Some days were literally a train wreck. Most days though, driving a train in Tasmania seemed the best job in the world.
Recently retired TasRail driver Grant Youd has written a book, A Train Driver's Story, recounting the highs and lows of his 49 years on the rails.
It also looks back fondly on days when every tiny community had a station, a gang of fettlers and lad porters who kept their buttons polished.
"The book opens with what readers tell me is a pretty gripping account of my big smash," Mr Youd said.
"It's very detailed. I have no right to be here today. I should not be alive."
A rail had broken in a steep cutting near Renison Bell, between Rosebery and Melba flats on the west coast of Tasmania.
"You could reach out and touch the sides of these cuttings, it's so tight. That's all that kept me upright at first," Mr Youd said.
"But once I left the cutting, it was still at speed, with 1500 tonnes of copper behind me and four locos. Several thousand horsepower, humming away.
"The world went upside down and so did the locos and so did I."
Remarkably, Mr Youd wasn't seriously injured in the 2009 crash, although he says he does carry psychological scars.
Today, retired and relaxed at his small farm near Ulverstone, Mr Youd says he could fill 10 books with the better experiences of driving a train.
On a great day, Mr Youd would be listening to opera in the cab, with spray from the Bass Strait waves raining across the train.
He often watched flocks of seabirds diving for fish just offshore.
Then he'd change the music back to Johnny Cash.
He regards the 150-year-old line that runs along the north-west coast of Tasmania as the most extraordinary in the country.
"It's a train driver's dream. The line hugs the coast, especially between Burnie and Ulverstone," he said.
"You see things no-one else could.
"There was often sea salt on the rails — which was great for traction!
"People would come from all over the world to ride a passenger train along there.
"I do hope Don River Railway can get that happening again.
"And on the west coast trains, you're sometimes ploughing through snow, trees and man ferns loaded up in the ravines and above the cliffs.
"Eagles patrol the lines because they're an opening in the rainforest canopy. Sometimes they'd lift off right in front of you and slowly flap up to speed.
"We'd only be doing 20 to 30km/h in the train and they'd do the same, just flying there, right on the nose of the train, for hundreds of metres sometimes."
For the past 10 years of his career, Mr Youd helped to train new drivers. He insisted they listen to opera. He says it was a standing joke, posing as a test of patience.
There were much sterner tests when he started out on the railway.
"I had no choice in this. My father, Joe, was a fettler, my older brother a track supervisor … my twin brother a track supervisor," Mr Youd said.
"I would wag school, aged 10, and my dog and I would jump on my dad's gang trolley, and rattle off down the track.
"The communications out on the line were pretty ordinary back then.
"First lesson my dad taught me was the right way to jump off the trolley if a train was ever bearing down on us.
"You had to leave it to the last minute so all the steel bars and heavy jacks didn't get shot back at you after the train hit.
"I never had to do it but my dad's gang did a number of times."
As a "lad porter" in the early 1970s, a teenaged Mr Youd would sell tickets at the Dunorlan station.
He would have to keep his buttons and badges polished to please the station master.
"They were very respected figures. Everybody relied on the rail," Mr Youd said.
"It wasn't just bulk rail from pit to port like it is now. You had everything from matchboxes to pigeons on the train.
"People waited for something at every little stop.
"My dad had a gang of six men at Dunorlan. There were gangs all along the way … [and] station masters, porters. Big employment. And it was a family."
Documenting the changes and fondly remembering the old railways culture were priorities for Mr Youd in writing his book.
"There could be a real snake in your lunch bag sometimes. Those pranks wouldn't happen now and they shouldn't," he said.
"But somehow I miss the times. That stuff was like a social glue. It was very human and we did look out for each other."
At the other end of his career, level-crossing safety became a personal issue for Mr Youd, who voluntarily advocated for awareness through school and community group visits.
"I did it in my own time because I'm quite passionate about not wanting to run into people," Mr Youd said.
"I've had to hit the brakes hundreds of times. I've hit bare skin! People just step right out in front of you.
"Luckily, no-one died in front of me but I've helped people out of cars that were crumpled like aluminium drink cans."
