Full steam ahead for train author

FERNTREE Gully octogenarian Geoff Matheson saw a lot during five decades of service on Victorian railways, but his steam-powered memories are made crystal clear to readers of his new book.
Mr Matheson launched his book, Memoirs of a Railwayman: Steaming Along the Permanent Way late last year at the Ferntree Gully Bowling Club.
Now 81, Mr Matheson retired as an engine driver from the Victorian Railways in 1983 after 42 years of service.
His memoir is a vivid record of his experience from the delights and vagrancies of growing up in country Victoria, a traumatic escape from the Black Friday fires of 1939 and army service in Japan, to embarking on a lifetime journey as a railwayman.
The memoir also contains archival pictures of locomotives used by Victorian Railways over the years of Mr Matheson’s employment.
Mr Matheson fondly recalls the friendships that arose among his fellow men who would work rain or shine to help make Victorian Railways the State’s lifeline for industry, trade and personal transport.
“Life on the railway is like a big family where you understand each other’s problems and share each other’s good and bad times,” he said.
As a boy, Mr Matheson lived for a while in Warburton where his father operated a steam winch hauling around mountain ash.
This gave Mr Matheson his first feel for the power of steam and he later got a job as an engine cleaner in North Melbourne where he would line up boilers and wash them out.
He progressed from cleaner to foreman and eventually got his ticket to drive trains in 1951.
This began a driving career which was rooted in the steam age, saw the advent of diesel and ended with electricity on suburban runs to Belgrave in 1983.
Although the transitions were interesting in themselves, Mr Matheson said the era of steam was definitely the best.
“Steam trains seemed to talk to you when they were working.
“When the engine was working hard up heavy grades and you wondered whether you were going to make it, there was a special, pungent smell of superheated steam that was irresistible.
“It was like having a metallic monster on charge, but you made it work; you controlled it,” he said.
Although Steaming Along the Permanent Way is Mr Matheson’s first published book, he is no newcomer to writing.
He has penned short stories, is an occasional contributor to Take 5 magazine, and has also completed unpublished full-length works, among them another steam-based book called Black Diamonds and Iron Horses.
Mr Matheson also wrote a novel called Trevor’s Gold, based on his own experiences of prospecting with a mate in Tasmania, a section of which appears in the recent memoir.
Mr Matheson aims to continue writing, and the rest of his spare time is spent fishing, gardening and prospecting.
But no matter how much the steam dissipates into the past, it is clear it will always have a permanent place in Mr Matheson’s heart.
“The new trains do a good job, of course, but they’re not a living thing like steam,” he said.