Puffing Billy is Australia’s last full time railway employing steam engines at its main source of power. Set in the picturesque Dandenong Ranges on the eastern outskirts of Melbourne, this narrow gauge experiment was born from dour economic times in the 1890s.

For Puffing Billy driver Steve Holmes, whose life has been immersed in its soot and steel since he was painting carriages as a nine-year-old boy, steam, as much as blood, runs through his veins.

“I grew up at the end of the steam era, I’ve been around the engines all my life,” said Holmes, who became a driver in 2005.