Forty years ago a freight train travelling from Albury to Melbourne ploughed into the back of a broken-down passenger train at Barnawartha, killing two people and injuring several others.
Pete Klein remembers that day; he was living with one of the men killed in the incident, 18-year-old Mark Wilson, and whose dad was the station master at nearby Chiltern overseeing staff that day.
Wilson was a fireman on the freight train and was learning to be a driver.
"I can recall the night before … he was getting ready to go to work and we were actually going through the rules train drivers have to learn," Mr Klein said.
"He was asking me to test him, and one of the questions I had to ask him was: When you approach a red light on a standard gauge, when can you proceed through a red light?"
The answer ultimately played a part in what cost Wilson his life.
A tragic series of events
Mr Klein said several things went wrong on June 17, 1982.
Wilson met with the driver of the train, 49-year-old George Sandford, around 4am and their journey began.
The pair had been told the main train between Sydney and Melbourne, Spirit of Progress, had been delayed and was pulling into Albury.
"They had the instruction to wait for the Spirit to go past, allow about 15 minutes to have a bit of space, and then follow the Spirit of Progress," Mr Klein said.
What Wilson and Sandford didn't know was that when the Spirit was changing engines at Wodonga, the wrong one was taken which led to a breakdown a few stops away at Barnawartha.
Enough time passed and the freight train resumed its journey but approached a red section light alerting the driver that another train was in that section.
Sandford made the decision to continue through but at a speed slow enough for the train to stop if needed, which was correct procedure at the time.
Mr Klein said there would have been close to no visibility that day as the train rounded a bend approaching Barnawartha station.
"They came around the corner and they saw in the distance the tail lights of the Spirit of Progress guardsman and they realised at that stage that it was dead ahead of them.
"The warning hooter just kept going off … Mark would have been sounding the hooter and George has got the brakes on.
"They would be sitting there … praying that the train's going to stop in time."
Heroes in death
But the train didn't stop.
With 11 heavy-goods carriages behind them, the freight train rammed into the back of the stricken Spirit of Progress, killing Wilson and Sandford and injuring around 20 others on the passenger train.
The guard at the rear of the Spirit survived the collision after leaping clear upon hearing the approaching train's whistle.
"I believe Mark and George were heroes because they sat on board that locomotive … they could have jumped," Mr Klein said.
They couldn't talk to each other
The incident was investigated but Mr Klein believes it ultimately came down to communication issues.
"It's crystal clear what went wrong … there was no two-way radio communication," he said.
The Spirit's driver could not communicate with the rear guard nor could the two trains communicate with each other.
Back then, train communication systems were similar to morse code, sending signals using a series of short and long blasts from whistles, according to Chris Harding, vice-president of the Australian Railway Historical Society.
"Generally [the introduction of] radios have had an effect, but you've also now got an eye in the sky with satellites that are tracking trains," Mr Harding said.
Safety had always been the biggest issue for rail operators, he said, but there could be some major changes, including driverless trains, in the near future that would promote better safety.
"The next decade we will see signals disappear, all the signalling will be what they call in-cab.
