Fans brave the rain for new miniature railway in central Victoria

ABC NEWS (Australia)

Miniature train fans braved the rain for the opening of a new miniature railway in central Victoria. The Harcourt project has been a decade-long labour of love built by volunteers and inspired by one family's passion for trains.

Transcript

00:00An arrival these miniature train buffs have been waiting a decade for.

00:08These things bring back a whole lot of memories from when I was a kid.

00:11They go fast.

00:12If you just look at the sheer amount of infrastructure, it's something to behold.

00:16Way to go.

00:17For nine year old Ballarat boy Benton, a love of trains is a family tradition.

00:22My poppy and my uncle love trains, like mini trains, and they have a whole train set.

00:28So I'm trying for them in their footsteps.

00:32The new Harcourt Miniature Railway is the passion project of Andrew Mearish.

00:38He founded the Victorian Miniature Railway Club after taking one of his engines to the world's

00:43longest miniature railroad in the United States.

00:46Also through some personal health issues with my wife and the family, I was also heavily

00:51inspired to do it today, because you may not have tomorrow.

00:54But his wife, Karen, they've spent the past decade building it, with a team of more than

00:5850 volunteers.

01:00We're actually from Melbourne, so we trek up here most weekends.

01:03So we've certainly run a groove down the Calder Highway and back many, many times.

01:07Every detail designed to be just like the real thing.

01:11It works exactly the same as the full size locomotives.

01:15It's surprising how similarly they are together.

01:19The whole trip takes 12 minutes, but club members hope, further down the track, it'll

01:24be made even longer.

01:26Big dreams from a tiny hobby.

Category

Transcript

Be the first to comment

Recommended