Pilot boat and Somes Island, Wellington harbour

A scene from the 1960s.  Those who have the book Wellington: a Capital Century will have information about what is in this picture.

old days in Kempsey, NSW

The main street of Kempsey in north-eastern New South Wales, an undated photo but probably the late 1940s.  This is Smith Street but also the Pacific Highway from Sydney to Brisbane.  

The Post Office on the right is still there; cars aren't parked in the centre of the street anymore, otherwise things haven't changed very much (see Google Streetview at bottom). 

While in Kempsey, here is a picture of the Railway Refreshment Room there about the same time: it seems the refreshment provided was more the hard liquor variety than other forms. (both from the State Records Office of NSW)

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Qantas Boeing 747 SP lands at Wellington

A Bruce Johnson photo from the early 1980s of a Qantas Boeing 747 SP reduced length jumbo landing in Wellington from Australia.  These were a common sight in the 1980s, but in the 1990s, 767s were the standard aircraft on transTasman services - and for the last decade it has been only 737s, although there have been more flights each day.

This is another photo that was considered for, but not used in the book Wellington Transport Memories.

more January blog statistics - for the geeks

Pageviews by Browsers
Internet Explorer 4,183 (44%)
Firefox 2,785 (29%)
Chrome 1,065 (11%)
Safari 949 (10%)
Iceweasel 176 (1%)
Opera 132 (1%)
FirePHP 30 (<1%)
Ubuntu 6 (<1%)
chromeframe 6 (<1%)
SeaMonkey 4 (<1%)

Pageviews by Operating Systems
Windows 7,581 (80%)
Macintosh 1,241 (13%)
Other Unix 474 (5%)
iPad 42 (<1%)
iPhone 28 (<1%)
BlackBerry 11 (<1%)
Linux 10 (<1%)
Windows NT 6.1 6 (<1%)
iPod 3 (<1%)
SonyEricsson 2 (<1%)

the "Rolling, rolling, rolling" 1979 New Zealand Railways commercial

This was one of the commercials we wanted to include in our video release New Zealand Railways: Diesel Years in 1989 (now part of the DVD The New Zealand Railways Story), but at the time the Film Archive mangement had funny ideas about other people using material that had been deposited with them.  Now they are happy to share it with all.   Webpage

Other NZR commercials produced in the 1980s, which the advertising agencies gave us directly, are on the above-mentioned DVD.

1959 Opel Kapitan

While Detroit was obsessed with showy flashy cars in the late 1950s, UK and European manufacturers were mostly concerned with practicality more than design.  These publicity pictures of the 1959 Opel Kapitan are interesting for the environments shown.

The Opel company was founded by Adam Opel in 1862 and has been building cars since 1899. It is headquartered in Rüsselsheim, Germany, and has been a wholly owned subsidiary of General Motors since 1929.

For those into specifications, here they are for this model:

Doors : 4
Cylinders : Inline 6
Displacement : 2.6 litre (2605 cc) (158.967 cu in)
Type : OHV
Compression ratio : 7.80:1
Fuel system : 1 Opel carb
Maximum power : 91.3 hp (90 bhp) (67.1 kW) @ 4100 rpm
Specific output : 34.5 bhp/litre (0.57 bhp/cu in)
Maximum torque : 186.0 Nm (137 ft·lb) (19 kgm) @ 1300 rpm
Wheelbase : 2800 mm (110.2 in)
Track front : 1378 mm (54.3 in), rear : 1374 mm (54.1 in)
Length : 4831 mm (190.2 in)
Width : 1812 mm (71.3 in)
Height : 1512 mm (59.5 in)
Length to wheelbase ratio : 1.73
Kerb weight : 1258 kg (2773 lb)
Top speed : 151 km/h (94 mph)
0-100 km/h : 16.90 seconds

old National Airways Corporation commercial

At the Film Archives website.

For details on the aircraft, see the book The Aircraft of Air New Zealand and Affiliates since 1940 by Paul Sheehan.

steam tram in Argent Street, Broken Hill

A view dated 11 May 1908.  Apparently the tram was a loss maker after WW1 and was closed by the government in 1926. There was also the Silverton Tramway which was really a railway, a separate post about that later.

Argent of course means silver, and "Silver City" is one of the town's sobriquets - see our post about the Silver City Comet.  The towers visible are still there, see the Google Streetview below. (Public Records Office of NSW)


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NZ alpine railway splendour

This Jack Creber photo of a Fiat railcar near Cora Lynn in March 1968 was used in the fourth edition of our book The Midland Line: New Zealand's trans-alpine railway. That book is now out of print, but a new edition of our book On the TransAlpine Trail should be available in about 6 weeks from now.

blog statistics January

In January our pageviews increased from just on 5,000 to 9,397 - an increase of over 87% (we wish we could say that about our book sales!)

Origin of the top 10 views by country:

United States 2,410
New Zealand 1,204
United Kingdom 982
Australia 705
Germany 410
France 316
Netherlands 293
Canada 255
Italy 129
Poland 70

The top 5 most viewed posts in order:

* Eric Watson
* the Railway Station of Perpignan (Dali)
* three famous liners in New York, 1940
* Paris Metro font
* Maersk container ships