A description of travelling on the main trunk line from Wellington to Auckland.

Then followed the dimly-lit, meat-pie journey to Auckland, in a shelf-like top bunk ... Breath soot-high; voices when the train stopped, voices sharp and clear as footsteps walking the platform of the station; steam clouding like cotton wool; heavy-eyed sleep, eyelids sealed with specks of soot. Then early morning, cold clothes with too many arm and feet holes, a fawn railway-coloured, blanket-coloured biscuit; tea; a newspaper. And then, at the end of the jolting heaving journey ... a slow, measured halting, and in the scatter of people waiting, promising cars and warm homes, crying welcome from Auckland Station.

From 'State of Seige' by Janet Frame