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Post by Peter Lewis on Feb 4, 2012 22:54:40 GMT 12
Many years ago I read an article about some ex-Army Kiwi jokers who were operating a transport business in the Middle East.
As I recollect, they had seen Army service in the area and, post-war, had acquired some ex-Army Ford trucks and set up a transport business operating from town to town across the desert. In some of their operational areas they were the only available transport (apart from camels I suppose).
I'd like to find out more about this enterprise. Who they were and how they got on. My feeling is that 'post-war' was post-WW1, in which case they would have been operational during the 1920s - 1930s and presumably would have been swallowed up in the desert warfare of the 1940s.
Conversely it could have been a post-WW2 setup, in which case how long did it last and what happened to them?
Ring a bell with anyone? Apparently they were quite famous in their day.
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Post by errolmartyn on Feb 5, 2012 9:12:40 GMT 12
"Mr. Gerald Nairn, who with his brother New Zealander, Mr. Norman Nairn, runs the Bagdad-Damascus motor transport service across the Syrian Desert. The Nairns, said Mr. Anderson, hailed originally from Blenheim, and they had established a splendid service which was conducted with the regularity of railway trains. They had the biggest motor coach in the- world, it was 69ft long, carried 34 passengers, and did the trip of 550 miles across the desert in twenty-four hours. These two brothers had made history by opening up this desert route arid cutting the mail and passenger times down from Irak to the Mediterranean by some eight days." (exerpt from the Evening Post 7 Jan 35). The service was operated during the interwar years. Norman Nairn served with the RFCas an air mechanic for a time before transferring to the Army Service Corps. Much more can be found about the Nairns through Papers Past using various keywords. You could start with the article found at: paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bin/paperspast?a=d&cl=search&d=EP19250129.2.115&srpos=11&e=-------50--1-byDA-on--0nairn+brothers+transport--(the reference to Norman Nairn being commissioned in the RFC is an error, though). Errol
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Post by Dave Homewood on Feb 5, 2012 10:07:39 GMT 12
Funny, whilst searching for something else just now I found this article: paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bin/paperspast?a=d&cl=search&d=EP19230822.2.148&srpos=15&e=01-01-1920-31-12-1933--50--1-byDA-on--0zealander+royal+air+force--Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 45, 22 August 1923, Page 13 ACROSS THE SYRIAN DESERT A NEW ZEALANDER'S ENTERPRISE THE DIRECT ROUTE TO BAGDAD. (FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.) LONDON, 28th June. Mr. Norman D. Nairn, formerly of Blenheim, whose name has come into prominence through his success in opening up an overland routes from the Mediterranean to Bagdad, has been in London recently. This week he leaves for the United States for the purpose of obtaining equipment for the new mail service which is now established between Haifa and Bagdad. Mr. Nairn believes in American cars for the rough work of the desert. English cars, he maintains, are built for the good roads of the United Kingdom. Mr Nairn came over to the war in 1915. After serving in the Royal Air Force for a time he was transferred to the. motor transport section, and was sent to the East. Subsequent to the Armistice he settled down in Beirut, a, town with a population of 150,000, and here, in conjunction with his brother, Mr. G. Nairn, and an Englishman, Mr. Lovell, he established a motor service, and for two years their organisation has been carrying tha mails daily between Haifa and Beirut, a distance of 110 miles, delivering the Egyptian mail in nineteen hours, as against three days to four days under the old condition's. It will be remembered that the military railway was carried from Cairo across the Sinai Desert up to Haifa. The motor service now set up makes the connection with the railway and carries mails and passengers 110 miles further north along the Palestine coast. Part of the journey is actually done along the beach. WILD LIFE OF THE DESERT. The new route to be opened will reduce the time for transit of letters to Bagdad from London by thirteen days— eight as against twenty-one previously. The service, which is to be a weekly one, will also bring Port Said within a three day journey of Bagdad. Photographs in the possession of Mr. Nairn show that the Syrian Desert differs from the usual conception of a desert, inasmuch as it is not sandy, but hard soil, which provides for fast motoring for nearly three quarters of the 425 miles. The rougher portions consist of shingle and rock. The vegetation, such as it is, consists of scrub, but herds of gazelle, large numbers of bustard, sand grouse, and other game are to be seen. Although the gazelle can cover the ground at nearly thirty miles an hour, it is possible eventually to run them down in the motorcar and shoot them. Thus the food carried on the journey may be supplemented. Where the animals living in the desert obtain their water Mr. Nairn is at a loss to know. The cars used on the three trial trips were six-cylinder seven-seater Buicks, and no mechanical trouble was experienced, while the average water consumption per car was only three gallons. This is a very big consideration in a venture of this kind, for there is only one available water supply in the desert —at Rutba Wells. The cars are to be fitted with refrigerators, to carry food and iced drinks, puncture-proof tires, and hoods lined with asbestos. The total journey on the direct route from Beirut to Bagdad is 603 miles, and it is expected that regular crossings of the desert section will be accomplished in sixteen hours. Thus the cars will not have to. spend the night in the wilds. FRIENDLY BEDOUIN TRIBES. No trouble is anticipated from the Bedouin tribes, for the chieftains, are to have an interest in the enterprise. Although the travellers have hitherto taken experienced Arab guides with them, the route now covered is easily followed, for the eight inches of rain which fall during the year are not enough to eliminate the tracks of the motors. ln any case, the desert may be crossed by steering directly into the sun towards the east and directly towards the: setting sun when returning. In addition to saving much valuable time in carrying mails for the Iraq Government, and linking up various places, the enterprise has a historical and political aspect. It will open up such places as Damascus, Jerusalem, Baalbek, Palmyra, Babylon, Bagdad, and ithe Euphrates and the Tigris, while the recent discoveries at Ur and Chaldees are expected to give an additional incentive to tourists. From the political point of view, Mr. Nairn says it will lead to peaceful penetration of the desert tribes. The promoters have great faith in their scheme, and in their ability to keep time, for the five years contract into which they have entered provides for fines in proportion to the number of hours behind schedule. MR. NAIRN'S-MARRIAGE After accomplishing ths successful journey to Bagdad. and back in May, Mr. Nairn came over to London for his marriage to Miss Elsie M. Barclay, only daughter of Mr. and Mrs. J. N. Barclay; Freston Tower, Finchley. The ceremony took place in the Finchley Parish Church early this month, when some 160 guests were present. Amongst these were Mr. and Mrs. Cook, of Dunedin. Mrs. Nairn will accompany her husband to Palestine on the 20th Ju]y After Temaining there for a year, it is Mr. Nairn's intention to return here to float an English company.
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Post by Dave Homewood on Feb 5, 2012 10:08:08 GMT 12
I must add too, fascinating topic there Peter.
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Post by Peter Lewis on Feb 5, 2012 10:14:04 GMT 12
Those are the people I had in mind. Obviously the enterprise was successful - until Rommel got going, of course. Thanks Errol and Dave. Wonder where they eventually ended up - back in NZ or the UK?
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Post by Peter Lewis on Feb 5, 2012 10:36:04 GMT 12
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Post by steveh on Feb 5, 2012 13:14:06 GMT 12
There was a book written about the enterprise called "Nairn Bus to Baghdad" by J.S. Tullett. Its a good read & comes up on trademe from time to time, normally a bit pricey though as it seems to be a reasonable demand. Steve.
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Post by Dave Homewood on Nov 11, 2018 23:10:06 GMT 12
I just happened upon this photo of a very unusual bus, read the caption and realised this was Nairn's! It is from the EVENING POST, 28 August 1934
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Post by davidd on Nov 12, 2018 8:02:01 GMT 12
Nice find Dave! AN articulated bus! It is definitely a beast, and has some real style about it. I presume it is of American origin, and appears to be based on a long distance truck, but adapted to carry passengers rather than freight. Anybody care to nominate a possible manufacturer? David D
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Post by Dave Homewood on Nov 12, 2018 8:13:50 GMT 12
I was also wondering if it was perhaps air conditioned, as the trailer seems pretty self contained and there's very little in the way of windows to open in the heat.
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Post by Dave Homewood on Nov 12, 2018 8:25:49 GMT 12
There seems to be plenty written about Nairn Transport in the old papers. This was the beginning of the Beirut to Baghdad route from the HAWERA & NORMANBY STAR, 1 JUNE 1923:
FAST SERVICE TO INDIA
BI CABLE—PRESS ASSOCIATION—COPYRIGHT | Received June 1, 9.10 a.m. | LONDON, May 31.
A new land route from the Mediterranean to Bagdad and India has been blazed by trial trips across the Syrian desert in a motor car. Mr. Norman Nairn, an ex-New Zealand officer and a member of the Nairn Transport Co., participated. He explains that it is proposed to inaugurate, a mail and passenger service early in the autumn. Instead of travellers proceeding to Bagdad via Port Said, Basra, and Bombay, a 16 to 17 days' journey, the new service will bring Bagdad within sixty hours of the Mediterranean, and mails from London to Bagdad will be delivered in eight days. — Aus.-N.Z Cable Assn.
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Post by Dave Homewood on Nov 12, 2018 9:12:22 GMT 12
From the EVENING STAR, 18 JULY 1923
DESERT MOTORING ENTERPRISE
NEW ROUTE TO IRAQ.
BEDOUIN SUPPORT.
The Beirut correspondent of the London ‘Times,’ in a message published on May 18, stated that the long-cherished idea of a quick land route from the Mediterranean to Bagdad and India has been brought within the region of practical experience as a result of trial trips made across the Syrian desert by motor cars. Mr Norman D. Nairn, a former New Zealand officer, took a prominent part in these trials. He completed the second one a fortnight ago (says 'The Times’ of May 30), and, after arriving back at Beirut, travelled direct to England for his forthcoming marriage. Mr Nairn was in London yesterday, and in conversation said that it was proposed to inaugurate a mail and passenger service over the desert route in the early autumn.
Travellers to Bagdad at present have to proceed from Port Said by way of Suez, Bombay, and Basra, and the journey occupies sixteen or seventeen days. Tho new service will bring Bagdad within sixty hours’ land journey of the Mediterranean, and would reduce the time of transit for mails between London and Bagdad to eight days. Iraq in the past, in the matter of communications, has looked to the East. The successful development of the scheme contemplated by Mr Nairn would bring about a remarkable change, as the country would turn its face to the West.
The idea of a quick land route was conceived by Mr Palmer, the British Consul at Damascus. His opinion that the journey over the desert to Ramadie could be made safely and expeditiously by motor car was supported by Major McCallum, the British liaison officer with the Haut Commission at Beirut. The two men discussed the project with the Nairn Transport Company, which for four years has carried the mails between Haifa and Beirut by a service which enables tho express overland mail from Egypt to be delivered in twenty-four hours. Plans were worked out, the co-operation of Sheik Haji Muhammad Ibn Bassam, who knows Arabia from end to end, was scoured, and the first reconnaissance was made in April. The cars used were six-cylinder seven-seater Buicks.
“OUT IN THE BLUE.” For the first 'seventy miles the main road to Damascus was followed, and for another fifteen miles the party used the road towards Aleppo. The desert adventure began at Dumair, and then for 425 miles the travellers were “out in the blue.” They had sure Bedouin guides, however, and, crossing by the Rutba Wells, they made a comparatively easy journey to Ramadie. The route taken between Dumair and Ramadie approximated as nearly to a straight line as could be steered in a car.
From Ramadie to Bagdad Mr Palmer and his fellow-pioneers used a regular travel road. As the outcome of their experience they decided that the route was quite practical. The party elected to return by a more northerly way to take in Palmyra, which from the point of view of tourists has much to offer. This part of the trial yielded adventures, some of them unexpected. When the cars reached Ramadie the place was found to have assumed the characteristics of an island, owing to tho flooding of the Euphrates. No boats were available, and it was necessary to swim the river to secure transport and petrol. Later the route became mountainous and very rough, and progress had to be slowed down to a speed ranging from two to ten miles an hour.
The cars at intervals had to be pushed or towed, and on several occasions the party were compelled to clear the track with picks and shovels. Palmyra was reached after strenuous efforts, but it was realised that the route taken could not be utilised for commercial purposes, Subsequently it was discovered that Palmyra could be included in a round tour by first taking the southern route and then breaking away to the north.
For the mail and passenger service which Mr Nairn intends to establish, fast cars equipped with large radiators and condensers will be used. Small refrigerators are to be installed to carry food and iced drinks, puncture-proof tyres will be fitted to avoid trouble from camel thorn in the desert, and the hoods will have asbestos linings. The petrol capacity of the cars will enable spirit to be carried for a straight run of seven hundred miles.
The direct journey from Beirut to Bagdad is one of 603 miles;, but it is only on the desert section of 425 miles that the cars will out of immediate touch with supplies. Not less than two cars will make any trip, and larger convoys may be arranged. No car is to carry a load greater than in the event of a mishap could be transferred to the accompanying car, and departures from either end will be wirelessed, so that in case a car should not arrive at the scheduled time breakdown cars can be sent out to give any assistance that may be needed. Trouble is not anticipated, as mechanical breakdowns on the Haifa-Beirut service have been practically unknown, and a British staff, which has had several years of Eastern experience, will be employed.
FRIENDLY CHIEFTAINS. The Syrian desert is not a waste of sand, and to that extent differs from the usual conception of a desert. On the southern route the cars on the trial trips passed over hard soil covered in places with gravel, shingle, or shale. There were few gradients, and those few slight, and for 70 per cent of the journey the surface was of such a type that speed was limited only by the power of the engines, the necessity for the cars to keep together, and the physical endurance of the drivers.
It is estimated that the regular crossings of tho desert will be accomplished in sixteen hours, and as daybreak starts will be made from Damascus, and the route from Rutba Wells to Ramadie is feasible in the dark, owing to the use which can be made of tho air-mail ploughfurrow, there will be no necessity to spend a night in the wilds.
The chieftains of the Bedouin tribes are to have an interest in the enterprise, and their friendliness is said to be assured. There is little vegetation in the desert, but gazelles and quantities of great bustard, sand grouse, and other winged game are met with, and these could be used to supplement ordinary food. Mr Nairn states that the Iraq and Palestine authorities are thoroughly interested in the arrangements he is making, and important developments in connection with the malls between the Mediterranean, Iraq, Persia, and India are likely in the near future! Mails can be carried by car from Bagdad to Teheran in four days, He also points out that the water power of the Euphrates and Tigris is at present running to waste, and that the eastern part of the Syrian desert would grow anything with efficient irrigation.
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Post by Dave Homewood on Nov 12, 2018 9:14:36 GMT 12
From the POVERTY BAY HERALD, 16 JULY 1924
A DESERT “RECORD.” BEIRUT, May 23. — The Nairn Transport Company yesterday broke all “records” by motoring from Baghdad to Beirut, 614 miles, under a wager, in 16½ hours.
The Nairn Transport Company carries the mail by motor car from Haifa to Baghdad. The service was opened on August 30 last.
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Post by Dave Homewood on Nov 12, 2018 9:20:04 GMT 12
HAWERA & NORMANBY STAR, 6 SEPTEMBER 1924
DESERT MOTOR SERVICE.
NEW ZEALANDER'S ENTERPRISE
Mr Norman Nairn, of Wellington, has just passed through London on his way to the United States. It will be remembered that Mr Nairn's name has come into prominence since the close of the war in connection with the establishment of the desert motor service between Haifa and Bagdad. The Nairn Transport Company has continued to prosper, and its chief proprietor is visiting America again to obtain further Cadillac cars. In the last eight months the company has carried 800 passengers and 70001b weight of mails. The cars have run 200,000 miles, and the mails have never once been late. Only on one occasion were the cars held up for 12 hours owing to bad weather. A record has recently been made in covering 544 miles of the desert in 14½ hours. Both the Army and officials of the Anglo-Persian Oil Company make use of the service, and 10,000 letters are carried each week. In the early days of the service there was always the risk of interference; by the Bedouins, and on one occasion shots were fired. Now, however, the tribes are subsidised, or, in other words, a regular blackmail tariff is paid, and the cars pass over the desert in perfect safety.
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Post by smithy on Nov 12, 2018 9:58:53 GMT 12
I'd never heard of Nairn Transport, absolutely fascinating. There's a book in there waiting to be written.
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Post by Dave Homewood on Nov 12, 2018 10:05:17 GMT 12
EVENING POST, 29 JANUARY 1925
OLD CARAVAN ROUTE
DAMASCUS TO BAGDAD
MOTOR SERVICE OPENED
NEW ZEALANDERS' ENTERPRISE.
No development of this stage of travel has so stirred the imagination as the opening-up, by motor transport, of the old caravan route from Damascus to Bagdad across the desert of Syria, for countless ages the great highway between the Mediterranean and the gleaming cities of the East. Chaldeans, Princes of Babylonia, Pharaohs of Egypt, Prophets of Israel, Emperors of the West, all have filed along that road, every step of which has echoed with the tramp o£ armed men; every rock of which has witnessed the passing of kings and queens, even Zenobia herself, in all the panoply and grandeur of the almost forgotten civilisations which have risen and waned in the magic East, the cradle of the nations of to-day.
This old desert route, used through the ages by jingling caravans of camels, is to-day, thanks to the imagination, pluck, and resource of two young New Zealanders, traversed by powerful motorcars, which cover the 500 odd miles between Damascus and Bagdad in a nonstop run of a day and a half, thus bringing all the romance and witchery of the city of the Caliphs, Haroun al Kaschid, and the "Arabian Nights" within a few days' distance — nine to be exact — of foggy London., The new trip along the old route is becoming known to tourists, and every month now sees increasing numbers of travellers along the storied road.
STORY OF THE NAIRNS.
Mr. Gerald Nairn, who, with his brother Norman, 'pioneered' the petrol trail, and who is one of the founders of the now famous Nairn Transport Company, which maintains the service, is visiting Blenheim, his home 'town, on a holiday trip.
Much has been written about the Nairns and their desert transport service, but a representative of the "Marlborough Express" who interviewed Mr. Nairn gathered an interesting story; - though much that hinted of adventure was concealed behind the matter of fact expression of the youthful Blenheimite.
The story of the opening up of the new route to the ancient East is a romance in itself. Prior to the war Gerald and Norman Nairn were in business in Blenheim as motor-cycle engineers. Norman left New Zealand with a commission in the Flying Corps, but was afterwards transferred to the Mechanical Transport Division of the Army Service Corps. Gerald travelled to Egypt with the Mounted Rifles, but also found his way into the Mechanical Transport Division, and, with his brother, saw service in Palestine, where they had many war adventures.
The brothers were both discharged in Egypt at the conclusion of the war, and entered into partnership with an Assyrian at Haifa, on the coast of Palestine, to run a motor-service along the storied coast of the Holy Land between Haifa and Beirut. Contracts were entered into with the Governments of Palestine, Egypt, and Syria, to carry the mails between the two towns, and the brothers daily drove their modern cars through Acre and the lands made famous by the Crusaders, through Tyre and Sidon, through Lebanon and other spots whose Biblical association's have made them household words. The motor-car, even in those days, at the latter end of 1914, was almost unknown in the Holy Land', but there were perhaps a dozen in Beirut, where, to-day Mr. Nairn says, they probably total a couple of thousand.
CONQUEST OF THE SYRIAN DESERT
By and by, the brothers bought out their Assyrian associate and in the early part of 1923 began to turn their thoughts to the conquest of the Syrian desert, which cut off access between the Mediterranean littoral and Mesopotamia; or Irak as it is now called. A preliminary trial of the route; was made in April, 1923, three cars setting out under the guidance of an Arab sheik, Mohammed Ibn Bassan, who was familiar with the' desert, and the nomad tributes which inhabit it. The party reached Ramadie, 425 miles, across the desert from Damascus, after spending two nights in the open, and a different route was followed on the return journey.
At this stage a Major M'Callum and a Mr. Palmer, the British Consul at Damascus; expressed a desire, to make the trip overland from Damascus to Bagdad, and the company undertook the task, a convoy of three cars being used for the trip. Previous experience had shown that a route from Damascus to Jebel Teuf and thence on to Rutba Wells and Ramadie (on the Euphrates) and so to Bagdad, was the most practicable, and this was followed under the guidance of Sheik Ibn Bassan, and Bagdad was reached without mishap, after a memorable trip of three days.
OLDEST CITY IN THE WORLD Other trial trips were made at intervals during the summer of 1923, and on 18th October, 1923, a weekly trans-desert service was commenced with cars specially built in America. A contract to carry the mails was made with the Irak Government, and the British Government falling into line, it soon became a regular thing to see the weekly convoys of cars speeding into the dusty desert on their long.journey of 614 miles from Beirut to Bagdad.
The whole journey from Haifa through Beirut to the city of the Caliphs is covered without changing cars. The cars leave Haifa on Thursdays, at 10.30 a.m., and reach Beirut at 3 p.m. They leave an hour later for Damascus, where they arrive at 7 p.m. The night is spent in the "oldest city in the world," and at daybreak the following morning, the cars push into the desert on their long run to Bagdad, which is reached at noon on the following day roughly twenty-six hours; from point to point, and practically a non-stop run. The passengers sleep and eat in the cars but the driver must. keep at his wheel the whole time. At Bagdad it is possible to change to another car service which carries one to Teheran and on to India, so that the reopening of the ancient route between Europe and India is an accomplished fact.
Each car is specially fuelled for the long trip, and, in addition to carrying nine tins of benzine in the tank, carries nine tins on each running board making a total of 23 tins for the journey. This, of course, allows an ample margin in the case of a breakdown. At least two cars always make the trip in convoy, so asto obviate the risk of a hold-up and also for protection, though the Bedouins give little trouble.
New cars are now being tried out. They are of the eight-seater limousine type, and are fitted with special compartments for the carriage of food and ice. Mr. Nairn stated that a measure of immunity from Bedouin attentions had been secured by paying Ibn Bassan a sum of approximately £1000 a year, for which he guarantees to keep the route safe. Presumably he distributed some of the money among his nomadic friends, but in any case he used his influence with them. On one or two occasions, Mr. Nairn mentioned, parties of raiding Bedouins had fired a few pot shots at the cars, from a distance without causing trouble.
At Rutba Wells, Mr. Nairn, continued, the car route crossed the path of the air mail service between Amman in trans-Jordania and Irak. The aeroplanes followed a furrow ploughed across the desert as a guide. After a few months of running the motor service was able to dispense with the services of a guide, as the tracks o£ the cars formed a path which could be followed easily, even at night.
THOUSANDS OF ANIMALS
Questioned in regard to the Syrian desert, Mr. Nairn said it was not the sandy waste which one usually associated with the word "desert," but a huge mud-flat with-a few stunted bushes growing here and there. Parts of it abounded in gazelle, and when the service first started herds of thousands of these graceful animals were to be seen from the car route, but they had now more or less abandoned the vicinity of the track, and only a few were to be seen. The gazelle, Mr. Nairn added, he considered the fastest animal afoot. They frequently sped alongside the cars, much as rabbits do in this country, and one had been'timed on the speedometer to do 50 miles an hour, for a short distance, of course.
There were also many hyenas in the desert. One was overtaken by two of the cars, and, with a motor racing on each side of it and keeping it from, breaking away, was kept going until it dropped. The hyena's jaw was very powerful. On one occasion,, when one of these animals had been shot it was prodded with a gun. It seized the weapon in its teeth, leaving two dents in the barrel. Foxes, porcupines, sand grouse, and wild turkeys, or bustards, as they were called, were also encountered on the desert run.
In regard to Beirut, Mr. Nairn said it was a fine city, with electric trams, and a population of about 125,000. The climate was mild, being, much like that of Auckland. Bagdad, apart from its mosques and places of historic and romantic, association, was a tumble down sort of city, with execrable streets covered with six inches of mud in winter time. Everyone in Bagdad wore gumboots in winter.
"THE CHANGING EAST"
When first the mail service started it was impossible to get a bath in Bagdad, except in a tub, but the coming of, the tourists had altered that, and the hotels were now installing modern bathrooms. Great hopes were centred, as far as Mesopotamia was concerned, on the growing of cotton by means of irrigation, and a,big irrigation scheme, costing between £600,000 and £700,000, was in course of construction. Cotton grew well where water could be used, and it was believed that modern irrigation, would restore Mesopotamia to its ancient prosperity.
Some idea of the popularity of the new service may be gained from the fact that in the first seven months of its existence, some 800 passengers and 7000lb of mails were carried across the desert, the mileage of the cars exceeding 200,000 miles. The route, Mr. Nairn said, brought Bagdad within nine days of London, as compared with three weeks by the sea route, which took passengers to Bombay, and thence to Basra, whence they journeyed by rail to Bagdad. All the drivers of the cars are British ex-service men.
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Post by Dave Homewood on Nov 12, 2018 10:29:02 GMT 12
POVERTY BAY HERALD, 10 MARCH 1925
ATTACK BY BANDITS.
MOTOR CONVOY HELD UP
FRENCH LADY KILLED
(Eve. Tel. Copyright— United Press Assn.) (Sydney Sul Gabies.) (Received March 10, 10 a.in.) LONDON, March 9.
The Daily Mail’s Bagdad correspondent says bandits fired at a convoy of two motor-cars proceeding to Beirout across the desert, killing the wife of the French Vice-Consul at Bagdad. They ransacked the luggage of one car. The second car put on speed and escaped. Armored cars and aeroplanes are pursuing the bandits.
The convoy attacked belongs to the Nairn Transport Company at Beirout, Palestine, the principals of which are two brothers, from Blenheim, New Zealand, who with great enterprise a year ago conceived the idea of running a weekly service to Bagdad, via Damascus, straight through the Syrian desert, a distance of 600 miles from Beirout. The first attempt was made by the brothers Nairn with a small convoy of two cars, traversing 530 miles of absolutely uncharted country, Not a single yard of impassable ground was found; not one bridge had to be improvised. The main trouble was punctures caused by camel thorn. After one or two such journeys a regular track was marked out by the wheels of the cars, the camel thorn was crushed out of existence, and it was found possible to drive by night as well as by day.
The company established a 48 hours’ mail service from Haifa to Bagdad, and takes passengers at £35 a head, this direct route saving the long journey round by Bombay and Basra. Since the mail service started eight months ago the mails have been late only once and that in the rainy season. The service is rapidly expanding and a convoy often consists of eight or nine cars.
In an account of the journey given in the English Review it is stated: About 1.30, having completed 100 miles of the desert journey, we stopped for lunch, and it was then that a rather amusing incident happened. As we were preparing our meal, a party of about 12 Bedouins, all mounted on camels, appeared over a hill about a mile away. They spotted our stationary cars and immediately started to trot towards us. Seeing this, our drivers bundled the lunch back into the cars as quickly as possible, started their engines, and went, on. Meanwhile two of the Bedouins had detached themselves from the remainder and were heading for the track some way in front, in order to try and cut us off, but they were too far away, and soon gave it up. We went on for about eight or ten miles and again unpacked for lunch. It was then that the drivers told us that nine times out of ten these small Bedouin columns, wandering about in the desert, were robbers, out to raid another tribe or anybody or anything else they could find. Twice since the overland mail started these Bedouin marauders have attempted to hold up cars by getting across the track, and on both occasions they fired after them without doing any damage. On the second occasion the convoy was bound for Damascus, and on arrival reported the matter to the French police, who sent out four armored cars post haste, succeeded in locating the column, and took every man prisoner. They each got twelve months’ imprisonment, and their tribe was heavily fined.
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Post by Dave Homewood on Nov 12, 2018 10:53:29 GMT 12
EVENING STAR, 23 JUNE 1926
BUS FOR THE DESERT
HEW ZEALANDER’S INVENTION
FIFTY FEET LONG
Press Association—By,Telegraph—Copyright. BAGDAD, June 21.
Mr Norman Nairn, a New Zealander, who is running the mails between Beirut and Bagdad, has successfully designed a desert motor bus. It is 50ft long, its weight unloaded is seven tons, and it has a speed of twenty-three miles an hour. —Sydney Sun Cable.
THE DESERT MAIL. By putting limousines on the oldest caravan routes in the world two living New Zealanders have eclipsed Macaulay’s New Zealander in picturesqueness. They are the Nairn brothers, who went to Syria during the war. Itb struck them that transport there was not all it might be. They decided to show the camels what machines could do.
First, they had an unlucky experience with steam cars. But they got over that, and established a motor mail service from Beirut, Syria, to Haifa, on the Palestine coast. More romantic still, they revived the old caravan route from Damascus to Bagdad, replacing camels with limousines. Norman — one of the pair — surveyed the Jerusalem-Bagdad route, which will connect Bagdad with Europe in the event of trouble in Syria.
A new ship of the desert has thus appeared—stronger and faster than the fleetest camel, more awe-inspiring than the most fearsome of fabled monsters. When it passes, the Bedouin shepherd boy stares, uncomprehending, and his flocks scatter in all directions. For those new creatures — called automobiles — which have superseded the leisurely camel, are comparatively newcomers. The time is not long past when they were unheard of on the desert. Their passage is still marked by comment, oven in the bazaars of Damascus, where many strange things have come to pass only fade again in the dimness of the ages.
Travel has been resumed over the ancient land route to the East. One may now board a motor car in Beirut, on the Mediterranean, and less than thirty hours later he set down in Bagdad. On the whole, it is a rather startling performance — a great accomplishment worked by a handful of modern pioneers vying with an age-old civilisation.
The Syrian Desert has become again what it was once before — a highway of the world. Luckily for motor transport, the Syrian Desert is not the customary tremendous expanse of sand and sand dunes. With the exception of the last forty miles into Ramadi there is practically no sand of any description. For over two-thirds of the route the cars roll over a hard soil, covered in places with gravel, shingle, or shale. The surface is such that the speed at which one can travel is limited only by the power of the engine, by the necessity of keeping the cars of the convoy in sight of one another, and by the physical endurance of the drivers. Fast travelling at forty to sixty miles an hour under the hot sun over a limitless space resembling the flat horizon of a calm sea becomes very monotonous, and exercises such a hypnotic effect that it is only with great effort that the drivers are able to keep from falling asleep. There is little vegetation en route, but’occasionally gazelle, bustard, sand grouse, and other small game are encountered.
Although Bagdad is 1,200 ft or so lower than Damascus, the descent is so gradual as to be imperceptible on the desert. Three hundred and forty flat and uneventful miles out from Beirut is the Wadi Hauran, a dried-up watercourse of considerable extent and uninviting aspect, where many boulders await the unwary automobile. Here are the Rutba Wells, the only known place on the desert where water, though of an unattractive color and taste, may be obtained if absolutely necessary. At the Rutba Wells, the travellers catch their first sight of the air furrow — a line ploughed by the British Royal Air Force across the desert from Amman, in Transjordania, to Bagdad. for the purpose of guiding pilots of the Cairo-Bagdad Air Mail machines. Marks on the floor of the desert are visible from the air at great altitudes.
From the Wadi Hauran the cars follow the air furrow to Ramadi — a little town on the Euphrates that forms the western outpost of Mesopotamia. Thence to Feluja is comparatively but a step, and the cars cross the Euphrates by a bridge of boats — that is, if the bridge happens to be there. The remainder of the journey is more or less easy going. Two hours more level desert, then in the distance the golden domes of Bagdad, glittering in the sun, lift themselves over the straight horizon.
While it may sound like a fairly simple procedure, the desert crossing is not child’s play. At certain times of the year the Tigris and Euphrates, perhaps weary of confining ways of civilisation, have an unpleasant habit of throwing aside the embankments, or “ bunds,” with which they are restrained and spreading themselves indiscriminately over the surrounding territory. Then it is that Ramadi becomes an island, and the bridge of boats at Feluja is cut to prevent its destruction, and even the Maude bridge, at Bagdad, strains at its fastenings.
And then it is that the drivers of the Nairn cars are called upon to forgot that day is day and night is night, and to work like fiends so that the mail may get through somehow. Cars are driven continually for hours through hub-deep mud far out of their regular course, so that some anxious passenger may not miss his or her boat connection. Emergencies become the daily routine. In these emergencies come the real tests of men and cars.
With the motor service as at present run by the Nairn Transport Company Bagdad is brought within nine days of London and within forty-eight hours of Port Said. This is of tremendous significance to the companies operating in the Near East, for it eliminates the old journey by sea, when the trip from London to the oilfields took thirty days. Now it can be done in nine, at considerably less expense. At Bagdad connections are made with the railway running to Basra, on the Persian Gulf, and also to the Persian border. Thus travellers to Northern India and Persia are greatly benefited.
The desert transport service has other potentially far-reaching effects. By a sort of peaceful penetration process the Bedouin tribes are gradually becoming accustomed to civilisation — a state of existence toward which they have no very strong inherent urge. Perfectly at home on the desert, where the white man has never been anything but a transient stranger, the Bedouins have always been the terror of the adventurous traveller from other lands. Today these nomadic tribes are a little more tolerant — a little more respectful of the lives and property of others. Their solitude has been violated, but they are learning to accept the fact with less resentment and more grace.
In spite of the utilitarian nature of its origin, the transdesert motor service has been discovered by the tourist. Not always has such easy access been afforded to the ruins of the ancient brick-walled cities which, after reposing for thousands of years under the dry sands of Iraq, are now being brought to view by the excavations of modern archaeologists. Antiquity speaks with a thousand voices. The orange-hued columns of the Temple of Jupiter, at Baalbek, lifting high above masses of sun-baked wreckage; the intimate details of Babylonian social life unearthed at Kish; the pile of rubbish at Nineveh that was once the palace of Sennacherib — all those tell of a vanished glory that flourished when the world of man was still young.
It is a land of contrasts. There is no gradual transition from ancient to modern. Motor cars are parked in front of a mosque whose traceried stone facade has looked down upon the varied panorama of Oriental life for centuries.
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Post by Dave Homewood on Nov 12, 2018 11:04:51 GMT 12
DUNSTAN TIMES, 4 OCTOBER 1926
THE NAIRN TRANSPORT COMPANY.
We have already given fairly full details of the rise and romantic development of the Nairn Transport Company, the work of two New Zealanders, Mr Norman Nairn and his brother, who were the first to establish a motor service across the desert, from Damascus to Baghdad. About a month ago we sent a description of the new six-wheeled motor 'bus, expected to create a record in such desert services, which has already had a try out on the Damascus-Baghdad route, and the announcement is now made of a financial scheme whereby still greater developments are foreshadowed.
The Nairn Transport Company has been brought up by an Anglo-French group who will carry on a number of European companies operating motor services between the Mediterranean and Persia.
This may be taken as a sign that the Middle East is now regarded as a commercially practical enterprise. We learn to-day that negotiations to buy out the Nairn Transport Company have been proceeding for some time, and the French have been keen to get this prosperous concern into their hands. It is fortunate for them that the “all-British” route from Haifa to Baghdad, via Jerusalem and Amman — the route which perforce was adopted when the Syrian rebellion was at its height was, owing to the longer distance and the nature of the ground to be traversed, commercially unprofitable.
It is anticipated that this Anglo-French undertaking is the beginning of a large motor development in the Middle East. Other routes besides the normal one from Beirut to Baghdad will be explored, hotels are to be built in the desert, special types of vehicles are being constructed for desert travel, and, altogether it is probable that an undreamt-of development o£ the Middle East will he witnessed. When the history of this amazing enterprise comes to be written, the place taken by the small band of ex-servicemen who worked with the Nairn Brothers will be the most exciting of all. The financial group concerned comprises the Anglo-Persian Oil Company, Messrs Stern Brothers. The Ottoman Bank, Imperial Bank of Persia, Banque de Paris et des Pays-Bas, Credit Fonder d’AJgcrie, and the Messagerics Maritimos. The new company, which has the support of the various Governments concerned, will take over the mail contracts.
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Post by Dave Homewood on Nov 12, 2018 11:08:25 GMT 12
So whilst their company had been bought out it looks like the Nairns, or at least one of them, remained involved. This from the EVENING POST, 27 NOVEMBER 1933:
Mr. G. Nairn, a director of the Nairn Transport Co., Irak, and formerly of Blenheim, accompanied by Mrs. Nairn and their two children, arrived by the Makura from, Sydney today.
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