Campaspe Valley Miniature Railway Inc. president Colin McConnell has been involved with the miniature railway for 25 years.
“I got involved because I wanted to build a steam traction engine, and I needed to be a member of a miniature steam club,” he said.
“The only one in the area was the miniature railway, so that is how I became involved.
“Basically, for the last 100 years, people have been making little scaled-down models of things and looking for somewhere to run them.
“So, these little model miniature railways popped up around the country.
“It is not like a miniature car that you can run in a supermarket car park or something.
“You got to have a designated track for a railway, obviously.”
For about the last 35 to 40 years, the miniature railway has operated at Rotary Park in Echuca.
“There are several types of trains,” Mr McConnell said.
“Steam-operated ones, ones that have petrol engines that look like diesel-electric modern trains and ones that run on batteries.
“Mostly they are the petrol, diesel-electric ones.
“They look like diesel-electric trains but have a little petrol engine inside them.”
Over the King’s Birthday weekend, the Campaspe Valley Miniature Railway will run steam trains at the Echuca Moama Steam Iron and Trades Revival.
“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.
“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 increasingly difficult to get the steamers out these days.”
Tickets to ride the miniature train are available on the day at the ticket office at the Campaspe Valley Miniature Railway station, and tickets are cash only.
If you are under six, you will need an adult to ride the train with you.
You can find the Campaspe Valley Miniature Railway at Rotary Park, on the corner of Crossen St and Campaspe Esplanade, Echuca.
Miniature trains run the first Sunday of the month, March to December, from 10am to 3pm.
For more information, go to www.facebook.com/echucaminiaturerailway
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