THE CALM OF CARNACHAN

NZ Truth, Issue 1194, 18 October 1928, Page 6

THE CALM OF CARNACHAN

WHAT a problem — the millions sunk' in" railway tracks and plant! No longer does the Iron Horse belch a noisy defiance to the world; it meekly craves a meed of public favor. Gone the superior being who handed you a train ticket with an air of "take it or leave it." A new and, deferential type courts your patronage. . ' '•■ Perturbing, of course, to the cast-iron railway mind to see the growing stream of motor traffic, but utterly futile to pretend that it- is insignificant. Nothing else for it, really, but for the railway department .to butt m, as it were, and have a finger m the motor pie. , Thus^.we find Jack Carnachan, big, bluff and genial, m. charge of the motor-bus branch, of the New Zealand Railways. A few years back to 1896, when Carnachan entered the railway service as a raw cadet. Nothing, then, to hint that King Petrol was about to challenge the dominance of the Iron' Horse. But when the new thin,g on tyres began tp filch freight and passengers, it was time to sit up and take notice. •' . : .'_' ■'■ Carnachan was one of those who accepted as inevitable the" new phase of transport. Skilled m traffic problems, he recognized that the future solution lay m the wider consideration of transport by any suitable means. His first venture m the motor-bus department was the control of the service between Napier and Hastings. A wrench to forsake the steady old iron steed which had blazed' a trail through miles of wild, unbroken country. . ■Not that Carnachan believes that rails should now be left to rust and weeds permitted to obliterate sleepers. He will tell you that one must simply move with the times; that the motor-bus is subsidiary and complementary to the rail — and not necessarily a wrecking instrument. Safe to say-that Carnachan is one of the really popular type of railway officers. No difficulty has ever been known to ruffle his perennial calm. Not the. sort of public servant, is he, for instance, who flatly tells you "It can't be done," and stands pat upon some regulation. : Jack has other interests beside transport. He was a founder of the Piako Rugby Union and was also a hefty forward m his younger days. dent of the Otahuhu Orphans' Club and a member of the Northern Boxing Association indicate a variety of interests m his fellow men. Controlling a youthful phase of business, he naturally retains a young outlook on life. , And he will still be young— and not one whit disgruntled — when fleets of 'aeroplanes are leaving the motor-bus cold and obsolete by the wayside.