*Best Books for Christmas, 2014* Weekend Herald Rail: 150 Years of Rail in New Zealand is a rich, loving and lavish record of how New Zealanders have interacted with trains and railways since first European settlement to more recent times. Produced in association with the Museum of Transport and Technology (MOTAT), and primarily showcasing an array of machines in their full glory, it also portrays epic feats of construction, the identities and personalities who influenced our rail story, tragedies that gripped a nation, how rail was instrumental in shaping our fledgling and largely agricultural economy, and restoration and renaissance into the modern day. What emerges is an absorbing and dramatic photographic account, a keepsake for aficionados and general readers alike. A stunning, timely and brilliantly compelling tribute to our life with rail.