Her grandfather was a clerk in Cork railway station. Her great-aunts worked in the station buffet, her father is a locomotive inspector and her brother works in Cobh as a halt keeper.

Despite coming from a railway family, Angela Moynihan expresses surprise that she has become the first woman trainee locomotive driver with Iarnrod Eireann. "I didn't think I'd end up working on the railway."

Angela went to Mayfield Community School in Cork, where boys outnumbered girls by about three to one, so she is unfazed, she says, by the predominantly male environment in which she now works.

After her Leaving Cert, she worked for two years as a petrolpump attendant in her uncle's service station. Then she put in a short stint in HMV before going to Cudmore's sweet shop as an assistant.

"By this time I was 20." She was offered a job in Iarnrod Eireann working on the catering side. "I worked in the buffet, the sweet shop on the platform, and in the kitchen. I was an all-rounder doing bits and pieces for three-and-a-half years.

While she describes the work of barmaid-cum-kitchen-assistant as "all right", she was glad when it finished.

She had applied for a job on the platform and was delighted when the station master told her she was being transferred. "I started in the CPC store, a big warehouse in the goods yard, where Knorr stored its goods. "Working in there was like going shopping. Dunnes or Roches or other shops would send in their list - 30 bottles of mayo, 20 packets of soup - it was great. But I was only there for a few months."

Next she worked on the platform, where she learned about ticket checking and shunting (directing the train with hand signals within station limits). She also had to take engines or carriages on or off trains - technique, not physical strength, is required, she assures.

Moynihan then went on the guard's course; she did guard's duty - accompanying trains - for all of three weeks.

"I applied a couple of years ago for the trainee driver course. I did the interview and aptitude test and heard nothing until a week before the course began." She spent 10 weeks in Inchicore, Dublin, before Christmas.

"I learned about the working of the locos, their mechanics, what made them go and what to do if they broke down. At first I wondered what I got myself into - then I realised I was able to do this. I didn't do any worse than the lads.

Having passed her exam at the end of the 10 weeks, Angela and three other lads from Cork returned to Cork station to "learn the yard" in an engine. "We were not allowed to touch the controls for the first two weeks. "The first time I really drove the engine was fine: I knew what to expect, I had a good idea of how to control it - the driving itself is easy enough. It's the rules and regulations and moving the train slowly which is tricky."

Angela has just passed her probationary exams. As a probationer she can drive trains around the station, doing shunting duties. She will also gain "road knowledge" in Cobh; at a passenger terminal, Marino Point, where ammonia is loaded; and at North Esk, an important freight depot. "After that, I'll be doing road knowledge on places towards Dublin, Limerick, Waterford and Kerry."

In all, it takes about 72 weeks' training to qualify as a fully fledged loco driver. "It will be worth it. It's an interesting job - I never really pictured myself as mechanically minded but now I'm in this job I feel like this is the job I should always have been in."

Her advice to other interested women is simple: "Don't take no for an answer. Just go for it."