Devonport's Goss family will never forget the day that Des and his son Grant fell in love with steam engines at the Don River Railway.
They can't forget because that was the day that they — the rest of the family — were left stranded at the beach.
"We just got so into it, we forgot about the others," a still sheepish Grant Goss recalls.
That was 1973 and Grant — to be fair — was only six.
Des concedes he had also bought Grant a train set for Christmas and then played with it more than his son did.
"I had an interest in steam because my father worked on steam traction engines. I think it was in my blood," Des, who gives his age as "80-plus", says.
"It was the Van Diemen Light Railway in them early days. We were so taken with it that we started coming every day and we've just never left."
Hand-painting massive locomotives
Amazingly, Des has been hand-painting all of the huge locomotives and carriages at the railway for the past 30 years. He's still going strong into his 80s.
It takes from six months to a year to prepare and then give three top coats to the enormous machines.
Des typically starts at 5 or 6 in the morning to leave plenty of time for driving trains.
He is qualified to drive diesel and steam and loves shovelling coal as the fireman for grandson Matt when he is driving.
Grant also became a diesel train driver and steam engine fireman.
Matt, now 32, had no choice at all. He was just born into the Don River Railway and destined to be all of the above.
The Don River Railway is a volunteer-driven tourist railway and railway museum close to Devonport.
It began in the 1970s with the refurbishing of the Melrose line, once used by BHP to ship limestone into the Devonport wharf.
It runs from the Don River station to Don Junction, right next to Devonport's picturesque Coles Beach.
The railway has 200 members and about half of those volunteer in the running or maintenance of its important heritage rail collection.
Some of Matt's earliest sensory experiences are the smell of those old trains, the sound of their fireboxes and whistles, and the sight of steam filling the cold morning air.
Like Des, Matt is qualified as a steam train driver and fireman and works full time at railway handling event management.
"I have a creative side and I guess it flows into driving the trains too," he says.
"I had the steam bug as early as I can remember. Every day in the school holidays I'd come down and help out on the engines."
Des is nearing the end of a huge paint job on the shiny red MA2 loco.
He reckons he has painted almost every piece of rail hardware in the place, many of them twice, some of them more.
"I reckon I've got another five or six years left in me with the painting," Des says confidently.
No compromise on washing
After 49 years and three generations, Des's lovely wife, Wendy, has come to terms with his train obsession and forgiven the "tunnel vision" that left her stranded at the beach.
"Yeah, my wife and I, we get along well about all this," Des says, flipping the lid on a tin of '"team train red", ready to do another painting shift.
"It was actually my job to be here for about 20 years," he says.
He would sometimes work for 12 or 13 hours.
"I go home from here filthy and she wouldn't want to touch them I think."
Don River Railway's museum, workshops and cafe are open Monday to Thursday. They do weekday rail car rides and steam train trips on the weekends.
