In today’s edition, Jaci Hicken speaks to Campaspe Valley Miniature Railway Inc.
Campaspe Valley Miniature Railway Inc president Colin McConnell has been involved with the miniature railway for 25 years, and said the organisation had been operating in Rotary Park for nearly four decades.
“It was opened in the early 70s,” he said.
To volunteer with the miniature railway no experience is needed, just a willingness to be part of the club.
Mr McConnell knows that you will meet interesting people and be part of a friendly, passionate club.
The railway runs passenger services on the first Sunday of each month from March to December, between 10am and 3pm.
“For the last 100 years, people have been making little models of trains, scaled-down models, and they were looking for somewhere to run them,” Mr McConnell said.
“It is not like a miniature car that you can run in a supermarket car park or something.
“You've got to have a designated track for a railway, obviously.”
The railway operates several types of trains.
“Steam-operated ones, ones that have petrol engines that look like diesel-electric modern trains and ones that run on batteries,” Mr McConnell said.
“Mostly they are the petrol, diesel-electric ones.
“They look like diesel-electric trains but have a little petrol engine inside them.”
The upcoming Steam Revival event, over the King’s Birthday weekend in June, promises to showcase multiple locomotives.
“Hopefully, four or five locomotives will be running that weekend,” Mr McConnell said.
“We are hoping to have, at this point, two steam trains running for the Steam Revival.”
“It used to be, up until probably 10 years ago, it used to be all steam trains, and we would get eight or nine of them at a time.
“But it is getting more and more difficult to get the steamers out these days.”
To ride the train, children aged six and under must be accompanied by an adult and everyone is required to wear closed-toe shoes.
Tickets can be purchased at the on-site ticket office.
Interested volunteers can contact Colin McConnell on 0448 548 081, visit the Campaspe Miniature Railway's Facebook page, or simply turn up on a running day to introduce themselves.
You can find Campaspe Miniature Railway at Rotary Park, Echuca. Enter at the corner of Rose and Crossen Sts, Echuca.
