Why Moses Never Took The Train by Arthur Schram One of the first basketball players to jump from high school to the pros, Moses Malone, charted out a stunning 20-year pro career, etching his name among the best centers of all time. But by the time Malone reached the pros, the jet era had arrived, and he took the plane. The same goes for another athlete born (like Malone) in 1955. Edwin Moses, who preferred to run places, also generally took the airplane. Moses (the original), from the bible, is widely believed to have lived before the 19th century emergence of rail travel. One Moses who did have the option of taking the train, and surprisingly didn't, was Moses Smith, the well known early 20th century paleontologist, who traveled from Newcastle to China on a single pack mule, rather than taking the famed Trans-Siberian Railway, in order to see a freshly discovered fossil site 150 miles by mountain railway from Shanghai. He had a local man carry him on his back into the mountains. What he found when he finally got there, he identified as the remains of a pterodactyl nesting ground ? a discovery for which he is still famous today. He was quoted at the time as saying "Marvelous stuff. Got carried up here. Found some dactyls and I'll be home by Christmas. Huzaaaah." Asked later in his life why he didn't take the train, Smith bristled, looked the Saturday Evening Post reporter in the eye and said, his mouth twitching slightly, "can't stand the smell of steam."