Division 1 (Queensland)

Australasian Region
National Model Railroad Association Inc

Member's Page: Graeme Prideaux

Layout Details

This is my fifth QR and sugar mill tramway layout. My only other layout has been to HO scale standard gauge New South Wales prototype in the late sixties bogie exchange era which led me through the (bogie exchangeable) modern broad gauge equipment to an interest in the old Victorian Railways and former South Australian Railways. Predecessor layouts were in Hon 3 1/2 (exhibited in 1966, my first), and Magnolia, exhibited in 1968 and 1971, in HOn 2 1/2 featuring a sugar mill, its tramway and the private mill railway in HOn 3 1/2 on which a Beyer Peacock 2-4-OT shuffled the molasses wagons to the QR siding. A segment of my last now scrapped layout, Kongula, with both mill tramway operations and Queensland Railways, was exhibited in 1998.
    Currently my interests primarily lie in the local (Queensland) scene, however there are occasional dalliances into logging and US standard gauge Rock Island which in it's heyday was the epitome of cultural and technological interest. It had great style, fabulous ambience and its liveries were high art. I am also interested in big steam power on the narrow gauge, but it is difficult to rationalize 2 feet 6 inch gauge Sierra Leone Beyer Garratt 4-8-2+2-8-4s or a Rio Turbio Mitsubishi 2-10-2 beside the bulk sugar shed at my mill.