Sometime in the late 1970s, after I had moved from Sydney to Melbourne in January 1973, I visited Maryborough. Apart from the fascinating station building, I thought that the station would make a good exhibition layout. This was mainly because it was reasonably compact with the main sidings being adjacent to the station building, unlike, for example Castlemaine, where the yard was at one end of the passenger area. I had a pencil and paper on hand but regretfully not my camera. I drew the track plan but, not being very familiar with Victorian Railways, I did not know where one of the inbound tracks came from! Later I found out it was from Ararat and Avoca.
In the 1980s I visited the Association of Rail Enthusiasts (ARE) shop when it was located in Bourke Street near Spencer Street. I was able to purchase plans of the Maryborough station building. I put these plans away until the early 2000s when I made a proposal to the Australian Model Railway Association's (AMRA) Victorian branch that we could build Maryborough station as an exhibition layout. My proposal was accepted and construction commenced in 2004.
Design Considerations
The model of Maryborough is set in the early 1960s. This allows us to feature the blue and gold diesel era and late steam. Commencing in late 1962, major changes were made at Maryborough. The swing gates at the level crossings were removed, being replaced by booms at the Up end (Ballarat) and by an underpass at the Down end. Both signal boxes and the water tank were also removed. Thus early 1962 was the selected era, and the track plan reflects this.
I believe an exhibition layout should be presented well. I always preferred the diorama (or light box) style layout. This design concept was quite common by New South Wales (NSW) modellers but not so by Victorian, except for small logging layouts in the larger scales. Some excellent examples were Rodney James’ ‘Crafton’ and ‘Beyond Bulliac’.
A private
