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The New Zealand Railways Magazine, Volume 8, Issue 5 (September 1, 1933)

[section]

Here is a happy passenger—enjoying safety, comfort and economy—gazing at some pleasant scenes of New Zealand, one of the world's best countries. This article gives some of the reasons why the people can use their own railways in full confidence that all will be well with them.

A Story is told of a proud inventor who, after years of patient, intelligent toil, showed a working model of a steam engine to King Richard III. of England. The monarch suspected the “black art” of the devil and he took a short way with that invention. He called in a member of his executioners staff who swung a sledgehammer on the engine and silenced its hissing. Marvellous feats, attributed to Satan and his satellites in the Dark Ages, would be very ordinary affairs in contrast with the modern miracles of practical science.

Any New Zealander who feels that his bump of self-esteem is exceptionally large is advised to visit the big Railway Workshops in the Hutt Valley. Here, if he has an open mind, he will come fairly to the belief that he is a speck in a big field of achievement. In those huge buildings are marshalled in orderly array machines and other equipment showing the whole range of human inventiveness—man's mastery of mysterious forces.

Here Vulcan is mechanised, and he has a prowess beyond the exploits told in ancient mythology. Here Science is King, and his ministers are system and co-ordination. Muddle is in perpetual exile, and Waste is an outlaw. Saving time, saving labour, saving material—that is the impression which is fixed on the spectator in the various sections of the farspread plant. A township has grown around that immense enterprise which employs about 1,200 breadwinners.