Refreshments - the North Island main trunk line

'The refresh'

There were dining cars on main trunk expresses from 1909, but these were removed as a wartime measure in 1917 and not reinstated for more than half a century. Over the next three or four decades, the brief dash into the railway refreshment rooms – with their uniformed 'girls' offering rows of pies, sandwiches and cakes, and steaming tea in thick railway cups – became one of the central rituals of New Zealand life, a teetotal companion to the 'six o'clock swill' in pubs.

The 'unseemly scramble' for refreshments at New Zealand railway stations was often compared to a rugby scrum. In the late 1940s the Dominion complained that:

Long before the train has stopped the more agile travellers, men and boys, swing onto the platforms and when the elderly folk, mothers with children, and those who are reluctant to alight from a moving train finally reach the refreshment counter, it is already two to five deep with customers.

A story in the New Zealand Farmer magazine in 1947 advised a hesitant traveller to 'Use your King Country elbows, Bill.' The Taumarunui refreshment rooms were immortalised by Peter Cape's folk song 'Taumarunui on the main trunk line'. Another song, 'Wellington express' by Barry Lineham, suggested that:

No battlefield is grimmer, where battered heroes die
Than the bloody railway battle for a cupper and a pie.
In a scrum All Blacks would envy
Only hardy souls remain
To grab a bun and sandwich is the saviour of the train

Railway refreshment rooms suffered from numerous complaints about the quality of their food and drink. One visitor described the tea as 'a mixture between a bad disinfectant or a mouth-wash that had deteriorated'; another complained of 'half-hot pie crusts, surrounding the appendages of sundry animals, named and unnamed'. But generally the quality of food and service was as good as, if not better than, that found in most other restaurants or hotels in New Zealand at the time.

By the 1950s and 1960s, with reduced services and newer, faster trains requiring fewer stops, many refreshment rooms faced closure. Marton closed in 1954, Mercer in 1958 and the iconic Frankton and Taumarunui rooms in 1975, bringing to an end one of New Zealand's most distinctive dining experiences.

Lesson 3

TRAVELLING BY TRAIN

Discuss the text about New Zealand. Answer the following questions:

1. What happened on 7 august 1908?

2. How long did the construction take and why?

3. Why was it so important?

4. What was the role of this railway at least up until the Second World War?

5. When did regular express services start?

6. Why did travellers prefer overnight travel?

7. When did the traffic swell to bursting point? Why?

8. When did the passenger numbers dwindle and why?

9. What happened in 2004 and why?

10. What were the passenger carriages like back in 1909?

11. What were second-class carriages like?

12. Where could passengers have something to eat or to drink?

13. Why did the refreshment rooms suffer from complaints?

Recycle the vocabulary (quiz, bingo, hot chair, etc).

Give synonyms:

a train bound for (heading towards)

to ferry passengers (to transport)

express services (fast, high-speed)

to swell to bursting point (to boom, to peak)

the main railway (trunk)

to be superseded by (replaced by)

Give antonyms:

overnight travel (daytime travel)

to boom (to dwindle)

passenger carriage (freight wagon)

hard-backed seats (soft)

Explain:

to travel the length of the island

to pose challenges

a great leap forward

to cut the trip to 14 hours

to run each way from A to B

gangway

sleeping cars

to feature

the carriage seats 30 passengers

buffet car

dining car

three chairs abreast

refreshment room

to bring to an end

На вокзал Кингс Кросс они приехали в половине одиннадцатого. Дядя Вернон бухнул чемодан Гарри на тележку и вкатил ее на станцию.

Ярко-алый поезд стоял у наполненной людьми платформы. Над головой висела табличка, гласившая «Экспресс до Хогвартса, 11.00». Гарри оглянулся. Позади возвышалась кованая арка с надписью «Платформа 9 ¾». Дым от паровоза плыл над журчащей толпой.

Первые вагоны уже были заполнены студентами. Толкая тележку, Гарри шел по платформе, пытаясь найти свободное место. Послышался свисток. Поезд тронулся.

По поезду разнесся голос: «Через пять минут мы прибываем в Хогвартс. Пожалуйста, оставьте багаж в поезде, его доставят в школу позже». Состав притормозил и наконец остановился. Народ стал протискиваться к выходу и соскакивать на крошечную темную платформу.

Train idioms - discuss the meanings.

Discuss advantages and disadvantages of travelling by train.

HOME ASSIGNMENT:

Get ready for a Test on Travelling by Train.

Prepare a 3-minute report on one of the topics:

1) Types of trains (passenger trains, freight trains, mail trains etc)

2) Train crashes

3) Children's railways

4) Underground

5) Trams

6) Famous railway stations

7) High-speed railways