KEY POINTS:
It was a noisy reunion of more than 400 railway workers but if anyone can handle noise, it is these former employees of the Otahuhu railway workshops, many of whom once worked with steel welders, rivet guns and hammers.
The enthusiastic gathering involved dozens of handles of beer with a buzzy and warm camaraderie filling the Papatoetoe Cosmopolitan Club yesterday.
The men, and a few women, had in many cases not seen one another for a decade or more.
Among them was a one-time boilermaker, Mervin Cooke, who, on looking round the room, found it hard to recognise some old faces.
But 93-year-old "Cookie", as he is known to his mates, picked out his own face straight away in a photo of the workers lined up outside the workshops in 1948.
Mr Cooke retired as site foreman in 1969, after 40 years' service, although he returned for another seven years to help out when the workshops, which once employed about 2000 people, were short-staffed.
He would travel from Ellerslie, where he still lives, to catch a special workers train that delivered them right into the workshops.
It could be a tough environment, with heavy work in steel construction, but Mr Cooke loved it.
He was transferred to the Devonport Naval Base during World War II. "I signed up to fight but boilermakers were exempt," he explained.
There he had the job of repairing HMNZS Leander, which included cutting some bodies out of the warship, trapped when it was torpedoed in the Battle of Kolombangara in July 1943 off the Solomons.
Mr Cooke encouraged his only son, Ray, also at the reunion, into the railways and he trained as a fitter.
The 60-year-old was employed at Otahuhu from 1963 to 1973 and now owns an engineering business.
Boilermaker Bill Hussey, 87, said Mr Cooke snr was "a pretty good boss".
Back then a good boss counted when the men got to do a bit of work for themselves when they were not so busy on the trains.
"I made an entire horse trailer," he said with a naughty laugh.
Such personal jobs were called "foreigners" and for coach trimmer Robin Gray, 78, they included making leather bags to keep his bagpipes in.
The reunion, the first since the workshops closed in 1992, was the idea of former boilermaker John Delich.
"It's been a long time coming and we'll definitely do it again, possibly make it every two years."
Mr Delich said the railway workers were like a big family and many still helped one another out with home working bees.
The workshops had proven an invaluable and sorely missed training ground for a range of trades including carpenters, fitters, turners, welders and painters.
When Mr Delich started work there in 1975, the yard employed 1200 men and women. After the workshops closed, it took him three months to get another job and he eventually retrained as a carpenter.
Although there was fresh demand for railway workers, the pay was not good enough to lure many back. "Even though the railways have been privatised, they are not paying top dollar."
* Former Otahuhu railway workshop employees can register for future reunions through Trade Me's community page.
