By Mikayla Van Loon
With the sound of the whistle and the puff of smoke, anticipation built as two steam engines rolled into Lilydale train station on Saturday 10 July.
Children and adults alike stood in amazement as the steam train made its way down the hill and slowly pulled into the platform, with hundreds of people awaiting its arrival.
The historic moment paid tribute and said farewell to the old Lilydale station building before it is replaced with the new skyrail station in coming weeks.
Steamrail Victoria hosted the event so people of all ages could enjoy the novelty of steam locomotives.
“We try to operate our steam engines around Victoria and we decided it was a good opportunity to go down and use the station prior to it all being changed,” member of Steamrail Victoria’s operations team Edward White said.
The two steam engines used were a Victorian Rail A2 Class number 986 and Victorian Rail K Class number 153.
In what was a poetic moment, the A2-986 steam engine and Lilydale train station met again, both in their original forms, one last time.
“Now A2-986, its final day that it was used in the Victorian Railway Service, it actually ran down to Lilydale. So its final line prior to going into storage actually ran down to Lilydale,” Mr White said.
The A2-986 had its final day of operation on Sunday 1 December 1963 and was out of service for 50 years until Steamrail Victoria refurbished her and got her back on the tracks in 2015.
Sam and Rob, both current and past Metro workers and lovers of trains, said getting to see a steam locomotive at the old station building was what made them head down to witness the event on Saturday.
“It was the historic nature of the day and it was a nice day. It’s been a while since they were out here so it’s good to have something out this side of town for a change,” Sam said.
For Kylie Paget’s son and husband, getting to ride the steam train from Lilydale to Ringwood was something they had been waiting to do for 10 years.
Ms Paget’s son was three when he first experienced the joy of a steam engine and from then on he became a bit of a train enthusiast.
“He still remembers it from the home movies when he was three,” Ms Paget said.
“He’s been hanging on for it to come back again. He was nearly devastated when it was postponed, luckily it wasn’t cancelled because he’d been waiting for so long.”
The man in charge of operations on the day, Joe Kellett said everything had been running smoothly, not even fog or cold weather could dampen the excitement of the day.
Mr Kellett said the novelty of having steam trains run along a standard train line is what it’s all about, particularly since it had been quite some time since Steamrail Victoria had had a train out in the eastern suburbs.
“We have had other services but we haven’t been out on the eastern side for some years, it might be five years ago,” he said.
Mr White said much of the time it’s the sound of the whistle that excites people but it’s also the physical features of the trains that intrigue them.
“The older carriages are a big draw card, the opening windows and the smell,” he said.
“It’s what a lot of parents and grandparents can recall going to school or going into the city in, all these older carriages and the steam engine.”
Although a lot of reminiscing happened on the day, Mr White said it would have also been an eye opener for younger kids on what transport used to look like.
“It’s about preserving a bit of history, preserving the history of how it was done. We’re all volunteers, we’re all passionate about what we do and a lot of the staff love seeing the faces on the kids, the parents, grandparents and that’s why we do it.”
The sold out train rides carried 1500 people in total throughout the day, with each train ride capped at 250 passengers in line with Covid rules.
