Hutchins draws on his experiences of travelling as a child with his family, and as a young man.
His personal yarns are embellished with well-researched and fastidiously footnoted excerpts from well-known New Zealand writers and commentators.
There are no tinder-dry descriptions of rivets, boiler tubing and fishplates here, and while any diehard train-brain will still appreciate this book, it will also find a wider audience among anyone interested in New Zealand's mid-20th century warm-school-milk era.
Last Train To Paradise is a big disappointment, however, because the quality of presentation comes nowhere near matching the high standard of the writing.
The publisher, Exisle, has fallen into the trap of assuming that, since most of the historic photos are black-and-white anyway, it can save a bit on the printing costs by using no colour at all.
The period traversed in the text comes well into the modern era, a time when colour photography was fully established. There are also plenty of early colour transparencies available, seen in other New Zealand railway books, which ought to have been used here.
Even some of the black-and-white photos are poorly reproduced: with little apparent attempt at electronic image manipulation during the pre-print stage, many have come out in grey and grey.
Worst of all, the book displays in black and white several NZR Publcity Studios railway posters.
This is both unforgivable and unfathomable. These posters are widely regarded for their use of vivid colour.
The publishers have squandered an opportunity here.
Coffee table?
Only if it was with lukewarm NZR coffee in a chipped cup.
• Peter Dowden is a Dunedin writer. Last Train To Paradise is being published on July 15.
