The California Zephyr vista dome

Further to our posts on train observation cars, the most famous were the Vista Domes of the California Zephyr, a train that was operated jointly by the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad (CB&Q), Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad (D&RGW) and Western Pacific Railroad (WP) between 1949 and 1970 and ran between Chicago and Oakland, California.

Train hostesses were elevated to a new level on the California Zephyr in the form of the "Zephyrette." The Zephyrettes filled just about any role required to ensure that the passengers had a memorable trip. A pool of approximately twelve women was assigned at any given time to the California Zephyr in this capacity.

The original California Zephyr ceased in 1970. However, the D&RGW continued to operate its own passenger train service, named the Rio Grande Zephyr, between Salt Lake City and Denver using the original equipment until 1983.

Since 1983, the California Zephyr name has been applied to a Chicago-San Francisco Amtrak service, which operates daily and is a hybrid route between the route of the original CZ and the route of its former rival, the City of San Francisco.

when is a tramcar not a tramcar?

When it's an ice cream parlour. A metre-gauge electric tram built by ASEA/AEG in 1934, now on the market place of Turku/Åbo, Finland.

The Turku/Åbo tramway system closed in 1972.

Anatomy of the Airbus A380 QF32 near disaster

This page on the crikey.com.au website details some of the damage that the Qantas Airbus A380 suffered when engine number 2 exploded when the aircraft was at 6,000 ft flying out of Singapore on 6 November.

Westpac Bank's NZ boss gets over $5 million a year

If you're a Westpac Bank customer and you wonder what the numerous ever-increasing bank fees you pay every month (or more frequently) are used for, then the revelation this week that the bank's boss gets paid over $5 million a year makes it obvious.

George Frazis was paid A$ 4.39 million (NZ$ 5.65 million) for the year ended 30 September to head the bank's New Zealand operations.

Needless to say, the pay packet size for the bank boss has been criticised by the bank's union as unethical.

"We think it is unethical to pay such a large salary to one person while the economy falters and the average worker has seen no or limited wage growth," said Andrew Campbell, Finsec campaigns director.

A high proportion of the package related to short-term benefits, which concerned the union. "An excessive focus on short term gains for senior bankers was a key driver of the global financial crisis and economic collapse," he said. The pay package raised questions about the need for executive salary controls in New Zealand.

"Hard working front line staff earn a fraction of this but often work long hours in tough conditions. We urge the Westpac board to consider measures to make pay across the bank more equitable," Mr Campbell said.

However, what NZ bank bosses get is actually modest by comparison with what they get in Australia.

As we have said before, there must be an end to banker bonuses - and the Dutch and French governments, among others, have put hefty taxes on them.

Search our other posts for Westpac, bnz and 'et revoilà le bonus'

The Carnegie Free Public Library in Hokitika

This impressive old building in NZ's West Coast town of Hokitika, with "Free Public Library" above the main portico, was one of 18 libraries built in New Zealand with the assistance of Scottish-American philanthropist Andrew Carnegie.

A competition was held to design the Hokitika building with the winning plan being that submitted by Nelson architect A.R. Griffin. The wife of the Mayor, Mrs Michel, officially opened the building on 24 June 1908, by using a gold key to open the front doors. The building served as Hokitika’s library until it closed in April 1975. It was later restored and reopened on 16 May 1998 as home to the West Coast Historical Museum. A photo by one of our directors.

There's gold in them thar hills

Not the metal, but the combined effect of millions of yellow flowers on broom bushes, seen here in the Waiau River valley about 20 km south east of Hanmer Springs in NZ's South Island.

Although it looks nice in scenes like this, broom is actually classed as a noxious invasive species in New Zealand, as well as in Australia and in the American Pacific coast states.

The township of Waiau on this river was the end of a railway branch line until 1978.

1960 Ford Falcon advert - Australian, kind of

Another advertisement from the introduction of the Ford Falcon into Australia in September 1960. Clearly Ford Australia wanted to promote the car as an alternative to the Holden (which was heavily promoted as all-Australian) which it did quite successfully, although the design was really American with a few modifications, mainly for Australia's rougher roads and hotter climate.

ASEA wooden electric locomotive and Swastika

This electric locomotive, D101 from 1925, is one of the exhibits in the Swedish Railway Museum (Sveriges Järnvägsmuseum) at Gävle. The loco, featuring a wooden body, is still operational.

But what's with that swastika? One must assume it was still being used as an ancient good luck symbol, and had nothing to do with Herr Hitler's use of it. It is a symbol that can still be seen here and there in old unredecorated features of buildings in the west, for example, it is in the entrance floor tiles of Sydney Library in Circular Quay. Nowadays, because of the inevitable Nazi associations in the west, it will only been seen on new objects in the east, such as on the chest of the Big Buddha in Hong Kong.

à la Gare Saint Lazare

133 years separate these two views of the tracks outside the Gare St Lazare (Lazarus) in Paris.

The most famous set of illustrations of the station, most of the smokey interior created by steam locomotives, were the 11 paintings by impressionist painter Claude Monet from 1877, done during a period when he rented a nearby studio.

The second illustration is a photo from May 2010 from the Pont de l'Europe by one of our directors. The Saint-Lazare station, one of the six large terminus train stations of Paris, is the city's second busiest, behind the Gare du Nord. It handles ca. 275,000 passengers each day and has 27 tracks. The lines are electrified in 25 kV AC.

End of train observation cars - Scotland

Further to our post on the end of train observation car featured in the 1951 Festival of Britain catalogue, here are two posters advertising the West Highland Line in Scotland in the 1950s, both of which feature end of train cars like that in the Festival of Britain catalogue.

It is not clear why the two posters are similar but different - presumably they can't both have been used. We will investigate!