A RAILWAY FAREWELL

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 144, 16 December 1930, Page 12

A RAILWAY FAREWELL

CHIEF DRAUGHTSMAN HETIItES

On Saturday afternoon representatives of the Chief Mechanical. Engineers' Department of the New Zealand Railways, and of the Hntt Valley Workshops, met to say farewell to Mr. E. A. Copley, chief draughtsman of the locomotive branch, who is retiring on superannuation. Mr. Copley joined the service on 10th November, 1890. He has been senior draughtsman in the J | mechanical engineer's office since April, 11925. Mr. Copley was presented with a silver tea service by Mr. E. T. Spidy, general superintendent of the workshops, on behalf of tho combined staffs, as a mark of the esteem in which his fellow members held him. Mr. Spidy said that he dlid not know another man in the service who had given of his best to a gruator extent than Mr. Copley. He trusted that Mr. Copley would long enjoy Mb period of I superannuation. Other members of the staff who expressed appreciation of Mr. Copley's cheery disposition, his helpful attitude towards others in their work, and his great value to the Department in the work of the drawing office, were the assistant chief mcchanica',l engineer (Mr. T. E. Angus), tho workshops manager in the Hutt Valley (Mr. A. P. Wahvorth), Mr. Gard, and Mr. H. F. Jenkinson. Mr. Copley said that tho large attendance at the gathering speke well for the co-ordination botween the head office, drawing office, and workshops. During the forty years he had ibeen in the service he had worked afc times under unusual circumstances, rn.Xfii'l'iug to the demand made in 3924 for tho equipment of eight cars with sleeping accommodation for the "Limited!''' cx.pross in eight days. This had been possible by tho splendid eo-operatilon of the workshops. Within quarter of an hour after ho had visited the shops, after drawing up ihc plans, tho work was actually started. The friondsi ho had made in the railway service were tlie best. As far as ho was concerned, he had found his job the most iuter.csting thing in life, and now, though ho felt that ho was far from past woitk, ho, like others, would find it difficult to know what to do with .himself.