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Perhaps more than anything else, the shape and style of transport has identified itself with the times. For more than a century the steam train has been a dramatic symbol of pioneering and progress in almost every country of the world, including New Zealand. But times change, and with the arrival of the atom age, transport begins to wear a cleaner, more effioient look; a little blurred still, perhaps, when seen through the eyes of those whose affections contain a special niche for big locomotives, but coming just as inevitably as the steam engine is going. Contrast Gisborne's last scheduled steam passenger train (above), leaving the station on February 1, with the new 88—passenger, diesel-driven railcar.

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which will soon take up the running on the Wellington-Gisborne line. The railcar is seen at Gisborne during a recent trial visit. (Photos by R. Hepburn, N.Z.R., Gisborne.)