I have always been an operator. As a kid with an English layout
from a Hornby train set, I would draw maps of somewhere in England for my
trains to have their journeys and give meaning to what I was doing. Having trains
trundle around a layout for numerous circuits isn’t the part of the hobby which
interests me. I will grant that I once spent a great afternoon with a couple of
blokes at a local club one Saturday watching a Hornby Dublo 8F and some wagons
complete some circuits on some three rail track. It was rather therapeutic.
However, my trains need a purpose.
I’d like to say that I model freelance. My prototype is
in essence NSWGR and V/line... and Northern Rivers Railroad ... and National
Rail. Austrains produced some nice models in the early 21st century. The location is totally freelance. I have dumped half a million people
onto the Sapphire Coast of New South Wales, just south of Eden. To add to the
freelancing, I have added a rather large chunk of coastline which you won’t
find on Google Maps.
What would be the public transport needs for half a
million people? A direct line to Sydney would be a start, a link with the state
capital. This would mean that I could run a mail train and a daylight service.
How long would it take to reach my gem of the south? Probably about 7-8 hours. With
some artistic licence, it could be cut to 6-6½ hours. Continuing further south,
a line could meet the existing Victorian Railways line from Melbourne. This
would be handy for the Powerline V/Line carriages which I had picked up second
hand some years ago. A couple of trains could run from Melbourne to meet trains
from Sydney. There would be no through passenger trains as passengers
travelling from Sydney to Melbourne would be better off on the Inter-capital Daylight,
Southern Aurora or Spirit of Progress as the Sapphire Coast Line would take
longer. Along these two stretches of main line there would need to be a
suburban service. These are just the passenger services. There would be goods
services as well conveying wheat, ballast, containers, vans, oil, milk and
frozen products and a long steel train. Most of the wagons for these industries
came from a layout sometime last century and would need to be accommodated.
A trip to the region a few years ago spurred a few more
ideas. Why not install a northern suburbs line to the southern headland? It
would mean knocking down hundreds of hectares of Ben Boyd National Park but
this is the realms of fiction. Another idea would be to send a line from Bega
west up the Great Dividing Range to Cooma and Canberra. This opens up another
passenger route and freight opportunities.
How about the local urban spread? I figured that these
suburbs could be served by a frequent electric train service or railmotor
service. To add to the north-south route I had also planned two passenger only
lines and two other lines heading west into the hinterlands.
All this planning was for the old layout. For the new layout
things would not be too much different but with a fictional local rail network
established, my trains have reason for running.
