"Good to see more trains back on the tracks," my brother remarked as the kids with their parked up bikes waiting for it to pass waved at it.
I guess we saw the equivalent of about 20 large truck and trailers go by in only a minute or two so disruption to traffic was negligible.
And that stop time waiting for the bells to fall silent is always well utilised of course...the drivers can start sneaking looks at their cellphones.
Trains are excellent things and there are countries in this world which would dissolve without them.
Aussie, our neighbours across the Tassie, would be one of them.
Getting goods and produce from Adelaide to Perth would be a logistical nightmare without the great trains which ply the long lines through the great open and barren Nullarbor landscape.
Trucks of course could make the run but to get that daily amount of stock and trade across to the west would require about 400 of them...running constantly.
The roads would be rubble in a fortnight.
And India...without trains the land would fall silent.
Commerce, trade and travel would collapse.
Railway lines have to be the greatest invention ever conceived.
How else were we kids expected to flatten pennies?
So of course after they invented the railway line they invented the train and then they invented the carriages and started mining for coal to run the boilers and things.
That was before they invented diesel which accordingly inspired a singer called Little Eva to put out a song called The Locomotion.
If any children are reading this (come on kids you must have better things to do) then please do not go to school with this information and use it for your end of year talk.
For it is always better to end a year on a sensible note.
I have always liked trains and I applaud their use, which sadly in this land is not nearly enough any more.
They used to.
As a lad infatuated by squashed pennies, I can recall seeing the circus come to town once, aboard about 20 or so carriages drawn by a great engine puffing smoke.
Living beside a railway line in the last days of steam and smoke was absolutely wonderful...and in winter the driver boys would throw a few small bags of coal over into our yard — they knew we were a bit hard up and needed to keep the fire going in mid-August.
And they'd always wave.
As would the passengers aboard the railcars as they journeyed by.
We would wave and wonder...wonder where these lucky train travellers were going.
Now the railcars have gone so it's all buses and cars, which is a tad sad because there is a sort of relaxing practicality about travelling by train.
When our kids were little we put them on a train doing a passenger run from Napier to Hastings, and they buzzed for days afterwards and everyone they saw got told "we went on a train!"
Today I'm just left pondering that hey, we have the tracks, why aren't we using them more when it comes to shifting people...the Manawatu Gorge is still open by the way...for rail traffic.
So I was rather delighted to read recently of plans to create a sort of scenic long train journey adventure here in Enzed.
We've got a few running, and of course during the great Art Deco Festival the nostalgic trains draw great numbers, but this plan is for a journey from one end of the land to the other.
Like the Great Ghan in Oz but without kangaroos.
I hope it works, although sadly it wouldn't come through these parts as we sort of veer off the main central pathway.
Which is a shame, because it's sure to be a real big penny-squasher, and there'll be lots of people inside it to wave to.