rod mclaughlin

Wellington to Auckland on the 'Overlander' train (12 oct 11)

The train announcer had some interesting speech defects.

She often used plurals when it should be singulars, and singular when it should be plural.

"We is havin' problem wiv da loco"

"Peoples must be ready to get back on the train"

Not only did the locomotive nearly break down immediately upon leaving Paraparaumu, the announcer had difficulty explaining it. She seemed to be trying to make up sentences as she went along, rather than preparing them in advance.

"We will get a new loco from Wellington to replace the old one. This will take approximately forty five minutes. We will stop at Wakiki for one hour. If you leave the platform tell me or we will go without you. There might be a better loco at Palmerston North so he's trying to get us there".

At this point, the train accelerated. It actually took ten minutes to change the "loco" at "Palmie", so when I got off the train after ten minutes, she told me to get back on again - lucky she saw me.

By the time we got to the Raurimu Spiral, the woman with the strange speech impediment had been replaced with one who could explain the complexities of this feat of engineering.

Portland

London