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The New Zealand Railways Magazine, Volume 3, Issue 5 (September 1, 1928)

Studying Railway Problems Abroad

Studying Railway Problems Abroad.

Railway working is to-day so international in character that it would be foolish in the extreme for the railwayman of any one land to shut his eyes to what is going on in the railway field in countries other than his own, and to bury himself in his own local problems to the exclusion of all others. The need for a wider outlook among railwaymen was never more fully realised at Home than is the case to-day. Visits are constantly being paid by groups of Home railwaymen to the railway centres on the Continent, and now and then special parties of Home railway officers are made up to tour the great transportation systems of the United States and Canada. In a smaller way, much good is being done by the study of railway journals and other literature bearing upon overseas and foreign railway practice.

Quite recently a party of ninety members of the Railway Students’ Association of the London page 29 School of Economics paid a most profitable week's visit to France, with a view to studying railway problems across the Channel. From London the party travelled to Dunkirk, where a tour of the docks was made. Lille next was visited, with its fine hump marshalling yard of the Nord Company, handling eighty trains per day, and equipped with a remarkable system of rail brakes for regulating the movement of wagons through the yard. After a round of sight-seeing in Paris, the party proceeded to Tours by the Orleans line. The electrified section from the Quai d'Orsay Station, Paris, to Aubres-Orleans excited much interest, and leaving the Orleans line behind, visits were paid by the P.L.M. line to Lyons, Marseilles, Nice, Mentone and Monte Carlo. Visits of this character are to be whole-heartedly commended, and one hopes the time is not far distant when every big railway undertaking in the world will make provision for the despatch on organised study tours abroad of selected officers and representatives of the rank and file, with a view to broadening the outlook of the staff generally and bringing new thought and new ideas to aid in the solution of local problems.