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The New Zealand Railways Magazine, Volume 2, Issue 11 (March 1, 1928)

[section]

It has always seemed to me that one of the most interesting phases of railway operating is the safety system which the experience of years has evolved for the benefit of the public travelling by rail. For that reason I have chosen—as President Coolidge might have said had he been in a different humour—to speak upon the subject of “Safety on the Railways.”

In these high-speed days, when more can be done in a given time than ever before, it is natural that human life should be more highly prized than in the past. So thought is concentrated, and vast sums expended in making life safe for humanity.

The progress of the medical profession in the arts of saving and prolonging existence ranks among the chief wonders of our modern times. But with all this love of life has come also a recklessness of danger that is both difficult to understand and hard to circumvent. We save life in the hospital, to smash it in the street! In fact, the attitude of a good many towards self-preservation is that of a boy with a toy baloon. He wouldn't—not for anything—stick a pin in it, but he blows and blows till it bursts.

With added joys in life have come greater risks—many of them inevitable; but it is little use asking the wonder-working monkey-gland chief, Voronoff, to make your life longer one day, if you try to beat a train at a railway crossing the next.

On the Wellington-Hutt line—under 3-position signal protection.

On the Wellington-Hutt line—under 3-position signal protection.