50 years working on the Railway. Not quite all my working life as I worked 4 years elsewhere; but, like the majority of those who leave the Railway they return and continue to retirement. The Railway is very much like “family”; good times, bad times, humor and distress and of course the occassional tragedy and bereavement. Train crashes of course, the disaster at Clapham Jct affecting my life on the Railway more than any of the others as did another major incident – The Great Train Robbery.These are the “Blogs” that I wrote after my retirement. They show the characters, the humor, the tragedies and change within the Industry between the years 1962 to 2017. I started as a Junior Porter the day before my 15th birthday but quickly moved to the Motive Power Department as an engine cleaner and then fireman/secondman seeing off the last 3 ½ years of steam. The majority though was in the Signalling & Telecommunications (S&T) Department involving working with Signalmen, P-Way, and of course Signal Engineers and Technicians.When I look back over the years I can see the huge changes that have taken place over these years. Britain’s Railways were statistically the most dangerous place to work and it was just taken for granted that employees risked their lives every day working on the track. That changed over the years with the introduction of:The Health and Safety at Work ActAlcohol and Drug PolicyA good example is Personal Protective Equipment (PPE). When I started on the Railway we were given blue overalls and a black coat and that was about it. High visibility clothing was not invented. Look at it now, head to toe with hard hats, high visibility clothing, steel toe capped boots and eye protection, and its compulsory.Another example is traction. A mixture of steam, diesel and electric. Steam went altogether but is back now occasionally for special passages such as the “Flying Scotsman”. Gone are the slamming of carriage doors, 3rd class compartments and a train service on Christmas day. In, well, quieter more streamlined trains and of course the Channel Tunnel.When I started it was well into Dr Beechings cut backs being implemented with hundreds of lines closed in my first years. The tables are turning though and now some of these lines are now planned to be re-implemented.These Blogs are experiences throughout my life on the Railway. Plenty of humor, pranks, personal involvements, accidents and tragedies. I hope that you enjoy reading these Blogs as much as I had living them.