THE dark shadow cast by York's asbestos timebomb has crossed the globe to a former carriageworks employee living in New Zealand.

Peter Carr, who emigrated in 1980, wrote to the Evening Press to tell how he had been fanatical about trains all his life - but still rued the day he ever set foot in the Holgate Road factory.

He decided to get in touch after friends and relatives in York sent him newspaper cuttings about the continuing death toll from the asbestos-related disease mesothelioma.

Six inquests have already been held this year into the deaths of ex-carriageworks employees, and another into the death of a woman whose father and two brothers worked there.

Mr Carr, who worked as a fitter in the press shop for 22 years until he emigrated, said he had suffered from a persistent cough for at least 30 years, despite "breathing the purest cleanest air on the face of this earth", and never smoking a cigarette in his life.

And although an X-ray a couple of years ago had given him the "all-clear", the asbestos tragedy still cast a shadow over the lives of him and his wife, Janet.

"After 25 years of a very happy life of sheer bliss down under, it seems rather harsh to have this worry put on our heads," said Mr Carr, who lives in Kelson, near Wellington.

He said he had lost several friends to the illness. "It must be heartbreaking and very sad, for the families of people who have gone through the trauma of losing loved ones, all because the so-called 'big guns' of the time, didn't either want to know or didn't care about the future anguish they were creating for their people.

"I rue the day I ever set foot in the carriageworks."

His wife told of Peter's endless fascination with trains, from playing with his train set as a boy and trainspotting as a teenager, and "sneaking round railway sheds and yards at all hours. Then in the 1970s, he started building model steam locomotives as a hobby.

"On arriving in New Zealand, Peter quickly sought out the model engineers' track and immediately became a member," she said.

"The first engine he built was a five-inch King Class steam locomotive King George V, which has pulled children and adults alike throughout New Zealand for 25 years."

He made models of the Duchess of Hamilton and Mallard, and then, in 1997, started making a little Welsh narrow gauge engine Owain Glyndwr, which was entered in a convention for model engineers in 2002 and was voted the best engine in the country.

Updated: 10:40 Wednesday, April 13, 2005