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Reader question: Please explain this headline: Transport policy of city needs new train of thought. “Train of thought”? My comments: The railway train being such an important means of transport, or transportation, we have a good play of words here. The city’s transport policy makers need a new “train of thought”. In other words, they need a new line of thinking. Fresh ideas, that is. They need to get out of the old rut and take a new route. Back to train of thought, which, by the way, means a series of connected thoughts developing in one’s mind. The train, you see, is a number of connected cars or carriages pulled by an engine. Hence, it’s not too far fetched to liken one’s thinking process to a moving railway train. People sometimes say they have to collect their thoughts. That means they have to rearrange their ideas before they can make a convincing argument with good reasoning. Then they start talking and you say something to disrupt their thoughts. They ask: “Where was I?” Then you know you’ve disrupted their “train of thought” and they’ve lost track of their points of argument. See? To enable good reasoning, you need to get your “train of thought” going and uninterrupted, like a moving train. Actually, the term “train of thought” was coined in 1651 by Thomas Hobbes (Wikipedia). So you know the term has nothing to do with the steam train, which only came into existence in the early 19th century. | 
