Mailbag
Sydney’s First Model Railway Exhibition?
I have just purchased the latest edition of AMRM [Issue 337, August 2019–Editor], and was pleasantly surprised to see my letter regarding Sydney’s first model railway exhibition printed in the Mailbag section. Upon reading it, I saw that there is an error in the last sentence, which states that the advertisement appeared in the SMH on Thursday 15 June 1948, when in fact it was Thursday 15 June 1848, as is clear from the reproduced advertisement.
Keith King Hazelbrook 2779
AMRM has a good team of proofreaders who do an excellent job of keeping errors in the text to a minimum but, no matter how hard one tries, occasionally something slips through… At least this proofreading error isn’t as embarrassing as the time we inadvertently renamed the magazine by leaving the word “Magazine” off the cover or the time we misspelt the name of one of our major advertisers, also on the cover!–Editor
Camden Comment
Firstly, congratulations to Bob on his being awarded the Order of Australia.
Secondly, Bob’s Comment in AMRM Issue 337 (August 2019), One Doesn’t Have to Model it Personally…, brought back childhood memories of the Campbelltown-Camden branch. Back in the early 1950s, one could buy a child’s return fare ticket for a shilling. This could take you to Otford, Penrith, Richmond and Cowan, plus Campbelltown and Camden. In addition, bus and tram fares were a penny each way.
These outer area destinations were reached by steam-hauled trains, generally by a 30 class 4-6-4 tank, connecting at Liverpool, Parramatta or Hornsby with the suburban electric trains from the inner suburban areas. The Illawarra connection was generally by regular CPH rail motors south of Sutherland to Waterfall, though Otford services were much less frequent. I would travel alone on these excursions, even though I was only still in primary school.
So my eventful day would commence with two shillings of my hard-earned pocket money jingling in my pocket. A penny would be spent on a tram ticket from Coogee to Central,
