When We Rode the Rails

There was a romance about railways in the days of steam that made legends of the trains and the men w ho ran them. Little of Australia's workaday or social life was not affected by the lonesome whistle that winkled its way into every corner of the land. A train whistle; the sound that probably more than any other sound on earth has caused boys to run away from home, to become footloose and long for faraway places. Patsy Adam-Smith rode the rails to Marble Bar in Western Australia on the 'Spinifex Flyer'; the line from Normanton to Croyden, isolated in Queensland's Gulf country; the tiny mo u ntain lines in Tasmania's southwest, past the Montezuma Falls where water sprayed over the tracks; and the long, straight line across the Nullarbor's semi-desert. She brings alive the railway folk who were proud to belong to the great family of r ai lway workers: the drivers who only took leave when their engines wre due for overhaul, the station masters and mistresses isolated on lonely lines, and the fettlers who took pride in being able to swing a 28-pound hammer when the temperature was 120 degrees Farenheit in the shade. This book captures the magic of days when life had more meaning, fellowhip and certainty...