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The New Zealand Railways Magazine, Volume 1, Issue 1 (May 1st, 1926)

Editorial — The Trial Run

page 2

Editorial
The Trial Run

The other day we had the pleasure of a trial run on one of the Department's new power units. There was a strong team of experts aboard to watch proceedings, besides a Driver to make it go, and a Fireman to keep it going. Notes were taken of its appearance, comfort and equipment, and stop-watches were out to time the speed up-hill, down dale, and on the level. By the end of the run there was nothing about that outfit which had not been discovered, discussed, dissected, praised, passed, or condemned.

In producing this, the first issue of the New Zealand Railways Magazine which, in all the sixty years of railroading in New Zealand, is also the first magazine to be published by the Railway Administration of this country, the same close scrutiny as on the other trial trip is to be anticipated, and we therefore hasten, while eyes are turned our way, to paint, in prime colours on the bill-board, a list of purposes for which the paper has been created, and of principles upon which it will be run.

We are convinced that, so far as New Zealand is concerned, the Railway is economically the best method yet devised for the land transport of passengers and goods.

Our first business is to help sell railway transport; our next to make it better worth buying. To do the former effectively there must be firm faith in the quality of the goods we have to sell.

Then the whole staff, seventeen thousand strong, should develop an interest in securing business. Combined and properly applied, this great man-power can exercise a tremendous influence on public opinion. There are endless ways by which traffic may be encouraged. Standing up sturdily for the Department against chance-met, ill-informed criticism; recommending Railway methods of travel and transport; using the psychology of “Boost” to make others believe in and appreciate the Railway; these and other means will readily suggest themselves if every member develops the habit of regarding the Department as his own business.

With trade and business relations becoming more impersonal and—the human element being excluded—less interesting, there is a risk,—if nothing be put in to supply its place—that the value of personal interest and co-operation in effort may be lost, without compensation.

We hope to fill that gap by interesting the staff in safety-first movements, in health and general welfare matters, in education, in co-partnership, efficiency, and in points of social development and progress.

This journal stands for whatever is likely to increase co-operation between the Public, the Administration, and the Staff.

Every effort will be made to prevent its interests becoming sectional. If in any issue it appears that one branch of the Service is appropriating all the limelight, readers may be sure that in the next issue that Branch will drop more among the shadows and another be brought under the revealing glow. In the course of each year of issues it is hoped to give every line of Railway endeavour its just proportion of publicity and attention.

What we would like both clients and members to do is to introduce every issue into the home—to make relatives and friends interested in the Railways.

We look for a better service still, for further improvements that will lead to greater perfection in all our dealings with the public, both as travellers and freighters, and with each other as fellow-employees in the largest single enterprise in the Dominion.