Guest contributor Peter Williams detailed the Albury Station and freight yard prior to the standard gauge being completed through to Melbourne. Albury was typical of all the border centres across Australia, except that it had the honour of being the main south line, which was the busiest in Australia. Consequently, the Albury freight yard was a beehive of activity.
M V Tronson recalls that as a young boy of 10, when his parents sent his older brother and himself to an Auntie in Melbourne for two weeks of the summer holidays, the Albury platform was hectic as the rush from the New South Wales train to Victoria's Spirit of Progress.
"One of the interesting highlights of Peter Williams recollections of that era was his description of the Agricultural inspectors from both States whose tasks were to ensure that no fruit or vegetables were to be transhipped by any passenger from one State to the other. There was a great fear at the time of the movement of plant diseases and insects (including fruit fly)," M V Tronson noted.
It should be noted that it may have been onerous, but this strategy was successful in keeping fruit-fly and other diseases out of Victoria, at that time. In the 'On Track' monthly 'Footplate Padre' article, he says that the fruit coming from NSW was good and edible to the border, as was fruit from Victoria.
"Paul the apostle speaks of the fruits of the Spirit in this same positive light. In other words, fruit is a measure of the positive outcomes of the character of Christ that His followers aim to exhibit. Fruit of this kind can all be regarded as healthful and wholesome. Yet, as soon as that same fruit is taken across the border it is in dangerous territory. So too the fruits of the Spirit when compromised attending the wrong party or keeping the wrong company," M V Tronson noted.
The outworking of Salvation are the fruits of the Spirit he explained. "But Salvation itself is an issue that is based solely on Christ's death on the Cross for your sin, never on how good you are, for in reality none of us are good, our hearts are disparately wicked!", M V Tronson said.
This is the biblical reason, he explained that why Jesus could die for 'personal sin', for Jesus never sinned, yet He died for me and you.