IDEAS ABOVE OUR STATION

Press, Volume CV, Issue 30959, 15 January 1966, Page 12

IDEAS ABOVE OUR STATION

[By

WHIM WHAM)

Some People travel still by Train, Preferring It to Bus or Plane. The Railway Engine was, of course, Man’s first Replacement for the Horse, His first Experiment with Speed His Chariot of Fire, indeed. Some People will not go by Air So long as a fast Train is there. Some feel It safer, Others cheaper; Some take a Smoker, Some a Sleeper. Whether You like It, or regret, The Railway Train is with Us yet Not Everybody goes by Jet. Sir, I’ve been looking at the Nation’s More monumental Railway Stations; Those not-particularly-vast feut poignant Relics of a Past That’s still half Present, can’t be classed With History’s nobler Ruins, No! Why, barely Forty Years ago Auckland’s great Station was its Pride. The Evidence can’t be denied: Aucklanders took their Guests to view it And Auckland Bards wrote Poems to It (Sir, if You don’t believe Me, look At Francis Cloke’s immortal Book.) I could dilate upon this Theme Of our Memorials to Steam Christchurch’s, one of the more Recent; Wellington’s, one of the least Decent, Where Kupe’s Statue, gathering Dust, Fills me with melancholy Disgust Chipped Teapots in the Cafeteria, ‘Coffee’ to Which there’s None inferior To all Appearances the solidest Of all our Ruins, and the soualidest. ‘See Naples,’ Someone said, ‘and die!’ See Wellington Station, Sir and FLY!