Six days before the centenary of Anzacs at Gallipoli, 150 people boarded wooden train carriages in Kingston unaware waving off two boys to war would leave them in tears.
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Actors played the new recruits heading to Sydney, accompanied by paying passengers for Canberra Railway Museum, who would be well wishers as far as Bungendore. One soldier couldn't wait to get to war, while the other, accused of cowardice and given a white feather, was leaving under pressure, amid frenzied patriotic fervour.
Lamingtons and Anzac biscuits were served at the museum's station which volunteers spent three months refurbishing to resemble a little country station. Australian and British flags were strewn among bed sheets with hand-written messages of Godspeed. Some signs warned girls not to hang around with shirkers and only go with loyal volunteers.
The 36 class steam engine's whistle echoed across Jerrabomberra flood plain. Museum marketing manager and author of the farewell Garry Reynolds, said people were swept up in the moment, singing 'You are my sunshine, my only sunshine' from their song sheets.
"I think we really captured the moment when we sang the songs and everyone was urging [to enlist], then we had a radical unionist who protested against the boys enlisting, "Mr Reynolds said. "The boys had to sign the enlistment forms, they had a doctor give them a quick check over on the platform. On the train we had the mothers of the boys, the grandmothers, they all led singing on train on the way out."
Diffused light from overcast skies worked in photographer Steven Lloyd's favour. "The whole atmosphere, having the steam in the air created a beautiful environment to capture these images, with people in period costume all worked perfectly," Mr Lloyd said.
As this cold, rainy Sunday unfolded as planned, passengers relaxed in one another's warmth in the carriages behind the glistening black loco built in Manchester in 1903. After they ate their corned beef-and-pickle sandwiches and onion tarts, old songs began seeping through coats into memories.
A grain farmer from near Murrumburrah, a small town on the main southern railway line, Peter O'Connor, and his wife Julie, an accomplished soloist, led passengers with A Long Long Trail Awinding, Keep the Home Fires Burning and Hanging on the Old Barbed Wire.
Only one soldier would return. No one on the train knew who would come through the station's door back in Canberra.
"People were emotional, they were crying," Mr Reynolds said. "They knew it was all a re-creation, but even before they left the station they cried. When we left it was 1915, everyone was optimistic and when they came back in 1918, 62,000 men had died, we now had a real picture of war. It was far more sombre on the way back. It was powerful mate, I tell you."
Back in Kingston, everyone huddled inside to hear Mr O'Connor sing a soldier's parody from the trenches, When This Lousy War is Over:
"People said when we enlisted,
Fame and medals we would win,
But the fame is in the guardroom,
And those medals made of tin."
"The whole idea was not tell passengers what it was like in World War 1 going off tor war, but to put them in the moment, give them a total experience," Mr Reynolds said. "It was ambitious but it came off. "
