Buses and Trains

Lucky me had a couple of days off work early this week so I decided to take a trip to Wellington.  What better way to travel but on the big orange bus, otherwise known as the Airport Flyer.  It leaves from Upper Hutt, through the suburbs, travels right though the CBD and the Wellington shopping area, to end up at Wellington Airport.  Sitting all around me was a sea of grey, silver and white heads.  The pensioners were out in force.  All superannuates in New Zealand are able to travel free with their “gold card”on the local buses and trains.  (One more year and I will be old enough to have  my own gold card too). 

All aboard the big orange bus

This particular bus was a beauty, obviously one of the newer ones.  We sat comfortably on red and black leather seats.  An automated voice kept informing us where the bus would stop next.  There were two TV screens positioned in the bus and I watched them with interest.  News flashes appeared on screen, just to keep us up to date with what was going on in the world.  Then there was a list of airport arrivals and departures.  Very handy if you were on the way to meet someone, and if by chance you were caught in a traffic jam, you could work out exactly how long there was before your flight left without you.  Next up was a street map showing the position of the bus as it travelled merrily along.  And not forgetting the temperatures for the next few days.  All this and free Wifi on board for those travellers who had their lap tops with them.  It was a rather like cruising along in an aircraft.  Robin used to drive the Airport Flyers several years ago and they were not as grand as they are now.

  Posh leather seats in the bus

On my return home I noticed quite a bit of activity in the Upper Hutt rail yards.  There were men in orange overalls and various machines everywhere.  They were obviously making repairs to the tracks.  This first machine seemed to be compressing the shingle over the railway sleepers. The frontend loader was standing by ready to drop the next load  of shingle.

 

Hard at work in the shunting yard

Then I saw a really strange machine ( to a bloke this was a digger -  Robin).  It pulled itself over to the rails, climbed on top then rode right along the rails.  The driver of this machine banged the bucket up and down on the railway lines, goodness knows what that was for.  It all looked very busy and interesting  and I am sure that those of the masculine gender would have no trouble understanding what was going on.  As I had never seen anything quite like this going on I took a few snaps for interest’s sake.