I have lived at Hawkesdale all my life.  I now live in what was our family house with my husband and three children.  As a young kid we lived in a railway house - my mother was a railway mistress and my father was a ‘ganger’.  I have fond memories of my childhood at the railways.  I remember the train coming early on  Wednesday mornings - sometimes its whistle would wake us up.  The train went through to Hamilton and then would come back through in the afternoon.  We spent many hours playing in and on the carriages - climbing and jumping in - I remember it with fondness.  We also had our fresh water delivered which required us rolling out pipe and then pumping the water over the house.  We didn’t enjoy rolling the pipes up again after the tanks had been filled.  I also recall when we had students from metropolitan schools come through on “special” trains and they would stop at our station and have afternoon tea or something to eat.  The local hotel had its beer delivered by train in ‘barrels’.  The barrrels were rolled into a storage shed and then a local carrier would come and pick them up and deliver them to the hotel.  We often rolled the barrels around, sitting on them as they went down the hill - I’m guessing it caused the beer no damage!  We had a ‘trolley’ housed at the station - and we often went for rides with our dad.  When the line closed the trolley was stillat our place and unfortunately it was taken away several months later.  I wish we still had it!