The New Zealand Railways Magazine, Volume 11, Issue 3 (June 1, 1936)
Heroes of the Rail — New Zealand's Greatest Transport Service. — Glimpses Of The Personnel
Heroes of the Rail
New Zealand's Greatest Transport Service.
Glimpses Of The Personnel.
.jpg)
(W. W. Stewart Collection).
A camera study at midnight in the cab of a New Zealand express locomotive.
We were talking of dictators and their quaint doctrine that, in some way, war purifies men, and brings out the great qualities in mankind; heroism and self sacrifice and stern purpose. Somebody said, “What a ridiculous doctrine! War mostly consists in ‘drill and drudgery’; there are any amount of opportunities for heroism and any amount of dare-devils demonstrate that in peace time. What about the chap that tries a germ in his arm to test its real virulence? Or the airman who makes a pioneer flight over the ocean? Or the speed king, the Antarctic explorer, the Mount Everest team and a dozen others?” And I said, “Have you ever seen a railway shunter leaping about in the middle of the night in the dark and drizzle to hurry a late goods train away?”
And so this article came to be written.
.jpg)
(Rly. Publicity photo.)
A rush job. Relaying Gang at work, under the glare of electric light, in the Wellington station yard.
.jpg)
(Rly. Publicity photo.)
A driver getting his engine ready for the road.
The Railway citizen-forces contain more of these modest men of mettle and quiet devotion than any other organisation in the Dominion. Now let us consider them in some sort of detail.
The Locomotive Branch will be taken first because it is more in the eye of the traveller than any of the rest. When a lad joins the service here, he first becomes a cleaner and his badge is a well-used piece of cotton waste, and his guerdon, an oil can.
He has to learn his engine, and the machine parts of everything that need attention. The job requires intelligence ceaseless industry and watchfulness. His objective is to become an acting-fireman, then fireman, then acting-driver, and at last, engine driver. Upon the fireman and his efficiency depends the rhythmic swing of the locomotive as it hauls its enormous load over the rails. He has to have knowledge as the verse goes “of a number of things,” and his figure is a familiar one in the glow of the light as the fire doors open and, with deft and easy action, he fills the furnace. He has very little room, and the ordinary strong man would be in physical agony after a few hours of it. The engine driver is a mighty personality, worth all the adoration he has had from thousands of boyish hearts in their early dream-days. The guard may be the captain of the great steel landship that carries its freight of humans and goods along the winding rail routes, but the driver is the chief engineer.
.jpg)
(W. W. Stewart Collection).
A budding engine-driver assists his “daddy” with some minor repairs.
Consider for a moment, now, what is known as the “three-legged gang.” This is for locations that do not justify a full double crew. It consists of an engine driver, a fireman who sometimes becomes an acting-driver, and a cleaner who similarly sometimes acts as a fireman. When the fireman is having his spell, for instance, the train is taken out by the engine driver and the cleaner. Hours must be anyhow for this class of activity, and, naturally, each of the trio, has to know individually each facet of the job.
.jpg)
(
Rly. Publicity photo.)
A bridge repair job in progress.
The Maintenance Branch comes next. When the train roars by a hillside where there is a lonely railway cottage with the chimney smoking at five in the morning, you can place that as the spot where a ganger lives. Under him are half a dozen or so surfacemen. These are the unnoticed heroes who watch for a sliver off a rail, look after the condition of fishbolts, plates and spikes, care for the joints and rail fastenings, the clearances, and clear the drains and mend the fences. They cluster most thickly where the curves are worst. It should be mentioned here that New Zealand has more curves in its railway system than any land on earth, and curves are sources of endless trouble. The All Blacks of this force are the relay gangs; and there are, of course, the specialists such as bridgemen and carpenters. The former have to clamber about viaducts and bridges, testing for faults and making, in mid-air, the necessary repairs.
.jpg)
(
Rly, Publicity photo.)
Surfacemen at work on a section of line near Wellington. (Distinguished overseas engineers have given special praise to the high standard of permanent way maintenance in New Zealand).
.jpg)
(
Rly. Publicity photo.)
Welding the rail joints on the Tawa Flat Deviation, Wellington.
Must
have been at one time a shunter. In the distribution of V.C.'s for gallantry in action on the railway front, a quite disproportionate number would go to this personnel. In my many travels lately by rail in all parts of New Zealand, I have wondered again and again at the deathless enthusiasm of these men..jpg)
(
Rly. Publicity photo.)
Repair work in progress on the Makohine Viaduct (238ft. high), North Island Main Trunk Line, New Zealand.
These men are better than “Storm Troops,” more courageous than “Alpine Chasseurs,” and they are certainly more useful in the best sense. The shunter's next move is to signalman, or storeman, and thereafter to guard. Of course, he may get a sole charge station. I have had cups of tea at several of these, the little hut beside the line, the hastily boiled billy, for there is a train at any old time. At Waharoa I saw a typical scene. We were on what is musically called a “mixed train.” It was longer than an Address-in-Reply, an enormous, rattling, jointed mechanical snake, loaded with everything conceivable from sand and gravel, to motorcars. We got to Waharoa late. Here the guard and the sole charge man got to work. The guard on these occasions reverts to his old job of shunter to give a hand, signalling, coupling and jumping like a deer in the approved fashion. I do not know yet how he managed it, but he smiled and answered quite suave'y when asked by a hot and irascible passenger why on earth we were so late, and did we stop at Okoroire, and how far was the hotel, and what arrangements had the Department in existence to have passengers met, and couldn't something be done about the heat and the dust nuisance. The tall gum trees by the station seemed to be a grin to me, but the guard put up a show like Anthony Eden. Some of these are lonely jobs. Very often the nearest farm house is some distance away, and the man has to seek his own solitary recreation. At Topuni, for instance, I found an exceedingly good self-trained artist. Honour to these heroes; they deserve it.
The guard we all know. The best verdict on him I ever heard was when a particularly irritating and persistent questioner had failed to shake his imperturbability. “They must make lovely husbands” one woman said, sighing, as he went out.
The guard selected for promotion can become passenger or goods foreman, and it is possible for him to arrive at the position of District Traffic Manager, assuming, of course, that he qualifies.
It is impossible in the scope of this article, of course, to mention all those by rank or name who qualify for the Railway Steel Cross in this great service. I have not mentioned, for instance, the refreshment room attendants who keep their smiles working after midnight or in the raw early mornings, facing a serried mass of folk all in a hurry and all showing signs of travel galls; and here and there the woman who says, “Very weak, please get me some hot water; can my little girl have cocoa made with milk?”
Bless them; they are wonderful.
Two hundred and fifty million passengers during the last ten years have been carried without the loss of a single life on our railways.
This record is due to the zealous care, the splendid sense of civic duty, and the high intelligence of the rank and file of that great organisation. These unassuming folk get no decorations and no newspaper headings. They give of themselves freely, and their courage is of the highest and their achievement of the noblest.
.jpg)
(
Rly. Publicity photo.)
A typical study of the shunter at work.
.jpg)
(
Rly. Publicity photo.)
The Auckland-Wellington Express near Taihape, North Island, New Zealand.