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The New Zealand Railways Magazine, Volume 13, Issue 3 (June 1, 1938.)

The Way We Go

The Way We Go.

When “Romance brought up the nine-fifteen”-45 years ago—steam held undisputed sway as the ruling motive power by land and sea. To-day it is being pressed hard by petrol and electricity on these two elements, and it is not even a starter in the air.

Steam has, in fact, got nowhere in land transport except with the aid of rails, but it still helps Romance to “bring up the nine-fifteen.” Its main job, however, is to do the hard work of the railway world, leaving the lighter part and most of the entertainment to its daintier rivals or associates.

A railwayman's loyalties in these days have to be divided fairly between various sources of power and modes of travel. First there are the claims of the steam locomotive with its “few live coals in a pot,” its wisps of steam, its panting Westing-house, its hissing and puffing, its aura of power, impatience, and romance. Then there are the practically noiseless movement and easy grace of the rail car, the electric locomotive, and the electric multiple unit. He must be tolerant, too, of the road motors, for they feed his trains and carry his passengers where railways do not run, and they frequently fill in conveniently the gaps between his train connections.

To make the best arrangements for using all these resources in the ways and means of transport to the mutual benefit of all is no small problem, and certainly dwarfs the problems of railroading in the days when steam and the rail were both unchallenged.

The new romance of transport consists in its infinite variety and the intense activity in mechanical adaptations and improvements to make travel for the individual safe, quick and comfortable, and the transit of his goods reliable and fast. Already no part of the globe is truly inaccessible. Though they have not yet scaled Mt. Everest it has been flown over, and the poles themselves are no longer remote.

Transport is a maker of markets, a wealth producer, an outlet for industry and human and mechanical energy. Its further development is an aid to education, to the fullness of life and to the possibility of greater happiness.

The young man of the present day is not disturbed by the broader outlook upon transport matters that is his. He is himself the vehicle of new ideas and has developed at liking for mechanism, and an easy understanding of the powers that produce, propel and sustain the vehicles of transport. He is entering and possessing new lands of thought, where transport for all plays an intensely engrossing part, and the places and interests of the whole world are coming increasingly within his reach through the transport developments the younger generation are themselves helping to bring about. And—

“When the old world is sterile
And the Ages are effete,
He will from wrecks and sediment
The fairer world complete.”