One of Victoria's longest offending paedophiles, Whitehead sexually abused train-loving boys from the 1950s to the 1980s. In July, he was jailed for eight years after pleading guilty to 24 charges ranging from sexual penetration, indecent assault and false imprisonment, but he only spent two months in jail before he died late last week of kidney failure, aged 84.

The charges involved six boys he met through his work as a senior Victorian government railways officer and prominent member of volunteer railway societies.

But detectives last week charged Whitehead with two more indecent assault charges involving a seventh victim who alleges he was abused in 1982 after meeting the former Spencer Street station controller at Puffing Billy in the Dandenongs.

Puffing Billy chief executive John Robinson this year said the tourist railway's board was unaware of any accusations against Whitehead until 1990, when it received an "anonymous" complaint, which led to Whitehead's expulsion.

However, the County Court heard that police did question Whitehead in 1985 over alleged abuse of boys who were involved with Puffing Billy at the same time as another volunteer on the tourist railway, Tony Hutchins, was questioned and admitted his guilt to more than 60 sexual abuse charges.

Whitehead denied any wrong-doing and was not charged.

Had the police in the mid-1980s known that Whitehead had already been convicted and jailed for indecent assault and false imprisonment of a boy in 1959, it is possible he would have been charged alongside Hutchins 30 years ago.

Fairfax Media revealed in July that Whitehead's police record of his 1959 conviction was nowhere to be found, meaning that very few people, police included, were aware of his first child sexual abuse offence.

Whitehead was initially sacked by the Victorian railways board after he was sent to Pentridge Prison in 1959, but he was re-instated after Bolte government minister Sir Murray Porter lobbied the railways commissioners on Whitehead's behalf.

This fateful act allowed Whitehead to resume his railway career and rise in prominence in government and volunteer railway communities. It also gave him continual access to young boys and a respectability that impressed their parents.

One of the places for Whitehead's horrific abuse of boys was the disused Taradale Railway Station near Bendigo, which he and three other former Victorian railways officials leased from the government.

There is no suggestion the other leaseholders knew of Whitehead's activities.

Several of Whitehead's victims have told Fairfax Media of their disappointment he only served two months in jail before passing away.

In sentencing Whitehead in July, County Court judge Michael Tinney said "your past has now caught up with you" and predicted "you may very well die in prison".