Hawke’s Bay Railway – Ian Grover

This talk by Ian Grover is to U3A at Taradale. There is no introduction.

12th October is a rather significant date as you’ll find out as I go through three or four dates. The first one is, in 1861 the first Cobb & Co coach reached Lawrence from Dunedin, and it cut the time to … was two days, but it cut it down to nine hours. Now this is because they brought over their own horses and a new coach from Australia. And that was the first that [whispering] Cobb & Co got going.

In 1866 the Hauhau were defeated at Ōmarunui and at Eskdale [Petane] in Hawke’s Bay, so this morning celebrations went on out there. The defeated tribes wanted the local tribes to forgive them. So I happened to go out there which was a very boring thing, but … it took an hour and a half, all in Māori, and the only names that I really recognised was [were] McLean, plus Whitmore, and all the rest was in Māori. But anyhow, there was a hundred on one side and we had fourteen on the other, in two separate tents. [Chuckles]

And 1864 [1874], on the 12th, the first train to Hastings, and the official opening of the [coughing] Hastings to Napier railway track. In ’75 – that’s a year later – was the passing of the Abolition of the Provinces Act, so therefore we [?] the Council, which had a fair bit of bearing, but we won’t go into that today.

In 1917 was New Zealand’s saddest day in history, because we lost forty-five officers and five hundred soldiers. All lost their lives at Passchendaele, on our worst ever day as far as the war was concerned.

On the 18th the ’Niagara’ arrived at Auckland with twenty-five serious cases of Spanish influenza. They said that they radioed in and told them that they had them, and they were told that they were allowed to proceed into Auckland. And they did sort of radio in the week before and when they got up the top of the North Island, but they let them proceed, so that’s how our epidemic started; because the fact is that they let the ’Niagara’ in.

So I’m going to talk about now, the railway. Now I’ve got some photos up there on the railway; I’d like to project them, because every picture tells its own story. The construction of the Napier-Manawatu railway was part of [Julius] Vogel’s policy of public works and assisted immigration, to lift the country out of economic doldrums and to open up the stronghold of Māori resistance at the centre of the North Island to the lanes of white settlement. It was welcomed in Napier as a means of promoting agricultural settlement on the Plains, developing a local timber trade, and especially settlement in bush districts. The Provincial government had three alternative routes surveyed, and the battle of the routes across Heretaunga Plains commenced.

The government’s choice of the beach route from Napier to Farndon then straight across the centre of the Heretaunga Plains to Pakipaki, was based on the opinions of competent surveyors and engineers – the Napier surveyor, James Rochfort; the provincial engineer and surveyor in charge of the railway, Charles Weber; and the chief engineer of the Public Works Department, James [John] Carruthers. It was a primary matter of cost and anticipated effects of flooding. The final stages that changed the course of the Ngaruroro River was an important consideration.

Weber’s preliminary report on 17th October 1870 – I’ll only mention the last date as far as what I’m talking about; it’s [all] in the eighteenth century. A fuller report on 7th October ’71 placed the surveys definitely in favour of the beach route rather than the inland route, from Napier to the Karamū Junction, [former name for Hastings] a notional point on the map in the centre of the Heretaunga Plains where alternative routes met, south from Karamū Junction to Takapau. Weber, in his ’71 report, referred to: ’ere [via] Te Aute, Waipawa, Waipukurau’. The alternative routes were based ’ere [via] Foster’s Gorge and Middle Road, south from Havelock North to Patangata’; or ’ere [via] Maraekakaho to Gwavas’. On the grounds of cost alone, the latter was out of the question. Although the Te Aute route was estimated to cost more than the Middle Road route it had an advantage of being more central. It was more open to new country and provided rail access to the Te Aute bush for timber and firewood, and consequently, larger revenue from freight.

From an engineering point of view, John Carruthers and Bell, Davis & Son, second engineer, referred to the beach route from the Port to Pakipaki. In Carruthers’ opinion it was a cheap line. Bridges would be required over the Iron Pot, the Waitangi Creek, and three crossings of the Ngaruroro [River]. The only expensive work would be the first mile skirting Scinde Island. [Napier Hill] So remember that – we’re going from The Spit to Pakipaki.

Where the Ngaruroro should be bridged was a matter which had to be decided in the light of the changed course after the 1867 flood. Weber proposed two bridges across overflow creeks, the Tūtaekurī and the Waitamate, [Waimate Stream] and one stationed near the Ngaruroro River bridge to accommodate the districts of Clive, Waitangi and Pakowhai; a second at the centre of the Heretaunga Flats, and a third at Pakipaki. It was becoming clear that bridging of the overflow creeks would be formidable because the main flow had permanently established itself in a new channel. Weber surveyed another line south of Clive across the full stream, and abandoned the bed below Pakowhai which was now the old bed near Pakipaki. [A] possible alternative was a single crossing of the new main channel at Pakowhai, but they considered it too expensive and not safe.

Leading district activists supported the route that best served their land interest; the strongest and most vocal group represented a very considerable population, [whispering in audience] both European and Māori, from Port Ahuriri to Omāhu and then up the Tūtaekurī valley and Wharerangi. In ’72 they held a meeting and appointed a deputation to wait on the Ministry of Works. It included W R Russell, member of the Provincial Council, and his brother. The Provincial Superintendent J D Ormond, who owned Karamū, [was] said not to be quite [as] disinterested as he made out. These settlers wanted a direct line from The Spit through Meeanee, Taradale, Greenmeadows to Omāhu, bridging the Tūtaekurī at Redcliffe and the Ngaruroro at Pakowhai, with stations at Waiohiki, Pakowhai, or Norris’ Corner. The government rejection of this route gave lie to later allegations of string-pulling and political influence.

It was too far in for the settlers of Clive, Mangateretere and Havelock North. The Havelock North settlers considered they were entitled to more attention than a station at Norris’ Corner. In his report to Ormond in May ’72, Carruthers favoured the beach route through Karamū Junction and Pakipaki.

In [on] 10th August ’72 a tender for construction was let to the British firm of John Ogden & Sons. [John Brogden & Sons] 26th August was a public holiday in Napier to celebrate the turning of the first sod. Tenders for the building of a 4th Class railway station at Hastings were not called until February ’74; however the site was known at least two years before this.

Six months before the line was supposed to open, the Havelock North settlers turned their attention to forming a feeder road to it. A meeting of settlers was called to consider the question, and favoured the building of a bridge at the end of the road which went down to the old riverbed on the Ngaruroro by Tom Reynolds’ Havelock Hotel. Moreover, they were prepared to defray a considerable portion of the cost. [Thomas] Tanner, who was a member of the Heretaunga Board, actively supported the group. Talk among the leading settlers in the district forming a company and building a branch railway came to nought.

In talking about the beginnings of Hastings, early settlers have created legends that are often regarded as history. The local people firmly believed that Francis Hicks, who bought a hundred-acre block from Thomas Tanner, was the founder [founding] father of Hastings, and that the township was originally named Hicksville. [Chuckles] Hicks, so they say, gave the government an acre and a half for the railway station on the condition that the railway line ran through Hastings, not Havelock North. These are myths, and a misinterpretation of the history of early Hastings. Before Hicks had laid off the sections at Hastings, the township had sprung up at Karamū, and the government decided to route the Napier-Pakipaki section of the railway to a notional Karamū Junction in the centre of the Plains. The Karamū Store and Post Office and the proposed railway station were on Hicks’ block of land which became the business centre of Hastings.

Within weeks of the sale of Hicks’ land, he sold his land on 8th July ’73, and he got a good price for it, I might add. Someone else that [who] had a block alongside him, James Boyle, laid off sections, and the subsequent land sales extended Hastings outwards from two central hundred-acre blocks; cutting up by Hicks and Boyle. So then they went on afterwards to subdivide Riverslea, but that’s why the railway runs right through the centre of Hastings.

The most dramatic advance in Napier[’s] development in ’74 was the opening of the southern railway. Before the platelaying began, ten thousand timber sleepers were floated down the Tukituki River. They were made up into large rafts at the rivermouth near Clive, and towed by a steamer into the harbour at Pandora Point – that’s on the outside of the Bluff Hill. [Locally known as Hospital Hill] There were small boats [which] then took them in tow along a deep tidal channel to the foot of Scinde Island to head the railway. The rails for the first ten mile section from The Spit to Pakipaki were landed in April ’72 from the barge [barque] ’Schiehallion’. The concrete to lay these rails was let, and it was just under £50,000. In ’72 a start had already [been] made for the line between Napier and the Port. It was not only to provide relief work for the unemployment, [unemployed] but to keep them on hand for the main work.

The Pukemokimoki hill near the junction of Carlyle Street and Chaucer Road … there’s a diamond [triangle] of land there that comes down to Georges Drive and where Hyderabad Road tapers round, there’s a diamond [triangle] of land from where the Army is now, right down to the corner … that was a hill; there’s a picture of that hill on the board. So [it] was removed to make way for the railway, and the spoil was used to reclaim Owen Street and Thackeray Street.* A footbridge two planks wide with no handrail will span a tidal channel, connect Wellesley Road with the mainland at the corner of Thackeray and Millar Streets.

Now you’ve got to remember that if you have a look at these pictures after … picture tells a thousand stories … you’ll find the railway station’s in the middle of a lake. So there we are. [Chuckles] £1,000 was set aside for reclaiming land for wharfage, to accommodate the port on Gough Island; so Gough Island is marked on one of those maps. This work was carried out and was completed by ’74, and it was claimed that the area was the best wharfage and harbour frontage in the whole harbour.

From Napier to Farndon the railway cut off from the rest of the swamp a triangle of land between the railway line and Hastings Street. So you can imagine the railway line now, and Hastings Street – so there’s the diamond [triangle] of land – being free from tidal scour because they put in an embankment there. The land dried out and [it] rapidly [be]came possible to reclaim the area [which is] now Vautier, Russell [Raffles], Munroe and Station Streets; so they were all semi-swamp, those areas. And this is something that’s perhaps a little bit of local interest; of course they decided that the railway wasn’t going to go through Taradale, so on the other side of the swamp a causeway to carry the road to Taradale was being built. This is at the same time as the hill was being taken down, so no matter where you are in Napier, you want spoil. The still cart spoil to fill in. So they took the hill … they blasted the Bluff Hill [Pukemokimoki Hill] down, and they ran barges out into the Inner Harbour and picked up spoil from any island that was sort of not wanted, and with a barge they could put it back into the town. So the causeway that carried the Taradale road had gaps to allow the sea to flow into the lagoon – gaps for a bridge – and in spite of the gaps [coughing] the causeway blocked, and ready flow of the tide, interchange of lagoons, and [the] silting up and drying process started.

The first locomotives were unloaded from a paddle-steamer, the ’Paterson’. Now this paddle-steamer belonged to the contractors – [I] think they might’ve weighed fifteen ton, and they used them with [in] service to ballast the line during the construction.

In June ’74 the line had reached Waitangi, five miles south of Napier. A month later, Brogden & Sons invited members of the Provincial Council together with their family [families] and friends to a picnic. As carriages had not arrived in time for the celebrations, a hundred and fifty guests climbed into a line of open trucks drawn up in Napier. They sat on wooden benches thoughtfully covered with white calico [chuckles] while the engine rattled the trucks along at twenty miles an hour. After a ride of fourteen minutes they reached Waitangi, where they stopped for dinner, had speeches, numerous toasts and champagne before returning to Napier.

When the line reached Hastings, the people expected a public celebration to honour the beginning of the rail services. Their hopes were dashed when Mr J D Ormond, the Superintendent of the Province, due to Brogden’s failure to complete the line to Pakipaki in the contract time. He therefore refused to authorise any expenditure of public funds, and to celebrate a [the] contract. If the contractor wanted such a funfilled … they had to pay for it themselves. [Chuckles] ’There were no bands and champagne dinners when the first train left Napier on October 12th ’74, and only a few passengers on board. They paid three shillings [30c] for the return fare, and enjoyed Brogden’s celebration dinner in Hastings.’ That’s the Napier story.

So here we come … ’About ten-forty [10.40 am] on Monday 12th October, the first train from Napier steamed into the partly constructed Hastings railway station, its engine bedecked with flags, ferns and greenery. Over a hundred people, including most of Napier’s leading citizens and a fair sprinkling of womenfolk. The town band crammed into two passenger carriages displaying bunting on their rooves, and overflowed into two trucks and a break van. The twelve mile journey took thirty-six minutes with [a] two minute stop at Farndon and a brief stop at Mr Williams. The first four miles followed the beach, as we know, and then crossed the Waitangi bridge over the tidal stream and veered south over the Heretaunga Plains, studded with grazing sheep. Despite the disagreeable northwester which stirred up dust, the passengers contrasted the ease and pleasantness of visiting Hastings by train with the [?] of a coach trip over a rough road ’ere [via] Havelock North.’ So if you wanted to go to Hastings you had to go ’ere [via] Havelock North before. ’As the wind was too much for the canvas tent erected for the champagne luncheon by the proprietor of the Railway Hotel, William Goodwin, the visitors crowded into his dining room. Joseph Rhodes, a member of the Hawke’s Bay Provincial Council, proposed the health of John Henderson, who represented Brogden & Sons, the railway contractors, and the toast was drunk with musical honours. While dining the room was being cleared for dancing. A christening ceremony was held at the station platform. Miss Clayton [Carlyon Herbert] broke a bottle of champagne over the engine, naming it ‘Miss Hastings’. Many gentlemen took the opportunity to visit the cattle yards which had been got ready for the forthcoming Agricultural & Pastoral Show. Fair ladies and their partners danced with much spirit, to the band. Meanwhile, the gale kept increasing in violence; indeed, a sudden gust blew the roof off the station, [chuckles] shattering [scattering] sheets of corrugated iron far and wide. Fortunately, no one was hit. Towards 4 pm, rather earlier than first contemplated, there was a general move to the platform for the return trip. On the way home the train obligingly stopped several times to put down passengers, and to allow those travelling in cattle trucks to chase their hats. [Chuckles] Telegraphic communications were [cough] interrupted as the line was down in several places, but fortunately the rain held off until late in the evening. The opening of the railway, although only for a short distance after a very long delay, we think would have been an event [for] which the town and the province could be congratulated’, the Hawke’s Bay Herald reported, ’and we hope before the end of the year to see the line in working order from The Spit to Pakipaki.’

I’ve kept on calling it Karamū, so here we go: Robert Somerville took over the Karamū Postmaster in January ’74 [2nd April 1874] for a salary of £5, from H Williamson** who seems to have succeeded Tobias Hicks. The name of the Post Office was changed to Hastings on 24th September ’75 [1st January 1874], and Hastings’ postmark was brought into use. Money facilities were added in October ’75 [’74], and the Post Office moved into the railway station [on 24th July 1875] and the stationmaster, David A Wright, became Postmaster at $125 [£125] a year on the 1st December ’75. He was also the local calligraphist.

Hastings had a mail order service, one started in Napier Central Post Office; a 4th Class railway station was a plain wooden square building, [cough] no verandah, and the platform was made of rough sawn timber planks under which boys used to clamber. Now £125 goods yard was constructed by Edward Ashton in 1875.

From 21st October 1874 George Grant had livery stables in Havelock North, and he ran a coach service by road to Napier and commenced a Havelock to Hastings service to connect with the arrival and departure of the train, three times daily each way. He also hired buggies and saddled horses, and the Napier-Havelock North coach was withdrawn in October ’74.

At first the railway attracted curiosity, but passenger revenues soon declined. The late service from Hastings to Napier was cancelled on a complaint of only one passenger one night [chuckles] being Captain William Russell of Flaxmere. But the new service did become a popular freight hauler; ordinary merchandise was carried at three shillings [30c] a ton while firewood, grain, iron and other materials went at a reduced rate of two shillings [20c] per ton with an additional handling charge of three shillings for receipt and delivery. Timber was conveyed at elevenpence [11d] per hundred foot – apparently an inexpensive rate – but wool was charged at a much higher rate, namely at one shilling and sevenpence [1/7d] per bale, because woolgrowers were rich and could afford to pay for the accommodation. Neverless [nevertheless], the rate was much cheaper than both carriage charges.

In November 1874 the bridge had been built from the head of the Iron Pot on The Spit to the reclaimed land around Gough Island, providing a rail link between the Port and Napier. This branch line, backed by the promise of a station, scheduled five trains daily, and business was opened on 26th November. Apart from the delay caused by one engine gone off the line, while a horse throwing it’s rider in Hyderabad Road was the first day’s [day’s first] mishap, passenger services ran to the Port ’til 1908.

Napier had some facilities – they had a goods shed, sixty foot by thirty foot, and they also had a crane, engine shed and a turntable. At the same time, The Spit had a 3rd Class station building and passenger platform and a cart road, and a two hundred and twenty foot by thirty foot goods shed, loading bank, cattle yards, weighbridge and a turntable.

When the twelve mile section, what is [coughing] known as the Napier-Pakipaki railway, opened there were only two short lengths of public railway in operation in the North Island, apart from the wooden horse-drawn Palmerston North-Foxton tram[line]. These were Auckland-Onehunga and Wellington-Lower Hutt lines, each eight miles in length. Before the opening of the Hastings line, the local railway route mileage open for New Zealand was a hundred and fifty-five miles. It was [?] long way to reach three thousand six hundred [miles]. The Lyttelton tunnel had been built by that time.

The Daily Mail reported – this is some time after:

’Mr Thaterall [Hatherell]’s father, George, was one of the original employees who constructed the line from Napier. Before coming to New Zealand Mr Hatherell senior was a platelayer employed by the Great Western Railway Company in England. When he came to Hawke’s Bay and volunteered to work on the construction of the new line he was quickly engaged when it was learned that he was an experienced platelayer. Whereas he had earned twenty-four shillings [24/-] a week in England, he was paid at the rate of nine shillings [9/-] a day in New Zealand, a wage which in those days was exceptionally high. Padded seats in the carriages were undreamed of luxury, and there were no partitions in [the] cars. All trains comprised of goods and passenger vehicles. High speeds were never encouraged; the best a train travelled as [was] little more than twenty-five miles an hour. Timetables in those early days were not [as] closely adhered to as today’. This book I’m afraid was written thirty years ago.

’On occasions trains would wait a few minutes to suit the convenience of passengers. The Thaterall [Hatherell] family lived close to the railway line about a mile from Pakipaki. Mrs Thaterall [Hatherell], when she wished to go to Napier for the day, would place a chair alongside the line; an accommodating driver would note the signal and halt the train, and await the passenger.’ They were certainly keen on business those days.

’The rolling stock consisted in ’75 of a twelve ton engine – I told you it was fifteen, but it was twelve; locomotive ’D’ – it’s much the same as the one in the picture up there but it was at Tomoana, and Tomoana kept things for a long time, so it was the same sort of engine; one six-wheeled carriage and three second class six-wheeled carriages; four brake vans; three covered wagons; six high-sided wagons; twelve low-sided wagons and five timber wagons.

Meanwhile, the railway construction continued southward from Hastings, and on 1st January ’75, the Hastings-Pakipaki section was opened. The following year it was opened to Opapa, which was then Te Aute; and in February it was opened to Waipawa and Waipukurau.

’On completion of the Waipukurau railway bridge which was celebrated on 1st September ’76, a very enthusiastic crowd estimated by the Herald correspondent to be eight hundred, described as the ’cream of [the] cream’. Triumphant [triumphal] floral arches were erected on the bridge and the station. Miss Herbert, a sister-in-law of H R Russell, a prominent farmer, broke a bottle of champagne and christened the engine ’Die Vernon’.  A large elm which until recently stood at the back of the station, was planted to commemorate the occasion.

’Headed by the Napier band, the crowd proceeded to the Tavistock Hotel nearly half a mile distance, [distant] where luncheon continued all afternoon. Notwithstanding [the] care of the railway authorities, when the train left for Napier quite a few people, full of joy and beer, were left behind. At least the passengers remembered the event long after most of the sober passengers had forgotten it.

’12th March ’77 trains were running to Takapau, and in ’78 the line was opened to Kopua, sixty-two miles south of Napier. To celebrate the event a general holiday was declared in Napier, and a well patronised passenger train with twenty-two carriages ran to Kopua.’ Kopua hasn’t got anything now – that’s where the seminary is, down that road, almost the corner; but there’s nothing left at Kopua … might’ve had a population, and I think it had two hotels and one or two other things.

’Great disappointment that – to the people of Norsewood – the line bypassed their village, and then went straight through the bush from Takapau to Dannevirke, which was reached in 1884. Even Dannevirke, a large centre, almost missed having a railway station in the centre of the town. [At] the railway construction [cough] near Dannevirke, a strip of bush one chain wide was felled along the top of the terrace [on the] east side of the Mangatera Stream, with a view of [to] crossing the stream near the present racecourse’ – I don’t even know if they’ve got a racecourse now – ’and having a railway station further down the road; thus missing Dannevirke by about a mile. Fortunately better counsel prevailed, although the felled line is still plainly seen through the bush.

’The line reached Woodville in ’87. On the day that the line opened to Woodville on 22nd March, hundreds of people – a queue ten deep – crowded the Napier booking office window to purchase tickets for a special train which ran to the new railhead ninety-five miles away. Three large steam locomotives headed a special train consisting of nineteen carriages and two vans, and according to a contemporary report, totalled’ … oh, I’ve got two figures on this; one says twelve hundred and the other says fifteen [hundred passengers], so we’ll take it from there.

’The work on the line through the Manawatu Gorge began in ’88, but it was not connected with Palmerston [North] until March ’91. By ’91 when Woodville and Palmerston [North] was [were] finally linked by rail through the Manawatu Gorge, the major North Island Government railway ran a roughly formed letter ’U’ from Napier to New Plymouth, and was officially known as the Napier-Taranaki Section of New Zealand Railway[s]. From this branched the Foxton line, then government-owned and rebuilt with iron rails, and served by locomotives; and a short length of main trunk line ended a few miles north of Hunterville. From Longburn a privately owned Wellington and Manawatu Railway Company line branched south to Wellington. Opened in December ’86 and taken over by the government in December 1908, the line provided the only rail link between the Hawke’s Bay line and the capital until the completion in December ’97 of the Wellington-Woodville line through the Wairarapa district.

’The first timetable of services dated ’91, Number 9 Express from Napier due out at eleven forty-five, connected at Palmerston [North] with the mail train from New Plymouth which was timed to leave Palmerston North at ten to five and arrive at Longburn, four miles south, at five past five. There was a connection made from Wellington and the Manawatu Railway Company, and it reached Wellington at ten minutes to ten; a total time from Napier to Wellington, eleven hours five minutes. Much the same on the reverse – they had a change at Longburn, so we won’t go into that.

’With the completion of the line through the Wairarapa in ’97, the through Napier-Wellington trains were rerouted ’ere [via] Woodville and Masterton, and over the Fell operated Rimutaka Incline to Upper Hutt and then on to Wellington. The express trains actually took a total journey time when they went through the Wairarapa [of] twelve hours twenty-three minutes. After the purchase of the Wellington and Manawatu Railway Company by the government a through express was again routed through Manawatu.

’Railcars started running from Wellington to Napier and Wairoa when the line to Wairoa was opened in [19]39. A standard railcar used to run from Wellington to Wairoa on Saturdays and return Sundays, and completed the Napier to Wellington sector in five hours twelve minutes.’ So that’s a slight difference.

’And early operation of the Hawke’s Bay railway was [not] without its moments of drama. In ’79, a year after the Takapau-Kopua section had been opened, the New Zealand version of a Great Train Holdup occurred. The incident featured not galloping horses and six shooters, but a sleeper barricade – a fence across the track – and an angry Māori chief with a tomahawk. Also, the commodity sought by [the] culprits was not gold, but a man’s life. It all began when a rather tactless guard laid hands on Chief Towawa [Tohua] and ran him out on the carriage platform after the chief refused to stop smoking his pipe in a non-smoking carriage. Later, the angry chief laid a pile of sleepers across the track and a wire fence was erected. The land over which the railway ran belonged to the tribe and, and although negotiations had been made for its purchase by the Government, no payment had been made, and he was exercising his rights as an owner. Tohua announced he had no intention of preventing trains going through; all he wanted to do was hold the train up long enough to drag out the guard who insulted him and tomahawk him. By the time word of the planned holdup reached the local authorities the train was already on its way. A message was clearly tapped over the railway telegraph [to] an intermediate station, warning the guy to keep away out of the danger area until the trouble had blown over.

’There was another incidence of direct action, with permanent results recorded at Tomoana at Hastings in 1881. A new flag station was opened and was to be named Karamū’, if you please, after the other Karamū’. It’s the name of a shrub by the way, ’a name [to] which the local natives took exception. For a few days after the opening the offending station board remained in place, and then it was removed by the complainants who replaced it with another board bearing the name Tomoana. Tomoana remains today.

When the railway was wrecked in ’31 the link by train was re-established on February 6th. I always tell the story that the Pakipaki Freezing Works was full of meat … frozen carcasses … and therefore they were still frozen until they were loaded on a train and taken south.

[Applause]