The start of something in regard to my railway modelling world.
My family were dairy and beef farmers at Tongala East, in the Goulburn Valley, which is situated in the northern part of Victoria in Australia. I do not know specifically what got me interested in trains, howevr my cousin, Howard Nurse, had polio when he was a boy and his father Mervyn Nurse, put some Tri-ang track down on a plywood board which allowed him to put it on a table and operate the electric trains.
We also had family friends who were farmers living near the neighbouring town of Kyabram. I vividly remembering when we went to visit them, playing with their sons train set on the floor in his bedroom. Coincidently, this is the same place where I developed my reluctance to ride horses, for during one of our visits I was riding one of their horses (most likely a pony), when it took off when startled and I fell off!
I had a Tri-ang clockwork trainset which was purchased, as a present for me, from the local bicycle dealer in Kyabram. Mr Roy Watt was the proprietor. Bicycle stores have a very unique collection of smells, primarily the rubber tyres and even to this day when I walk past any bicycle shop and smell the bicycles, it takes me back to the time and place of going to the shop to look at the trains and occisinally getting mine repaired, as I was inclined to overwind it! My trainset consisted of an oval of track, a steam tank engine (bright blue) and and some wagons. I spent all my time on the floor, joining each curved section of track end to end, so that the train had somewhere to go instead of around in circles and continually winding up that little loco with its key and watching it go back and forth, even running on the carpet and lino sometimes. Hence another reason why we visited Mr Watt!
One Christmas, Santa very kindly brought me my cousins trainset. Well I thought I was king! No more winding the key, continuous running once more, but now I had a point! Not just one point but two. There is a Santa, a real Santa.
Well over the following years that railway board got migrated to the spare bedroom sitting atop the family cardtable along with an aluminium folding chair. The only time it was out off that room was when my paternal grandmother came for her yearly holiday from Shepparton. I used my 'Skyscaper Building Set' to build structures and pretend I had a thriving town. This was also where my first adventure with cardboard and white glue developed. Some would say I'm a little 'eager' with both. Now you know why.
By now I had moved on from Mr Watt and had found a a new friend in Shepparton, the local toystore owner Mr Russell. Late night shopping had arrived in Shepparton on Friday nights. As my fathers sister and mother both lived in Shepparton we made many Friday night forays to go shopping/visiting. As I was now older, I was allowed to do my own thing. Well where else would I go? To visit Mr Russell! Not only did I have a love of trains I also had a love of Meccano and Mr Russell sold both. Espically those spare parts.
Once again I vividly remember getting into trouble with my mother over having something in my pocket which was an odd shape. It was a curved section of platform that Tri-ang has made for years and now I had a piece. I must point out that my parents never fully understood my love of trains. They assisted where they could, but they did not know what the world of model railways could provide for me in relation to spares etc. In fact I did not know myself until I started High School in Kyabram at the "Ky High" and was let loose in the library. They had "Railway Modeller" magazines galore. OMG Mr Russell!
Well jump forward a few years, and we are living in Shepparton as well. I found another new friend. Mr Chandler at "Chandlers Hobby and Toys". Upstairs was where all the hobby gear was and he was instrumental in starting and fostering the development of the "Goulburn Valley Model Railway Club". He had shop assistant called Joe Tomlinson that was few years older than I and lived not far from me. He had a model railway in his dad's Poker Room. Well a number of people joined the club; Andrew Robertson, Wayne Reid, Maurie Sear, Paul Warren and some others whose names I forget. Paul Warren and another guy had N Scale, the rest had HO or Narrow Gauge.
By this stage I thought I could build a railway as I had read the books, it could not be that hard. So the old board I had had for many years got sold and the money to build a plan in N Scale from 101 Trakplans, a Kalmbach Publication. Well it was a frustrating exercise. My new friends at the GVMRC decided it was time to help me out. We ditched everything and built another plan from the book which was based on iron ore mining. This is where it all started. Kadee had just brought out 33' hopper cars with operating openable doors. My new friend Wayne felt he could build a machine to open them. Well that happened, however between the concept and project delivery things changed. He produced a two car operating dumper that rotated the cars, with the rotating point being the centreline of the couplers. He assured me this was how they did it in Western Austalia, in a place the called the Pilbara. He even had a book about it. Well I was hooked. Now all I needed was a name for my new railway. I pondered and settled on the name West Coast Mining. It summed up everything for me. By this time I owned a car and was learning to drive. I had a Mark IV air conditioner fitted to my 1978 Ford Escort. I was very impressed with the tittle 'Mark IV'. So much so, that any subsequent redos of West Coast Mining has had the suffix MK II and MK III.
MK II was an adaption of the orignal idea when I was living in my first home in Melbourne. It was a layout that allowed the garage to be used to house a car, with a section of layout suspended over the car bonnet. All you had to do was make sure the car was well over to the left of the garage and not run into the layout when you drove in.
Well I met the love of my life Jenni, and we moved to our current home in 1987. When we were looking at houses to buy the shed was high on the list of priorities. I was going to build a special room within that shed. A heat, dust. light proof room to put my new railway in. And that railway is West Coast Mining MK III!
There will be a MK IV. It will be the version that fully takes over the old shed to allow the railway to expand. But that is another story for another time..............
