VOLUNTEERS at the Railway Journeys Museum in Werris Creek are bracing themselves for an influx of tourists over the long weekend.
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While visitor numbers to the museum vary from day to day, the historical site receives close to 10,000 visitors per year, with 779 just last month, the museum’s record-keeper and volunteer, Brian Powell said.
Joyce and Harold Durrant were inundated on Anzac Day this year when 47 visitors descended on the museum and caught them unawares.
“We opened on Anzac Day and thought we’d have no one, so we let these fellows [the other volunteers] go over to Anzac Day, and poor old Joyce and I, we had 47 people come through while they were away,” Mr Durrant said, laughing.
The five volunteers, made up of ex Werris Creek railway employees and their spouses, provide museum visitors with a wealth of knowledge and memories of life working on the railways. All are a healthy vintage, being 80 or over (with the exception of June Heiler) and are on hand to answer any questions museum visitors may have.
Former guards Rex Heiler and Durrant and former clerk, Powell, began their careers on the railways straight out of school in the late ’40s and early ’50s.
Mr Heilier joined the railway at the age of 15 in 1946 but didn’t become a guard until 1953.
“I shunted before that,” he said.
Like Mr Durrant, Mr Heilier said he hadn’t planned on staying at Werris Creek, but found the love of his life while there.
“I came to Werris Creek in ’52 to go to the guard school and met June and stayed like a lot of the
railway fellows,” he said.
Werris Creek, affectionately deemed the “town that never slept”, thrived on the steam era from the 1870s to the 1960s and today retains many artefacts from that time in the station’s museum.
Heralded as the first railway town in northern NSW, Werris Creek had up to 900 people working at the depot and junction at its peak. The railway station itself was designed and built as part of the Great North Railway and, along with the depot and junction, transformed the town into a regional centre. Mr Heiler said while there was some conjecture about the title, he firmly believes Werris Creek is the first railway town.
“Now, you get people arguing with you from other big towns that say our town’s older than yours, but what happened here, the railway came first – there was no town here – and the town came after, so therefore we became the first railway town,” Mr Heiler said.
Mr Durrant concurs.
He said after he and Joyce were married in 1954 they were forced to live in tents due to a housing shortage in the town.
“There would have been over 100 families living in tents because you couldn’t get accommodation,” Mr Durrant said.
“Then the housing commission started to build houses and eventually they went out of tents in the late ’50s and early ’60s.”
Many of the artefacts on display in the museum, such as the kerosene lamps, were used by the volunteers in their line of work.
“That kerosene light was the only thing we had to see our way around when we were out in the middle of the mulga shunting or anything like that,” Mr Heiler said.
“Occupational health and safety didn’t exist back then.”
Mrs Heiler agreed.
“Black uniforms, kerosene lights and walking the full length of the train while you are a guard, with snakes in the summer time and rain in the winter time. Young people get it easy now,” she said.
The Australian Railway Monument, which is also found on the railway grounds, is a testament to the dangerous and volatile conditions railway workers endured.
Over 2,700 names are inscribed on the commemorative walls in a tribute to the men and women who lost their lives in the course of duty.
A Path of Service, where former members of the railway can buy a tile and be recognised for their tenure has also been established at the site.
The first six tiles appearing on the path pay homage to five generations of Mr Powell’s family and their illustrious railway careers - starting with Mr Powell’s great grandfather who began working at the Newcastle railway in 1881.
The volunteers, who are just some of the 45 volunteers who work at the museum, said they thoroughly enjoyed spending time at the railway as it gave them a chance to communicate with one another and the visitors, some of which come from all over the world.
We get to socialise and it’s a rest day where we just get to talk they said.