The quartet - guard Cecil Bachop and drivers Bob Reid, Jack Baillie and Maurice Bryson became "film stars" for a day on Tuesday as they shared their reminiscences for a documentary film about the Taieri Gorge line and the steam locomotives, diesel trains and railcars which travelled it.
The DVD, being made by independent film-maker David Sims, of Wellington, is to mark the 130th anniversary of the start of construction on the line.
It originally wound its way from Wingatui across the Taieri Plain, through the Taieri Gorge and across the Maniototo to Alexandra and Cromwell, but it now ends at Middlemarch.
The documentary will be finished in time for a train festival at Labour Weekend which will be centred at the Dunedin and Middlemarch railway stations.
The Vulcan railcars were diesel-powered units with driving compartments at each end.
They carried 48 passengers plus mail and other essential supplies.
The railcars were made in England, and nine were brought to New Zealand in 1939 for use on various South Island passenger runs.
They were a familiar sight on the Taieri Gorge line between 1956 and 1976.
They became essential to the Central Otago community, delivering people to work, school, appointments and shopping expeditions in Central Otago towns and Dunedin, and taking them home again.
Because it involved a relatively short day-time shift, the railcar run was sought-after by the 110 train crews working out of the Dunedin station in that era and was usually reserved for more senior crews, the men said yesterday.
On weekdays, a railcar with driver and guard would leave Dunedin at 4.12pm, arriving in Alexandra at 9.12pm.
The crew would stay overnight in accommodation provided by Lorna Garvan before starting the return trip to Dunedin at 7.20am.
On Sundays, the railway went to Alexandra and back in the same day.
The railcar would stop anywhere, the men recalled.
They particularly remembered the Kinney family, who farmed at Tiger Hill, between Chatto Creek and Omakau, walking across their farm to catch the train, and the Stevenson children, who caught the train from North Taieri School to their home at Mt Allan, in the Taieri Gorge.
The Stevensons used a railway jigger to get themselves to school in the morning.
Mr Reid said he had the privilege of driving the last railcar out of Dunedin.
He drove it as far as Oamaru, where another driver took over and took it to Christchurch.
Taieri Gorge operations manager Grant Craig said four Vulcans remained in New Zealand.
Three were at Ferrymead Heritage Park in Christchurch and one was in Ashburton.
All were still in working order.
One of the Ferrymead railcars was being brought to Dunedin for the Labour Weekend festival and, along with a steam locomotive, it would take passengers between Dunedin and the Middlemarch area and on short trips between Pukerangi or Sutton and Middlemarch.
The former Railways staff said it would be the first time a Vulcan had returned to Dunedin since 1976.
