"That was a shock to us. I felt quite useless about what we could do to help as a family," Mr Willis said.

"It started getting me thinking about blood cancer."

Coincidentally, retired colleague Bruce Gilham was also diagnosed with blood cancer in early January and is undergoing treatment now.

While he had these people in mind Mr Willis saw an advertisement for the World's Greatest Shave and asked his workmates who would be interested in shaving for the cause.

"The response I got back from Burnie to Brighton, from Launceston to the [Newstead] workshops, was just awesome," he said.

Once the forces rallied Mr Willis had eight TasRail participants from across the state willing to shave heads and beards, but one Burnie employee will wax his chest if he gets to $3000.

"We're not just shaving our heads; some are shaving their whole heads. I've had my goatee as long as my kids have been alive, so 18 or 19 years. So there's some big changes going on with all of this for our trims."

"It is a TasRail family, what we have have here, and when we have one of ours who has retired after 40 years, it hit home, because he is like a family member for us."

IN OTHER NEWS:

The group has been fundraising for several weeks, surpassing the initial target of $3000 and now sitting about $4800.

"The last feedback we got from the Leukaemia Foundation is that we're the leading team in Tasmania, which is fantastic," Mr Willis said.

At the same time as shaving, the group has also put together a $3000 raffle and will hold a barefoot bowls event at Trevallyn Bowls Club on March 1, followed by sausage sizzles at Harvey Norman Launceston on March 2 and 3.

The team hopes to get to $10,000 by the time they hold their statewide shave, which starts in Burnie and Kings Meadows on March 12 and then Newstead and Brighton the following day.

"On the following Friday I'm going to try to get all the guys together at Techno [Kings Meadows], where we're going to do our raffle draw," he said.

For more information about the World's Greatest Shave visit worldsgreatestshave.com

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