History
The New Zealand railway network was initially built by provincial governments, starting with the Ferrymead Railway in 1863. From 1880 a central Government department, the New Zealand Railways Department, was responsible for operating most of the growing railway network. A few private lines were built, but only one, the Wellington and Manawatu Railway Company (W&MR) achieved any measure of success. The W&MR was nationalised in 1908. In 1931 due to increasing competition from road carriers, the Transport Licensing Act 1931 was passed, restricting road cartage and giving the railways department a monopoly on long-distance freight. In 1982, the same year the land transport sector was deregulated, the Railways Department was reconstituted as the New Zealand Railways Corporation, a state-owned enterprise. The Railways Corporation restructured the operations of the rail network substantially during the 1980s, reducing staffing levels, closing workshops and introducing a number of measures to increase productivity, such as removing guard's vans, increasing train lengths and introducing new, heavier bulk bogie wagons.
Read more about this topic: Tranz Rail
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“It’s not the sentiments of men which make history but their actions.”
—Norman Mailer (b. 1923)
“Every generation rewrites the past. In easy times history is more or less of an ornamental art, but in times of danger we are driven to the written record by a pressing need to find answers to the riddles of today.... In times of change and danger when there is a quicksand of fear under men’s reasoning, a sense of continuity with generations gone before can stretch like a lifeline across the scary present and get us past that idiot delusion of the exceptional Now that blocks good thinking.”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)
“A people without history
Is not redeemed from time, for history is a pattern
Of timeless moments.”
—T.S. (Thomas Stearns)