Newspaper Article 1995 – Humble NZR teacup worth a mint

Humble NZR teacup worth a mint

There’s a sheila in Refreshments and she’s pouring cups of tea
And my heart jumps like a rabbit when she pours a cup for me.
She’s got hair a flaming yellow and a mouth a flaming red.
And I’ll love that flaming sheila till I’m up and gone and dead.
Taumarunui by Peter Cape
(1958)

Railway enthusiasts are a strange breed of people. Since the rise and fall of steam and diesel engines railfans have set about with zeal reviving and rebuilding railway stations of old. But during the past decade rail fans have realised they have been missing that essential piece of memorabilia conducive to helping so many memories. Features editor LINDSAY DAVIS looks at the rise and rise of the humble New Zealand Rail teacup.

Who would have guessed 50 years ago that people were sitting on a gold mine as they rode the Napier-Wellington Express.

The NZ Railways teacup is no longer a mere cup. It has a colourful history like the locomotive, and it is due to this obsequious cup that New Zealand potters learnt how to put handles on pottery.

Pulling up at one of the refreshment rooms on the way south (Waipukurau, Woodville or Palmerston North), the tell-tale signs of broken crockery on the main line sounded the warning before the guard officially told you.

And then came the mad rush for the tearoom, in which women and children only came first if they could run faster than the men.

Lined up behind sparkling counters were white-pinafored tea ladies, who in eight minutes had to serve 100 thirsty travellers.

These were pioneering times. Try telling the youth of today about the organic nature of toilets that opened straight out on to the tracks beneath – no going to the loo when the train was at the station – and those who never experienced such revolutionary times will look at you with all the disdain reserved for a foaming dog.

Once you had your cuppa and pie or slab cake you made your way back to your seat before the final warning over the platform speakers. Tea finished, you put the cup and saucer under the seat where it would wiggle and jiggle until a person came round with a bucket to collect it.

“They were good cups,” recalls Bob Davidson, stationmaster at Napier from 1972-1977. “They kept the tea warm and could stand a bit of a bump.

“Most people didn’t drink coffee back then. But they would have coffee available. It was in an essence form, because you didn’t have powdered coffee then, and they would put mustard in it for extra flavour.

They were hard times but nothing was as hard as the crockery, which was said to be capable of derailing a train, and back then was frequently used as a frisbee while the Express was hurtling through the Manawatu Gorge.

A quick ring around Hawke’s Bay antique dealers and you soon discover old NZR crockery is rarer than hens’ teeth. The only way you are certain to find any is to don flippers and snorkel and head Railway refreshment room historian Chris Johnson, in Wellington, said last year he attended an auction where several NZR cups were sold. A modern cup and saucer from the 1980s went for $50 and a 1970s item went for $80.

“In Wanganui this year a mug with an orange crest on it sold for $90. During a visit to Auckland last year I spotted a small piece of a Paekakariki NZR refreshment room cup attractively set in plaster of paris, selling for $45,” said an incredulous Mrs Johnson.

A more recent occurrence was the appearance of railway cup forgeries of the famous NZR Crown Lyn mug, selling for about $30, she said.

The forgeries are easily identifiable if you can remember the original. Not only are they smaller and lighter – by several hundred kilos – the inscription is at 90 degrees to the handle whereas the original was directly opposite the handle.

It all started in the 1870s when Julius Vogel approved a railway line between Ahuriri and Palmerston North, said Havelock North railway historian Thomas Wheeler, whose book All Aboard the train from Napier to Woodville documents the rise of many of the 40 stations once in existence between Ahuriri and Woodville.

In 1872 building began on the Spit-Napier section, which by 1875 had gone through Hastings and reached Paki Paki [Pakipaki]. Fifteen years later it reached its target of Woodville.

With the introduction of trains it was decided to follow the lead of the mother country and provide refreshments at larger stations – while fuel and water tanks were being filled.

From the early 1880s station refreshment rooms were leased to private proprietors under strict conditions.

“One of the conditions was for the contractor to supply their own crockery. For this reason old crockery is found with the actual station name endorsed on it,” said Mrs Johnson.

The original crockery was all imported from England and bore no resemblance to the later-made thick, large stoneware cups and saucers. Instead, dainty cups and saucers were made from bone china by well known potters such as Wedgewood, Royal Dalton, W. Adams, Johnson Bros and W. H. Grindley & Co.

Realising there was a dollar to be made New Zealand Railways started cancelling refreshment room leases from 1917, with the intention of running these highly-profitable businesses themselves.

The standard NZR cup had not appeared yet, instead Railways used an identifying series of numbers (Woodville was 5, Paekakariki 2, Napier 22). The way the number system worked is unknown, just as the reason for the South Island having a completely different system whereby cups had a different-coloured NZR painted on them.

“I don’t know the reason for the difference in the two islands, perhaps it is something to do with the belief that South Islanders do things different,” said Mrs Johnson.

With the outbreak of World War 2 in 1939 came heavy petrol restrictions and Newman Brothers was forced to take its bus service off the road, leaving the train as the only option for long-distance travel provided you had a permit.

With the war raging in Europe it became impossible to get crockery supplies to New Zealand. During this period there were no commercial tableware potteries in the country and with annual loss of cups and saucers on the rails about 110,000 pieces a year, the situation became desperate.

The annual loss of crockery was nothing new and not something that could easily be solved – during the 1950s the annual average purchases totalled 79,004 cups and 42,493 saucers.

“One penny of the purchase price of a cup of tea went towards the cost of replacing crockery,” said Mrs Johnson.

Help came from Amalgamated Brick and Pipe, which made its first Railways cup in the early 1940s. It was a large stoneware cup with a bold NZR insignia stamped on it in either black or dark green.

Unfortunately the cups did not have handles because nobody in New Zealand knew how to attach them, which was fine on cold winter days but highly irritating during summer.

There was only one solution, so Amalgamated Brick and Pipe brought out a potter from England to perform the delicate operation and teach others the technique of attaching handles to cups.

Many things have changed since the old days when the Express to Wellington took 11 hours, unlike today’s five-hour trip.

The old-style refreshment rooms have gone, in favour of being served tea and orange juice in your seat. But, most importantly, gone is the heavy crockery of old in favour of plastic cups.

As for where all the old crockery has gone, Mr Davidson’s response is similar to many.

“I don’t know where it’s disappeared to. I just wish I had some.”

You can get to Taumarunui going north or going south,
And you end up there at midnight  and you’ve cinders in your mouth,
You got cinders in you whiskers and a cinder in your eye
So pop off to Refreshments for a cuppa tea and pie.

The individual touch

The original crockery used by New Zealand Railways bore no resemblance to the later large, thick cups and saucers.

The old cups were all imported from England and made of bone china.

The Otaki cup was fairly small and dainty, with an elegant handle and blue crest.

Two heralds are known from Paekakariki.

One was green and made by Wedgwood, with the maker’s mark dating from 1906.

An earlier herald was brown and dated from 1879 until 1904.

Waipukurau used a black herald from 1893 in its more upmarket refreshment rooms, which included a counter room as well as a set table and luncheon station.

While English manufacturers managed to spell Paekakariki and Waipukurau correctly the same cannot be said for Ohakune, which for years was spelt Ohakuni.

Photo captions –

HAWKE’S BAY railway historian Thomas Wheeler with his prized NZR cup and saucer. The only problem is that the cup is a forgery.

STAFF at the Waipukurau station had this photo taken before the January 7, 1954 royal visit. Refreshment room staff are seated in the front row on either side of the stationmaster.

[Logos]

RAILWAY REFRESHMENT
ROOMS
OHAKUNE

WAIPUKURAU
R. R. ROOMS.

RAILWAY REFRESHMENT ROOMS
OTAKI

PAEKAKARIKI
R. R. ROOMS

RAILWAY REFRESHMENT
ROOMS
TAUMARUNUI

RAILWAY REFRESHMENT ROOMS
WAIOURU

KAITOKE
R. R. ROOMS

PALMERSTON NORTH
STATION
REFRESHMENT ROOMS
RETURN
PLEASE.