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The New Zealand Railways Magazine, Volume 6, Issue 3 (August 1, 1931)

Facing Realities

Facing Realities.

Mining may be as dangerous a life as shunting, but there is none more dangerous in the length and breadth of the Dominion. Statistics are wearying, and are not going to be introduced here, but their purport cannot be ignored. The shunter's life is exacting, severe in its demands. It strips the artificialities from a man if he ever had them, or nips their growth in the bud if he hadn't. It is like war—it gets a man down to realities, because, in shunting, page 14 as in war—proportionately—the performance of a man's job is beset with plain risk to life and limb. Not that risk deters him or depresses his mind, but the ever-present knowledge calls for the display of definite qualities.

A shunter may never forget that he is a shunter. His mind is on his work all the time—it has to be. Perhaps that is why shunters, as a class, are a grim and silent company. Perhaps that is why they are considered “tough diamonds.”

A man who earns his living in some gentler fashion crosses a city thoroughfare with casual care, and if he is knocked down, the happening comes as a bolt from the blue. But that moment of risk is spun out for days, months, and years to the shunter, and if disaster comes it is never totally unexpected. That danger is a natural factor of the game.