I worked the last trains on this line. Now I hire bikes on it.

I'm Lou Pellegrino. I grew up on my nonno's cane farm at Stokers Siding, close enough to the line that we set the kitchen clock by the XPT going past.

At 19 I got a job as an attendant on the Sydney to Murwillumbah XPT. I was on board for the last few weeks before the line closed in 2004, handing out tea to people who'd come along just to say goodbye to it. I didn't think I'd ever be back.

I spent the next 18 years on the Gold Coast as a bike mechanic, then running the workshop at an e-bike shop. When they said the old line was going to become a rail trail, I didn't think twice. I bought an old shop in Mooball (it was already painted like a cow, this is Mooball) and opened with 12 e-bikes and a second-hand Hiace the same month the Tweed section opened.

"Most people ride it once and come back with their parents."

Three years on, we've got 42 e-bikes, a proper shuttle van, a trailer full of tag-alongs and a crew of four. Every bike gets checked after every ride, and every booking gets someone who knows the trail.