The Jamberoo Railway

So, how about this rain, eh? Oooh it's thundering and lightning-ing too.

It's a long time between blogs, but the wet weather and some early winter "spring cleaning" has put me in a mood to blog.

My beloved (that being Michelle) is building me a model railway for my birthday/combined with Fathers Day. But she let me in on it so I could help design it.

I'll soon set up a separate blog just about our Jamberoo Railway.

Just a tip:

Jamberoo never had a railway but in 1892 (about the time the railway opened to Kiama) there were proposals for a branch to Jamberoo. I understand this was a serious contender until about 1907.

So our idea is to build the "what might have been but never was" railway. Jamberoo is the site of the country's first dairy co-operative and because transport was an issue it made butter (Allowrie brand I'm told) and very nice cheese... the town is also the place where the Illawarra Shorthorn was bred.

So our branch line serves the (now defunct) dairy factory on the aptly named Factory Lane. We're setting it in the 1970s because that's when the most recent time when goods would still have been shipped on the line.

We will have facilities to serve the cattle sales yards, the dairy factory, Frederick's store (both of them, the grocer and the supplies store) plus a lumber yard and general goods.

So far we've made a 1:1 printout on paper and bought some kits... and I've made some cardboard mock-ups of the various buildings in town.

I'm going to research it with some older folk from town.

Watch this space!