On Australia Day weekend 1974, 11-year-old Wayne Clarke came to Melbourne's Spencer Street station to look at a historic rail carriage. A small boy with vivid blue eyes, he left having given his name and address to a 43-year-old man. It would be four decades before Clarke would be able to bring himself to walk into Cheltenham police station to tell officers what happened next. Like countless boys the world over, Wayne loved trains. He had travelled alone from his home in Mentone just to see an 1899 rail carriage known as the 30AV. Purpose-built by the Victorian railways, it had a curved wooden roof and ornate wooden window shutters. It was a beauty. As Wayne studied the carriage, he was...
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