Paying it forward

It has been a cold winter. On a wet Sunday afternoon I felt it was time to share some of my Pilbara Railway knowledge, gleaned over some 40 years as I attempted to model my version of the Pilbara.

I have always believed that we all travel the same path, it just that some of us do it a little differently at times. Along our journey we are taught, learn, share and we teach others who interact with us. This is very much the same for our endeavors in modelling railways.

It was this reckoning that lead me to create the 'Pilbara Modelling Group' on Facebook. Now many people believe Facebook is evil and yes it is to those who are not wary of the dark individuals that can be present behind innocent posts. However, in my opinion it does have a good side, allowing information exchanging between interested persons on similar interesting subjects.  The Groups l have joined at my discretion, have been rewarding, interesting and informative.

I earnestly believed that there must be others like me who model the Pilbara. So create the group, find a suitable photo header, a brief narrative on the Groups objectives and away it went. Some 69 members later and yes that includes my two sons, the Group bubbles along.

Now even though I have been modelling this area I'm certainly no expert, however I feel I have a lot of information to share. Not that I at the end of my time or anything like that, I want to repay for all those people who through the years taught me, encouraged me and rewarded me. So I'm repaying the debt to all.

Pay it forward is an expression for describing the beneficiary of a good deed repaying it to others instead of to the original benefactor.

Noel Purdey