overhead network, and the 20 Ansaldo buses (which have since been sold off and converted to diesel because changes to the route structure did away with the need for so many trolley buses). So after the cancellation of Robbie's Rapid Rail, O-Bahn became the panacaea, then light rail.... Meanwhile poor sods queued at the bus stop, for Diesel dungers once they got rid of the trolleys, allegedly to save some quite small margin in costs. Wellington thought otherwise. Muldoon's government, which had cancelled Robbie's Rapid Rail in 1976, then became more pro-rail because of the oil crises and as part of its Think Big scheme, which really only took shape after the 1978 election and the 1978/79 Iranian oil crisis. This included lengthening Wellington's system by 10 km in 1983 and commissioning the 411 km North Island Main Trunk electrification. Maybe the Ganz Mavag deal was part of Think Big, I will have to check that the next time I am in the library (I do go there from time to time). As for State Highways vs Rail it's not "conspiratorial nonsense," just straight out institutional analysis of the kind of economic and departmental rivalry that breaks out when you have two tigers on one mountain, as they say in China. It would be nonsense if I was to deny that rail faced problems due to NZ's small population relative to the scale of the infrastructure, a fact of life which really lies at the root of practically all our