THE RAILWAYMAN: An Autobiography

How do you enjoy work? How do you maintain that enjoyment over 40 years in the same industry?

Well, this book is about a career in railways, what areas I worked in and how I successfully enjoyed doing the works I did.

My prime work experience has been in the railways of New South Wales, Australia. Having over forty years in one industry across many of its different facets, has allowed me to manage and work on some of the biggest rail projects at the time. Also, I have had the privilege of being responsible for maintaining the railway infrastructure where you have to be on call 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Some of the major projects I have managed include the building of over thirty bridges, upgrading seventeen stations, constructing major track facilities including the Pt Kembla Coal Loader, the Sydney Olympic Loop, freight facilities, locomotive facilities, seventeen major stabling yards and junctions, numerous workshops and tunnels upgrades. I have managed the construction of new major rail infrastructure in the Sydney network and was involved in electrification projects to the outer regions of Sydney.

I also managed the build for the track work for the Y Link and even the ballasted light rail infrastructure from Darling Harbour to Lilyfield. I had the rather dubious honour of completely removing five metropolitan stations from the network. In the maintenance positions I held, I was responsible for the safety and reliability of the rail infrastructure for the running of both passenger and freight trains. This included corridors of track in Sydney, Newcastle and Wollongong.

This book is written as an autobiography to detail some of the more interesting projects I have worked on and what I achieved through them. They include extracts of my working life from back in the 1970's to recent times.

These extracts cover not only the challenging times but also the unusual, scary and dangerous moments over that period.

How was the rail systems constructed and maintained over forty years ago? How was rail safety managed? What personal protection was in vogue? So much different to how it is managed today.

My work has allowed me to meet and work with some of the most lovable characters, some of the weirdest and some that have unnerved me. I am sure readers can equate to some of these types of people in their own lives. Obviously though, I could not achieve the works I have undertaken without a great crew of men and women working alongside and with me.