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The New Zealand Railways Magazine, Volume 2, Issue 2 (June 1, 1927)

Off With The New

Off With The New.

You look very happy,” i said to mellerby as he took a chair next to mine. “have you made a lot of money to day?”

“I don't know,” he replied. “I haven't been to the office, but I hope they've not been idle. No I've merely had a delightful experience. It began with a motor accident.”

Now this was an extraordinary opening for Mellerby to employ, because to him a motor accident has always been an unforgivable offence. A car owner almost from the beginning, in those far off days when you wondered why the runaway horse in the non-existent shafts had suddenly become invisible, he has been true to petrol ever since. No one has had more cars or better, and no one knows so much about them. In fact, he would be a bore, but for a capacity to mix human nature with his gears, sweetness and light with his four wheel brakes, jokes with his worm-driven axles and all the rest of it. Strange phrases which leave me gasping are household words with him: governed timing, single sleeves, stream-lined bodies. Sometimes driving himself, sometimes driven, he might be described almost as half car, half man, a six cylinder centaur. But he is no road-hog, and to hear him talking lightly of a motor accident was a shock.

“It happened this afternoon,” he said. “A few miles from Bath. No one was hurt, but both cars damaged. The other fellow's fault beyond any question.”

Perhaps I may have smiled at this. There are certain of a motorist's utterances with which, however ignorant I may be of their esoteric terminology, I am familiar; and this one about the other fellow comes perhaps first.

“No,” he repeated, “no doubt about it at all; the other fellow was to blame. Anyway, we were just able to get the car to a garage in Bath; and it was then that a new and strange bliss was unfolded to me. When I say new, I am not strictly truthful; not so much new as forgotten.”

“What was it?” I asked.

“Well,” he said, “I'll tell you the whole story. After I had fixed things up with the garage and left all particulars as to the other fellow's name, the insurance company and so forth, I moved my belongings into a cab and was driven to a great building with a clock on it, where a kind man in uniform welcomed me most warmly. Although a total stranger, directly he saw me coming he opened the door and took out my things and asked me most considerately where I wanted to go.”

“I said to London, and he said if I waited for a few minutes it could be managed.

“After paying the cabman I was led to a little hole in the wall, where another man, also a charming creature, asked me the same question. Again I said to London, and he gave me a little piece of card in exchange for a trifling sum of money.

“This card was nearly taken away from me at the door by a man with a pair of nippers, but I managed to get most of it back.

“By this time certain vague memories were beginning to flit hazily through my mind. You know that odd feeling when on a sudden you are mistily conscious that you have been there before? Well, I had this very strongly.

“Those strange long lines of shining metal, parallel with each other, in a kind of gully, on the edge of which people with bags were standing—either I had seen those before, or it belonged to a previous existence.

“Suddenly a huge and terrifying monster rushed in and gradually stopped, dragging behind him a long line of little houses on wheels. Rather like the motor caravans that you now have such difficulty in passing because they hold the middle of the road and don't have mirrors; and each little house—there was a lengthy terrace of them—had windows, from which people were peering, and doors, through which other people were getting in or out.

“In a curious hypnotic trance, still thinking I had at some very distant time been through just such manoeuvres before, I allowed the kind stranger with my bag to conduct me to one of these abodes, with only two other residents in it, and to deposit me in extreme comfort in a safe corner seat.

‘“You said ‘Smoker’ and ‘Back to the engine,’” he reminded me as I sank back.

“When had I said it? I had no recollection whatever; but as he repeated the words, and even more as I looked at the scowling faces of the two other inhabitants of the place, I suddenly realised what had happened; I was once again in a train; after years of moving about exclusively in a car, I was again a railway passenger.

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“And do you know,” he went on, “I loved it. I revelled in it. I liked it all; I liked sitting the wrong way and seeing only the country that we had done with. I liked having no responsibility for the driver. I liked the fury of the man opposite me when I suggested that a little air might be an advantage. I liked the rattle and the jumping about. I liked the notice about pulling the cord. I liked the photographs of the Wye and Brixham, and decided that cars ought to have photographs too. But what do you think I liked most?”

“Getting out at Paddington,” I said.

“No,” he replied, “I didn't like that at all. I wasn't ready to leave such luxury. No, what I liked best was reading all the weekly papers once more. I used to do all my reading of periodicals in trains, but since I've been a complete motorist I never see them except in clubs. You can't read in a car, and so I've missed all except those we take at home. But this afternoon I've read them again; I've read The Sphere and The Graphic and the Feild and The Sketch and The Illustrated and The Tattler and Punch and lots of others. In fact, I've had a most astonishing and glorious afternoon. I hope my car won't be mended for weeks.”

Waikato River at Atiamuri, North Island, N. Z.

Waikato River at Atiamuri, North Island, N. Z.

Canadian Optimism.

The Railway broadcasting system of the Canadian National Railways celebrated its fourth anniversary on 29th December, 1926. In the course of an anniversary broadcast message, Sir Henry Thornton, K. B. E., Chairman and President of the Canadian National Railways, said that from every point of view the establishment of their broadcasting system had been amply justified. “We hear,” said he, “much about our natural resources, the undeveloped wealth of our country, and of the opportunities which it offers, but within the past four years there has developed an asset which I regard as almost of greater value to our nation. It is the development of a sane, steady optimism; a confidence in the future of the Dominion and courage and determination to overcome all obstacles. The psychological conditions of a nation is just as important as its economic conditions. A downhearted people never attained success. A scared army never won victories. Therefore, we all may rejoice in that fine feeling which permeates our country from the Atlantic to the Pacific.”

The message was spoken through the microphone from Montreal, picked up by land wires, and carried to Ottawa and Toronto and thus sent out by simultaneous broadcast from these three stations of the Radio Department of the Canadian National Railways.

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