Born in 1910, Ron Fitch was born into a railway family. He began his career as a 16 year old engineering cadet and completed it 46 years later, having worked at various times for two state railways and the Commonwealth as Commissioner of South Australian Railways. In this book Ron gives vivid accounts of not only his career, but of the camaraderie of the greater railway community often experienced in the most trying of conditions. For almost three decades he was 'on the wallaby', with postings scattered over half the continent, and more often than not, living
rough.
Ron Fitch gives an account of all this and more, of laying track and the remarkable breed of men who do so, of advances in line-building techniques, of derailments and floods ad washaways, of wrangles over attempts to implement standard gauge, an of the politics of railways.
He is uniquely placed to write a book for all train enthusiasts, in which he celebrates both the men and the machinery as well as the toil and the technology that opened up a vast and sparsely populated continent.
Contents:
Abbreviations
Author's Note
1. A Lifetime of Memories
2. A Railway Family
3. Home Town Memories
4. School Days
5. Academe
6. Western Australia 1927-49
7. Building Railways the Hard Way
8. Commonwealth Railways 1949-54
9. South Australian Railways 1954-57
10. My Standardisation Story
11. Perambulations: Train, Trolley and Armstrong
12. A Special Breed
13. Mentors, Superiors ad Colleagues
14. Reflections
Index
