“ I’ve run the railway here in Heritage Park for 23 years. I started when I was 26 and I’m now 49. I’ve lived in Lismore for 40 years. I was born in Sydney, lived in Tamworth for a couple of years then the family moved to Yeppoon before making this our home. I lived with my mum, my uncle and my grandmother who passed away a month after I got married. Wyrallah has been home for 16 years next to the Wyrallah public school where I’ve been the general assistant for 6 years. I work at the school one day a week and I work the trains at the park on weekends, Thursday’s and school holidays.
I’ve always had an interest in trains. I have HO scales at home. They are model railways that you run on tables. I’ve had those since I was a kid. There was a 10,000 gallon concrete tank on our property that didn’t hold water so we cut windows and doors into it, attached electricity and telephone and set up a train set in. That’s still a work in progress.
I first got into this size of railway which is 7-1/4 inch gauge in 1990. We went on a trip to WA and saw one of these so when we came back I started out with a steam train which we would take to Brisbane to run. I had it for about 3 years and then a couple of people in council came up with idea of having one here in Heritage Park. We built a diesel engine to run it and we opened here in 1995. We laid all the track which in total is 577 metres long and Council built everything else. The tiny tots area is was already there and when we started on the railway the rest of the park was developed.
We have two trains. One is Toby and one is Katie. Katie is the first one we built and she’s now heading towards 25 years old. It’s diesel with a car auto transmission in it, all built out of steel and Toby is the third one my uncle built. It’s diesel as well and based on the old XPT so we can say it’s the only XPT that operates in Lismore now.
We’ve had a few famous passengers, one being Don Burke on Australia Day. We had Christopher Green, the child psychologist and author. I had John English the day after he had a gig here in town. Ernie Dingo came for a ride.
Most of the time people are great, occasionally I get the odd one who’s rude but that’s all a part of dealing with the public. I don’t have any plans to leave in the near future.
They are just like full size trains, only miniature. A lot of kids ask how it stays on the tracks or how do I steer it without a steering wheel. It has to be built pretty much the same as a full size train. One kid asked if he had to wear his crash hat…….. Hopefully not! (laughs).”
I’ve always had an interest in trains. I have HO scales at home. They are model railways that you run on tables. I’ve had those since I was a kid. There was a 10,000 gallon concrete tank on our property that didn’t hold water so we cut windows and doors into it, attached electricity and telephone and set up a train set in. That’s still a work in progress.
I first got into this size of railway which is 7-1/4 inch gauge in 1990. We went on a trip to WA and saw one of these so when we came back I started out with a steam train which we would take to Brisbane to run. I had it for about 3 years and then a couple of people in council came up with idea of having one here in Heritage Park. We built a diesel engine to run it and we opened here in 1995. We laid all the track which in total is 577 metres long and Council built everything else. The tiny tots area is was already there and when we started on the railway the rest of the park was developed.
We have two trains. One is Toby and one is Katie. Katie is the first one we built and she’s now heading towards 25 years old. It’s diesel with a car auto transmission in it, all built out of steel and Toby is the third one my uncle built. It’s diesel as well and based on the old XPT so we can say it’s the only XPT that operates in Lismore now.
We’ve had a few famous passengers, one being Don Burke on Australia Day. We had Christopher Green, the child psychologist and author. I had John English the day after he had a gig here in town. Ernie Dingo came for a ride.
Most of the time people are great, occasionally I get the odd one who’s rude but that’s all a part of dealing with the public. I don’t have any plans to leave in the near future.
They are just like full size trains, only miniature. A lot of kids ask how it stays on the tracks or how do I steer it without a steering wheel. It has to be built pretty much the same as a full size train. One kid asked if he had to wear his crash hat…….. Hopefully not! (laughs).”