ENTRY DESCRIPTION
‘Railwaymen’ is a series of portraits featuring some of Melbourne’s longest-serving train drivers, photographed in sites of historical significance across the city’s railway network. Captured on black and white 35mm film using a 1964 Rangefinder camera, the photographs depict drivers with 40+ years of railway industry experience, and pictured here is Keith, who started as a ‘fireman’ (trainee driver) in 1977, and passed his driving ticket in 1982. He transferred to Melbourne to the Electric Running Depot later that same year, and moved to South Australia a few years later. Working in various roles on the railways in Adelaide, he has experience as a station assistant, conductor, guard, ‘points person’, shunt driver and Train Driver from South Australia. He later returned to the Victorian railways and has been driving electric trains ever since. Keith hails from a railway family, with his grandfather driving trains for Fyansford Cement Works limestone quarry, and his uncle driving trains for Hamersley Iron Locomotives. He is especially proud of his two sons becoming Train Drivers themselves, and creating a fourth generation of railwaymen. Keith is pictured here at the Newport Railway Workshops, yards that were removed from everyday use in the 1980’s and have been maintained for heritage purposes since.

AUTHOR
Genevieve Ackland is a train driver based in Melbourne, Australia and a self-taught analogue photographer, using a 1964 rangefinder camera with 35mm film.

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