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The New Zealand Railways Magazine, Volume 6, Issue 5 (November 2, 1931)

A Run of Luck

A Run of Luck.

Next to running a circus or a boarding school for bolsheviks, running a railway is the most attractive attraction in traction. A railway is a run of luck.

The average citizen or “man in the seat,” imagines that all one requires to run a railway is a good head of steam, a brass hat, and a bell for starting something. As a matter of fact railway-running is more difficult than rum-running. Yet there are people who think that a railway is nothing more than speed without heed or parallel lines ruled by the whim of chance. They imagine that trains are supported by faith, hope and charity, or, like poets and pheasants, can keep running without support. Or they picture the chief steamologist strolling into the iron hostlery, or engines' boudoir in the morning and remarking, “well boys, what's the betting for the nine-fifteen?” and the iron-horses’ bridle-grooms giving him the dope straight from the iron-horse's fire-box, e.g. “She is good for twice the distance boss, and if she doesn't finish first I'll swallow the oil can and cotton waste and get lit.” No, dear reader, if it were as simple as this, railways would be as plentiful as wail-rays, sting-rays, or groanologists.