Will Railways Regain Supremacy in Transport

Northland Age, Volume 5, Issue 24, 13 March 1936, Page 8

Will Railways Regain Supremacy in Transport

For some years past it has been fashionable, says the Minister of Railways in a brief message in “The Standard,” on the part of some critics as they turn their eyes from the steam haulage train that has rendered such wonderful service in the past in the development of the nations, to the fast moving motor services on the roads, then upwards to the aeroplane moving rapidly across the skies, to say, “The railways are obsolete, their day is done.” But today a new hope dawns on the horizon in the shape of the oil-driven rail-car. The writer recently had the opportunity of taking a trip on one of these cars, and confesses to a thrill of enthusiasm as he recalls the rapidity of motion, the dustless track, the clean, sunny air, the absence of road shocks at intersections, or of competing motor traffic. That hope revives every time I look at the two pictures of the new rail-cars in their bright red, but artistic, paint, sailing along through fields of green, which hang in my Ministerial office, telling me of that new day when the railways will return to their unchallenged supremacy in the transport world. Maybe the mental picture that I have conjured up is overdrawn. But, honestly, I don’t think so. I think, however enthusiastic it may sound, that the future will prove it sober and faithful to fact, and if that is so, the railwayman can cast a look of derision at the comparatively slow motor traffic on the roads, and even at the mechanical eagle of the skies, because of its load limitations ; and, with the new hope of better things in the domain of science and mechanics, there is, side by side with that, new hope for the public in improved and cheapened travel facilities in all parts of the country, and new hope for our splendid railway staff, in improved remuneration and conditions of work.