The shunters are the “uncivilised” division of the whole New Zealand Public Service. They are its daredevils, whose spirit belongs to a more lawless country, a more colourful background. They are a legion of adventurers, clad in serge and set in the prosaic surroundings of a city railway yard. Their very lives depend on the nimbleness of their wits; the soundness of their limbs hangs on their mental and physical agility.

Because a city, with all the protective fabric of society that it represents, is all around them, that does not remove them from the dangers of their occupation. Actually, they are far away from the comfort of a dry, warm office, where there are doors to keep out the draught and radiators to break down the chill. Their lot is companion with biting wind and driving rain, the sleet and the darkness. Their compensation is found in the healthiness and hardihood which open-air life engenders. An office error can be righted with a second stroke of the pen, but a shunter's error might never be righted.