Pirie

This is the story of the late Rob Burford’s model railway ambitions. Rob started with a Hornby–Dublo train set, later taking an interest in the North American Norfolk and Western system; back in those days, this was still a big-time steam railroad. Nevertheless, Rob’s railway interests soon rationalised and he developed a view of a model railway world that both stopped at the South Australian state borders and only briefly acknowledged the modern diesel locomotive era. However, in Rob’s native state of South Australia, it wasn’t all that simple as the railways reached across into other jurisdictions, and not all of the local railways were of the same gauge.

To the east, the old South Australian Railways (SAR) system met the 5 foot 3inch broad gauge Victorian Railways where rolling stock interchanged. To the north-east a 3 foot 6inch narrow gauge line linked to the Silverton Tramway Company’s rail network in New South Wales. This tapped into major ore traffic from Silverton to Broken Hill. To the west, the Commonwealth Railways built a standard gauge railway. Despite supply problems during the First World War, this line — when completed —linked the vast distance between Port Augusta (SA) and Kalgoorlie (WA) when two tracklaying teams, one working from each end,