The WA State Government is encouraging recycling through the Containers for Change program. Eligible containers (most aluminium cans and PET plastic bottles) are able to be collected and recycled with a reward of 10c per container. The WAMRC has registered for the scheme and our scheme ID is C10321786:
Anyone can donate their recycling reward directly to the club by quoting the Scheme ID above. We have already made about $30 through the scheme by recycling containers we collected during RailFest and from within the club!
RailFest is happening again on Sunday 11th October! This year however will be a bit different due to COVID-19 restrictions. Admission is capped at an absolute maximum of 1200 people, with 1100 tickets available for pre-sale over staggered entrance times at TryBooking (https://trybooking.com/BLLOS). Tickets at the door will be extremely limited so buying your tickets ahead of time is highly recommended!
Railage sketch and freight diagram of Western Australia : showing mileage of all stations connected by rail with Perth and other centres, 3rd Edition, H.E.C. Robinson Ltd., 1922
I’d never seen this fantastic sketch of WA railways before when it popped up in a group on Facebook (“Railage Sketch and Freight Diagram of Western Australia”, 3rd Edition, 1922, H.E.C. Robinson Ltd.).
It’s not a map as such, more a schematic sketch of the railway routes, but importantly shows the name of every ‘station’ in the state at the time and mileage to Perth (or other centre). It’s a great resource for the club as we use WA station names on our main HO layout — deliberately picking one station starting with every letter of the alphabet to end up with 26 locations on the layout. (We had to stretch the rule about with ‘X’ — no stations in WA start with ‘X’! Instead we used the WA town name ‘Xantippe’ which was never served by the railways.)
That image above is quite low resolution — good enough to make out most of the names. The full, high-resolution version is a whopping 576 Mbyte image available from Trove (see link above) which is quite difficult to download or view even with a fast computer and good internet link. I have created a high resolution PDF version which is a much more manageable 13.2 Mbytes: nla.obj-233482959.pdf
RailFest is on again as usual on the last Sunday of the October school holidays. This year marks the 30th Anniversary of the Railway Museum so promises to be a big one!
A special fair is being held by Vintage Services in conjunction with the W.A. Doll and Toy Group at Cannington Exhibition Centre on Sunday 4th August 2019.
There is a booking from someone disposing of an extensive collection of N Gauge model trains that she is taking to the Fair, so it may of some interest to railway modellers.
An article from The West Australian, Wednesday, 29 May, 1963 showing the WAMRC layout in the Harveys’ home in Cottesloe.
As discussed at the last general meeting, a wonderful piece remembering early members of the club, Sid & Yvette Harvey, has been written by life member Don Finlayson — thanks Don!
By a terrific stroke of coincidence, a few months ago a member of the public gave us the above newspaper clipping above from May 1963 which is directly relevant to the story. Head over to the Harveys’ page to read all about it.
George’s funeral was very well attended last Friday and Don Finlayson has written a lovely obituary for George. It is now available on George’s Memorial Page.
George Sumner in 2011 when he was awarded his life membership certificate by Tony Gray.
Paul Webb phoned me yesterday to let me know the sad news that George Sumner passed away in hospital on Friday night (26th January 2018).
George was one of the longest continuous members of the club having joined in 1983 . He was awarded life membership in 2011: Life membership for George Sumner
Update (2nd Feb): George’s funeral will be held next Friday (9th Feb) at 10am at Bowra & O’Dea Cannington (corner of George St West and Albany Hwy): https://bowraodea.com.au/notice/29217/
