GREAT STEAM CHANGES.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 273, 10 April 1913, Page 8

GREAT STEAM CHANGES.

• ♦ U.S.S. CO. AND HUDDART-PARKER. Auckland, April 8. When the mail steamer Zealandia, the latest addition to the Huddart-Parker Company's llect, sailed into Auckland Harbor yesterday morning it was her last trip in the Vancouver service. The vessel is being replaced on the Sydney-Auckland-Vancouver run by the 13,500,ton passenger liner Niagara, the biggest vessel of the Union Steam Ship Company's fleet. The Zealandia will be missed in Auckland shipping circles, for it became known yesterday that there would probably be a rearrangement of vessels in the* Australian-New Zealand' trade, and that the Zealandia, after pro- | ceeding to Sydney on completing this last trip from the Canadian port, would be put into service for a short while, at [any rate on the Sydney-Wellington-Bluff service. It is understood that nothing is definitely settled as to the suggested rearrangement, but the need for a faster vessel on the Auckland-Sydney run will, in all probability, lead to one of the Huddart-Parker steamers —the Victoria or the Wimmera, and more probably the taken off the Sydney service, and placed in commission on the East Coast run. When these two vessels complete, alternatively, every fortnight, it is rumoured that the Maunganui—one of the finest recent additions to the "Red Funnel Fleet," now running on the "circle," that is, from Sydney to Wellington and thence to the Bluff and Melbourne—is to be placed on the Auck-land-Sydney service to run in conjunction with the Maheno. If the above arrangements are carried out, the Zealandia will probably be relieved after a few months of the Sydney-Wellington run, and placed on the San Francisco-Wellington-Sydney service in place of either the Moana or the Aorangi. A definite announcement as to the intentions ■ of the Huddart-Parker and Union Companies may be expected when the Zealandia reaches Svdney, for which port she sailed last night. Another vessel to be replaced shortly is the Union Company's Mararoa, at present running in the Wellington-Lyttel-ton fern- service. The new turbine steamer Wahine, almost a sister-ship to the Maori, is to be placed on this run. The company has not yet decided what will be done with the Mararoa, but it is thought that she will be entered in one of the coastal trading runs.