Train-mad Robyn Crighton had to wait until her sixties to indulge her steamy passion.
Growing up as a tomboy in the small town of Te Kuiti, Robyn would spend hours watching trains go past. That fascination never left her and she finally had the chance to make tracks into a railway career at the age of 63 when she joined a steam train course in Greymouth.
“I’ve always loved the old steam engines,” says Robyn, of Christchurch, who now happily spends her spare timeshovelling coal and tinkering with engines at the Shantytown Steam School.
The transformation from housewife to train buff came after her husband had a severe stroke and had to go into a rest home last year.
“I really floundered. I’d looked after him for a long time and I suddenly had this huge gap in my life,” she says. “The course got me through that empty feeling.”
No stranger to adventure, the plucky mother-of-two has also charged full steam ahead into other new adventures, such as bungee jumping, skydiving and climbing the Sydney Harbour Bridge.
The steam train course she’s taking could be too much of a commitment for many – Robyn travels for four hours by train from Christchurch to Greymouth, where she stays for a week at a time to get hands-on engine experience.
But she doesn’t mind putting in the hours. “oy love for steam trains has taken over any practical considerations,” says Robyn.
“I have to learn a lot of history – about engineering, steam boilers and valves – but I just love it.
“When you get to my age, it can be easy to lose direction, especially if you haven’t got a partner. Learning about steam trains has got my brain activated again. I feel so motivated.”
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