Talk About Railway Crockery

Looking around the room, I notice that there is a number of you are ex-servicemen.  If you laugh, I know that you are guilty, or if you hang your head in shame, what did you do with your saucer while travelling on a troop train? I got a dollar each way.

There were 84 refreshment rooms nation-wide. In the early days the trains were slower, the locos were smaller and didn’t have the water carrying capacity as the larger locos; hence more frequent stops. N.Z.R. decided while servicing the loco, they would provide refreshments for the passengers. Though there were just over 80 refreshment rooms nationwide, they were not operating all at the same time. On the east coastline (this is known today) there were 5 rooms. I know you will be saying to yourself name them, and here they are, Wairoa, Napier, Te Aute (later renamed Opapa) Waipukurau and Woodville. In the early days H.B passenger trains had dining attached but was removed about the beginning of W.W.1. for economy reasons. As time went on trains got faster, the locos got larger hence the number of stops required got fewer. The Te Aute may make a number of you query this stop, but there is a photo when it was a stop. I have been involved in its restoration; evidence is still there.  Early rooms were leased out but from 1917 on, N.Z.R. started to cancel the leases and operate them themselves. N.Z.R. ordered their crockery from many manufacturers, some well known such as W.H. Grindley and Co., Staffordshire Pottery, Wedgewood, W. Adams, Johnson Bros., A. Meakin, Royal Dalton and Maddock.

At the out break of W.W.2. crockery was cut of [off] so Amalgamated Brick and Pipe Co. started to make it. It is believed that they couldn’t put a handle on the cups. The public went right off as they were to hot to handle in the summer but rather comforting to handle in the winter. They were very crude of a straw colour. Brick and Pipe sponsored someone from England to make a better cup. Brick and Pipe became the well-known Crown Lynn Co.

During the war the annual loss of cups on the rails was in the vicinity of 210,000 pieces. In the 1950s the annual average  P.T.O

79,000 cups and 42500 saucers. (handwritten – 121,500 drop of 88,500 pieces). One penny of the purchased price of a cup of tea went towards the cost of replacement of crockery. During W.W.1. three diggers went into a Dublin Y.M.C.A. to be served a cup of tea in N.Z.R. cups, one from Paekakariki and Te Kuiti (N.Z. Herald Report)

People have often asked “What is so interesting and collectable about the refreshment rooms and its crockery.” Well there are the uniforms, menu, silverware and the famed cup and saucer plus with their assorted bookstalls from counter services to the full dining rooms.  All parts of N.Z.R. history, railway crockery is very collectable, not just as a collection of N.Z.R. inscribed cups but also a record of the individual rooms. One example of a supplier of crockery, manufactured by Alfred Heakin, an English pottery in Staffordshire. The makers mark dates from 1897 to 1913 which dates the pieces in the days of leased refreshment rooms.  Pieces found around Opapa had a floral design a bit better looking than the N.Z.R. used seeing a number of you were familiar with Waiouru. Their monogram was a black oval and the saucer had a line with pink and gold around the rim. At a later date N.Z.R changed from using the stations name to a serial number. The colours and the number used would identify the station.

Remember the sign on the platform “Please leave the crockery on the platform” however there were a number that was taken on board and a collector would come through with a four gallon tin to collect the crockery what was left after what was thrown out of the window. These were sorted and returned to the rightful station otherwise a lot of Waipukurau crockery could finish up in Wellington and Waipuk [Waipukurau] would run short. The first of modern trains in the early 1970s such as the Silver Star, Silver Fern, Northerner and Southerner saw the introduction of

the smaller compact air line type of crockery for use on board in the dining and buffet cars. I would imagine that the loss of crockery would be well down from refreshment room service days.

Five years ago, it is recorded that a C&S was traded at $50 while a 1970 cup and saucer went for $80. Even broken cracked chipped will bring small dollars. There is on the market, crockery forgeries but with a difference, they are smaller and there are three circular pin hole marks were the cup stood on a holder in the kiln. Whereas the genuine crockery stood on its base thus not glazed on a rim around its base, plus the inscription is at 90° to the handle.

Many jokes have been made about the food that the rooms sold, thick cups, cold tea, the pies, block cake, and the neatly made ham sanderwiches [sandwiches]. Each room wanted to be on top in making the best to out-do the next stop down the track. The staff had to slice the bread by hand and had to get so many slices out of each loaf, long before they had bread slices.