Part of the answer is revealed in an anecdote near the ending of his first railway book, which relates to a question that Jesus posed to his disciples and that M V Tronson felt constrained in his own heart that the Holy Spirit was similarly challenging him.
His dream of the railways became a reality as a sixteen year old in 1968, and he left home in Canberra to commence at the Goulburn round house as a trainee engineman. He transferred to Port Kembla in 1969 where some years later he topped the Acting Driver's School. His railway career was driven by passion!
But as M V Tronson says, life is not about any one single activity. Also important in his life at that time were hockey and athletics, the Baptist church youth group, as well as coping with the life events such as the necessity to relocate, and travelling home to visit his parents.
"I'd been thinking about Christian service for some time," recalled M V Tronson, who revealed in his first railway book, that he was in the cabin of a 48 class diesel parked in Port Kembla North siding, preparing to haul an afternoon passenger train to Thirroul, when he sensed the hand of God challenge his life.
He continues: "The question was, 'Do you love me (Jesus) more than these (locomotives)?' The very thing I loved most and was dynamically passionate about, I was being challenged on, yet I felt a the burden of a higher calling on my life, and that was to Jesus," Mark Tronson remembers vividly.
To him, this was like tearing my flesh from his body, it was agony, causing trauma and disbelief beyond measure. He sought out wise counsel and finally made a decision for theological college. The rest is history.
By 1984 he had already written two books on field hockey and that led naturally to a railway book, the first of many.
"The Lord gave the railways back to me in abundance, but in a way far different from that I would have never dreamed as a train driver. And now, 40 years later, he has given me the opportunity to be the Footplate Padre," comments M V Tronson.
This story is far from being atypical. Those in Christian service, whether overseas or at home in Australia, will attest over and again that God honours them in abundance!
But this is the Biblical norm, although it goes against every 'worldly' grain in our bodies. It's called 'faith'. Luke 18: 29-30: "There is no one who has left house or parents or brothers or wife or children, for the sake of the kingdom of God who shall not receive many time more in this present time, and in the age to come ever lasting life."