Other formats

    TEI XML file   ePub eBook file  

Connect

    mail icontwitter iconBlogspot iconrss icon

The New Zealand Railways Magazine, Volume 2, Issue 8 (December 1, 1927)

[section]

“Scrooge became as good a friend, as good a master, and as good a man, as the good old city knew, or any other good old city, town or borough, in the good old world. He had no further intercourse with Spirits, but lived upon the Total Abstinence Principle ever afterwards; and it was always said of him that he knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge. May that be truly said of us, and all of us! And so, as Tiny Tim observed, God Bless Us, Every One!”-Dickens “Christmas Carol.”

Christmas! How magical a word is this: how wonderful its power in awakening happy recollections and dormant sympathies. Railway folk the world over are ever eager to welcome the coming of Saint Christmas, with all his bluff and hearty honesty. This age-long season of hospitality, merriment and open-heartedness may bring with it much arduous labour for the railway worker, but where is the platelayer, the clerk or the superintendent who would dream of offering resistance to the spirit of Christmas?

Do you remember how dear old Bob Cratchit, general factotum to the miser Scrooge, trotted off to his humble home on Christmas Eve? Advanced in years though he was, and worn by the struggle of making ends meet on a beggarly salary, he leaped and sang, and raced down the slippery slides with the best of them. Eternal, indeed, is the spirit with which Dickens saturated his Christmas stories. North, south, east and west, goes out the magic message to the tune of Christmas bells. Happy, happy season, that can so melt the hear of mankind that the simplest of pleasures are steeped in pure and unalloyed delight, and for a while, at least, the world resounds to the sacred call: “Peace on earth; good-will toward men.”

The Home railways have not, as yet, this year been troubled greatly by severe snowstorms and similar seasonable obstacles to train movement. Normally, the British winter is less severe than that experienced in other parts of Europe. Norway, Sweden, Russia and Switzerland are proverbially bad-weather lands at this period. In these northern countries snow at times plays terrible havoc on the railways: for the snow-plough gangs there, Christmas often brings trouble in abundance.