Warrnambool's annual model train show is full steam ahead

And this weekend it is full steam ahead for railway enthusiasts with the annual Warrnambool Model Train Show putting trains of all shapes and sizes on display.

Laang's Adam Edge's interest in trains probably started with watching the original Thomas the Tank Engine TV series and reading The Railway Series books as a child.

And much to the delight of his two young children, he installed a train track in his garden about three years ago for his live steam engines to run on.

"It's just a nicer environment for this sort of thing," Mr Edge said.

"But of course you've got to deal with all the problems you get with a real railway because you get weeds and sticks and crap all over the railway - literally - actually because there's possums in the trees.

"Once you clear all that away it's lovely watching them chuff around the garden."

While he has 60 feet of track in the garden, he has plans to expand it.

Mr Edge said his steam trains could pull a number of different wagons - which he has designed and made using his 3D printer.

But he admits he doesn't get out in the garden as much as he'd like to use the train set.

For the moment he uses the layout he built to take to train expos which has two loops of track and some grass to ensure it doesn't just look like a piece of board.

"Because it's set up in the shed If I feel like having a run it's just so much easier."

Mr Edge's live steam locomotive is called Ann - after this partner.

"The electric steam outline I built myself," he said.

"I 3D-printed all that with my own designs."

He then put in a robotic gear box that you can buy online, and allows him to control it with an app on his phone.

"They're not the most powerful thing. They're a little bit noisy but they work all right."

Mr Edge said he had always liked trains, but got into the larger 7/8ths scale trains because of "live steam".

"Basically to get proper live actual steam engines you've got to go into these sizes," he said.

Warrnambool Model Railway Club president Max Sharrock said he too had always had a love for trains but it wasn't until he retired from his sheep and crop farm and moved to Warrnambool that he had time to pursue his interest.

"I started collecting after I retired," he said.

He estimates he has about 50 locomotives and "a couple of hundred" carriages in his collection but that's not counting the ones he has in the smaller size.

On display this weekend will be his replica Westcoaster steam engine which he had specially painted to look like the one that regularly visited the city when West Coast Railway ran the privatised service in the 1990s.

"You can't buy them like that. I have a train enthusiast that paints them. There's probably only half a dozen of them in existence," Mr Sharrock said.

He also has the matching West Coast Railway carriages which will be displayed alongside his HO-scale V/Locity trains which will soon be rolled out on the Melbourne to Warrnambool line.

"That's the past and the future," he said.

He will also exhibit his smaller N-scale layout which he takes to exhibitions which he built based on the American railway line in the hilly coal mining area of Clinchfield.

Club member David Boldt has the first train set he was given as a six-year-old. "It's over 75 yeas old," he said.

Mr Boldt said his clockwork wind-up Hornby train set made by Meccano in Liverpool still had the original mechanisms.

"That's when the British could really engineer something," he said.

"My parents told me I was fascinated from under age one."

As a baby he would be distracted by the electric O-gauge Lionel train set his uncle - who was training with the airforce in Canada in 1942 - had sent back home.

"I used to watch this thing going around at nine or 10 months old with its lights going around," Mr Boldt said.

As well as an opportunity to look at working train sets and layouts, the weekend's exhibition will provide an opportunity to purchase model trains at the second-hand stalls.

IN OTHER NEWS

Our journalists work hard to provide local, up-to-date news to the community. This is how you can access our trusted content:

Have you signed up to The Standard's daily newsletter and breaking news emails? You can register below and make sure you are up to date with everything that's happening in the south-west.