Ferries on North Sea

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 926, 20 March 1930, Page 8

Ferries on North Sea

COMPARISONS FAVOUR N.Z. Luxurious Trains on the Continent (Written for THE SUN Vy M. liEIXER.J

- People who grumble about the Lyttelton- Wellington ferry sei'vlce need to travel abroad to appreciate its comfort and cleanliness. Let the grumblers cross other straits, some of them famous links between continents. Let them tackle the celebrated North Sea, crisscrossed by a dozen or more steamer lines. One of the most popular connections between London and North Europe is the nightly service from Harwich to the Hook of Holland, which the Great Eastern Railway has operated for 50 years or more. One expects experience and results from such an established concern. The train from Liverpool Street Station to Parkeston Quay, Harwich, leaves nothing to be desired. Past and comfortable, if slightly crowded. The one outstanding improvement over our New Zealand expresses is the dining car. Seated at its snowy tables, beneath the softly-shaded lamps, one recalls, with a shudder memories of the grab and swallow at New Zealand meal stations. But rude disillusion follows by the sight, size and smell of the ferry boat to which the passengers crowd after the one and a-half hour’s run to Harwich. A dense crush past the passport officers —Britishers through one corridor, foreigners through another. Allow this to English officialdom—it is courteous to its own kin at home and from overseas. But the boa,t! The narrow, -ill-lit tub compares with our clean, roomy Waiiine as a coastal tramp compares With the Mauretania. You are shown a dingy two-berth cabin on the lowest deck, below water, and are asked to pay 15s besides your first-class fare for this “special accommodation.” No porthole, no air. Your “special” cabin is right above the propellers, and all night you are kept awake by the noise and "the vibration. No cheering cup of tea in the morning, when you are bundled ashore to stand in more queues, to pass Customs, passport-control, ticket-con-trol. Once in the train one’s tribulations are over, for the comforts of

the international trains which cross the Continent are justly famed. As all roads are supposed to lead to Rome, so all railways through Holland seem to end in the enchanted places of this earth. Three glittering trains meet the miserable English boat at the “Hook.” There is the blue “Rheingold,” a resplendent array of Pullmans, said to be built on the lines of the late Kaiser’s personal cavalcade. On the next platform a long train offers to take one direct to Munich, Vienna, Budapest, even to Constantinople without a change. And it is only a hop-and-jump to Hamburg or Berlin by the North express, which starts a few minutes later. In railway comfort New Zealand has much to learn from the Continent. The tourist of unlimited means travels in regal style in the Pullman of the Mitropa, but the second-class compartments, luxuriously upholstered, tabled, carpeted and steam-heated, are really good enough for anybody. A courteous official with a red armband, and a fluency in all languages, enters your compartment, and inspects passports. Having already produced yours at the Hook, you are inclined to resent the disturbance till you are reminded that Holland is the main highway of international criminals, not a few of whom are intercepted here by a little extra vigilance. Revision of papers and baggage at the German frontier is the merest formality nowadays. Officials walk through your train as it speeds across the country, salute, glance at the passports, and the outside of the luggage on the racks —salute again—and depart. There are as many English passengers on this “Hook” train as Germans. In the imposing “Mitropa” Pullman, all shining fittings and deep armchairs, one hardly hears anything but English spoken. A typewriter rattles in one compartment in the next a group of earnest men—financiers or possibly diplomats on some important mission—debate round a table laden with papers. Luncheon and afternoon tea are served by Impeccable waiters.