Stacey Schofield (24) began with Dunedin Railways in 2010 as a train preparer, cleaning the inside and outside of carriages, but this Friday she will put months of training to use when she begins a fulltime role as a guard.
Ms Schofield found herself unemployed in 2010, applied for a job as a train preparer, and despite having ''never set foot on a train in my life'' got the job.
In winter, however, with the tourist season over, Ms Schofield ended up working on fishing boats, work she described as ''tough''.
''I pretty much just did that because heaps of people said I couldn't do it, so I did it to prove them wrong.''
She returned to Dunedin Railways as a cleaner the following summer, before working at Cadbury's that winter.
The next winter - last year - ''I could not find a job anywhere''.
That seasonal search for employment ended last summer, when Dunedin Railways offered her training for a full-time job as a guard, one of only two women working for the company in the role.
That training included learning to shunt trains, which involved communicating through radio and hand signals, and connecting and disconnecting carriages.
''That's a wee bit scary,'' Ms Schofield said.
Her first trip as guard, which also involves everything from collecting tickets to doing head counts, will be to Middlemarch tomorrow.
''It will be exciting - I'm a wee bit nervous but excited at the same time,'' she said.
Dunedin Railways operations manager Grant Craig said the guard's role was more of a customer service job than it used to be.
''But she's trained up to deal with any emergency.''
Ms Schofield said the people she worked with, and the company she worked for, were the best things about the job.
''I never saw myself working on trains.''
