A TOP BUNK ON THE OVERLAND MAIL.

Otago Witness, Issue 2892, 18 August 1909, Page 70

A TOP BUNK ON THE OVERLAND MAIL.

By J. F. M. F. Ever since I hare landed in Melbourne I have been treated to rosy -tinted pictures of the delights of travel on the mail train to Sydney, and every eyebrow has lifted when I leebly suggested travel by sea. I engaged seats in the parlour car, a sleeping compartment in the train, and started. Now the parlour, or observation, car is undoubtedly fit for a millionaire, beautifully hung and gorgeously furnished. The traveller feels that there is a gap of at least four shillings between himself and the iest of the world in general and the other passengers in particular. There is a special conductor told off to it, whose duty it is to see that the " parlours " have a painless transit to the Sydney train at Albury, and generally to make things pleasant. For this duty special men are evidently chosen, and the position, is richly remunerated, because he gets a tip from 75 per cent, of his passengers. You dine on the train, and again the "parlour" asserts its moral influence, and precedence is given. There are two dinners— one- at 6 o'clock, and the other at 7.15, — and there are also two classes — one at 2s, and the other at 4s. In the latter I found you were given a greater choice of evils — the only apparent difference f The menu is somewhat pretentious, but the service was the worst I have ever seen (and I have had some ejcperience) — cold plates for hot food, and cold food where it ought to have been hot! Had my expectations not been realised I might not have felt so disappointed, but even then I feel very pleased to think that the old 2s meal we get on the -Dunedin-Cbristchurch express, at which I have often launched anathemas, was a rery easy first when compared with the 4s " starve " of this celebrated express. I made careful inquiries from six commercial men who were on the express whether or not my most unfortunate experience was an exceptional one. Four said it was not; two said it was; and there I leave it. ! At Albury the " parlours " have no trouble, for their belongings are all placed in the other train by the obliging conductor. The "sleepers" are new, and the one- I was in was a two-bunk compartment, the top one being my location. It was small, necessarily, with a neat little wash-basin in one corner and two bunks , across the train. A massive cable draped in red is hung across the front of the top blink for the convenience of alpine climbers. Once up the sufferer promptly recognises that he is on the hardest bed ever designed, and wishes he could utilise the basin as a " hipper." He lies down, resigned to a hard night, and then to his amazement the curves of the road .commence to take a lively interest in his discomfort. As the train swings one way at 40 miles an hour the blood apparently accumulates in the feet ; on the reverse curve the head is put under pressure ! The night is passed in communion with the last American mixture of the west and the south, and when 7 a.m. arrives the top bunk disgorges a weary, sore, and talkative occupant. When the instruments of torture — the beds. — are removed the compartment becomes for the first time tolerably comfortable, and I left the carriage registering a vow that never again would I be tempted to undergo the discomfort of the overland mail. The transition from the paradise of the pariour car to the inferno of the sleeper is too sudden. I must, however. in fairness, state that the service is one of the smoothest, and so carefully coupled and driven that the start is not perceptible. 1 " LINSEED COMPOUND." Trade- ' mark of Kay's Compound Essence of Linseed for Coughs and Colds. 1