289, 20 June 1928, Page 2

TAURANGA TRAIN.

• FIRST THROUGH EXPRESS. PUBLIC APPRECIATE SERVICE. The first through train from Auckland to Tauranga was the express which reached Paeroa a few minutes behind schedule time on Monday afternoon. Comprising six double carriages, a, mail and guard’s vi\ii, the express carried more than 200 passengers to Paeroa. » On arrival tlie first three carriages were detached and, with the addition of a guard’s van s,nd engine, were sent on to Thames. The mail-van, which is now made up at' Paeroa instead of at Thames, was detached at Pa,eroa and a new engine substituted, and the first Tauranga express left Paeroa Junction on time and reached its destination at 5.33 p.m.

Leaving Paeroa, the express carried 143 passengers, and w.a& comprised of three double carriages, one of iyhich carried a sign “Tauranga” painted hi glistening new paint, a,nd the other two carriages bore the sign “Taneatua.” A visitor from the South Island who had made the trip by the express that d.ay remarked to a “Gazette” representative that he was making his first visit through the Thames Valley and to the East Coast. He expressed surprise at the fertile farjns that had been passed ea route, and also keen anticipation of liis trip to Tauranga. The journey from Auckland to Paeroa had been anything but monotonous or. wearying. Another person, an elderly man liv.ing some distance back from Tauranga said that he lr 4 T,d waited many years for the advent of the railway, and 1 was determined to be a passenger in the first through express. “No more worry about bad roads to hc<added. The scene at the local station was an animated one, and a number of interested people had gathered on tlie platform to see the arrival apd departure of the trains running to the new arrangements.