Where the Water Meets the Railway

Long before I was out of short pants my parents knew they could get a few days’ compliance from me by simply hinting that a trip to Sydney’s Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences (now called The Powerhouse Museum) was being considered as a possible weekend family activity. This enchanted wonderland of a museum had three primary benefits from my parents’ point of view:

• it was reasonably close by car,

• it would keep me and any of my friends who came with us occupied for a full afternoon with minimal supervision, and

• it was free.

From my perspective it had three outstanding attractions:

• a computer with a touch-screen against which a human, including small children, could play noughts and crosses;

• a huge German clock from which an array of small, medieval ghouls and devils emerged on the hour, accompanied by loud bells and chimes; and

• a collection of scale ship models in glass cases.

I’m convinced that the exquisite detail on those ship models at the museum, in combination with the dioramas of battle scenes at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra, were two of the primary