For 56 years he worked for just one company. Most of his working life with just one employer, NZ Railways in its various incarnations.

'[For] 56 years and one week,” the locomotive engineer corrects.

So what was it about that week, the final 40 hours that broke him, tipped him over the edge into retirement? Bryan Campbell, 73, locomotive engineer, just laughs.

'KiwiRail is a very good company.” And three gold watches are testimony; one watch for 45 years, another for 50 and the latest – the retirement memento – with his name and start and finish dates engraved on the back.

It's a grandiose bit of bling – Fort Knox on a strap, big enough to have his valedictory engraved as well. Bryan flashes it and is grateful and proud. Proud enough to still wear the company black polo bearing the KiwiRail logo. And fiercely loyal.

'Good to work for, they look after you.”

Will he miss trains, miss the job? 'No, not really.”

So why the railways? 'Often asked myself that question,” says the retired locomotive engineer. Because it was a close call. Bryan could easily have worn the Policeman's custodian helmet rather than the railwayman's grease top.

'I see the violence Police have to contend with so I think I made the right decision.”

It was a career path probably cast as a boy aged seven or eight. 'Every night my Aunty in Feilding would let me watch the Auckland express go through.

'All sparks, flames, steam and noise. They were impressive.” A big mechanical monster, a little boy in awe and a destiny laid out.

'I thought: ‘Boy, I would love to drive one of those'.”

So 56 years and one week ago Bryan signed up for three shillings and seven pence an hour and life, for a time, became static.

He got his boiler ticket and then his firemen's ticket and looked after stationary locomotives.

He cleaned them of soot and grime using tallow – rendered animal fat which gave the locos their shine – he filled coal tubs, he emptied the ash pits by hand, he stacked wood, white-washed the inspection pits and greased. Then he'd spend two or three hours firing the boilers.

'People would say it must have been wonderful in the steam era. Wonderful? You don't know what you are talking about”

Case in point, he remembers stopping at Waiouru in the dead of night and it was snowing and freezing. 'I had to uncouple a steam engine to water up and the chain that released the water was frozen solid with ice.” Hardly the romantic world of steam they talk about.

The man reputed to have a rare aptitude for steam always loved driving steam trains. But it wasn't absolute love. 'I'd enjoy kit for the first half-hour. Then I'd think ‘what the hell am I doing here?'” The soot, the grime, the cold and the wet.

However, he did admit to the KiwiRail in-house magazine that he regretted not having enough money to buy his own steam train. The real big boy's big toy.

But even after diesels replaced steam in the North Island in I968 he continued driving steam excursions. He was the diesel man with a steam ticket – a dying breed.

'I suppose it was a privilege to drive those things for the enjoyment of others.” But these days he's converted.

'I am certainly a diesel electric man now. It's like driving a Rolls Royce.” A 100 tonne Rolls Royce with another 2000 tonnes hanging off the tow bar.

Lovely engines he reckons, powerful, responsive and an exceptionally smooth ride. 'And great communications, air conditioning and a radio.”

Sounds like a road test in a motoring supplement. And the best office in the world he reckons. The scenery is constantly changing even though you are driving up and down the same road.

There have been many firsts and lasts in this railwayman's 56-year long career, 56 years and one week that is.

He crewed the first steam train into the new Palmerston North station in 1963, he drove the last Silver Star train out of Wellington and spent 14 years on the famous Silver Fern railcar.

They were 600km, 11-hour work days. And he loved them.

And he also loved the challenge of the Murupara loggers, 700 metre long trains hauling 1800 tonnes on what he respectfully calls a 'memorable piece of railway”. 'It was steep, very steep, you either got it perfect or you ran away and over the side.”

There's also the viaduct which is the best part of 80m above the Makohine near Hunterville. 'You come racing out of the tunnel on the main trunk line and you keep your fingers crossed the Makohine viaduct is still there cos when you hit daylight you are looking out into thin air.”

They don't warn you about that on the Overlander.

Then the railwayman shares some railway legend, the time some sides of lamb fell off a wagon in the shunting yards at Palmerston North. They were immediately deemed to be a gift from God, a Christmas bonus.

'The steam crew got word the cops were onto them so the only place to hide the evidence was to throw the carcasses into the firebox.” The lamb, which was cooked to a turn, was later distributed around town. It might be legend, but good legend.

There are some places even a railwayman does not want to go. 'Not necessary, no need to write that up,” he warns. He's talking about level crossings.

'That's one reason I like working night shift, no bloody idiots trying to beat you on a level crossing.”

Bryan has a message about another sort of 'bloody idiot”. It makes him angry.

'A 17-year-old girl wandering on the railway line in Matamata, wearing head-phones and balancing on one track.

'I was driving a logger and got within 10m of her.” She felt the track vibrating before she heard the train and leapt out of the way. 'I would have chopped her up.” Bryan has nightmares about the close calls.

'She was with friends and they didn't bother to warn her. Bloody hell!”

Yes there was a fatal. It was very sad and he doesn't want to dwell on it.

'It was this time of year, right before Christmas and I feel sorry a family which lost a mother and a grandmother.”

Then there was the time a horse just about took him out in fog at 100km just outside Kawerau. Bryan was driving home from a nightshift. He gambled the horse would go right or left so he took the direct line. Bryan's here to tell the story but the horse isn't.

Then the railwayman's mind turns to bowls, fishing and travel with wife Jill. In a train perhaps, but maybe not.

What will trouble this locomotive engineer in retirement is all that good restoration work being put in by the heritage societies. But who's going to drive the steam trains? Steam tickets are thin on the ground.

Something for Bryan and other railwaymen to ponder in retirement.