Preamble 1974 -2016
Once upon a time there were some model railway enthusiasts in the Fremantle area. Possibly because they met each other in the then “Littlefield’s Hobbies” (Market Street, Fremantle) shop, they got talking. No doubt Norm Littlefield saw an advantage in helping the group to get started and offered them an opportunity to meet in half of his storeroom and share the rent. It seemed that Richard Parkin may have been quite instrumental in the formation of or at least spawning of our club.
This club never intended to be more than one with a general interest in modelling HO, OO and N gauges, and thus is quite happy to accommodate all sorts of railway companies – British, European, American and Australian. This ‘Jack of all trades’ approach is our strength as well as our undoing.
As we are quite small, we tend to be rather close-knit group, and thus must and do work very harmoniously. Further, as we are an extremely small budgeted club, we need to find the rent by making public displays at shopping centres where the variety of trains and ‘gimmicks’ fortunately appeals to the public but not to the purists, which propitiously, are in minority. At the same time we can sadly and proudly point to a number of purists who made their modelling start at our club. Conversely, our ‘undoing’ is that as soon as there are some members wishing to pursue a particular branch of modelling e.g. Westrail, SN 3’6”, US HO, British EM, 009, Z gauge we would have splinter groups within the club, fine for a large organisation, but too divisive in our small club.
Basically our aim is to meet potential and fellow modellers and share experiences. To maintain our existence we build lay-outs and happily share the fruits of our labours at public exhibitions, some with sufficient monetary rewards to make ends meet.
FINDING CLUB ROOMS
1974 Mainly Peter Ringer’s house, especially for building N layout.
1975 Littlefields Hobby shop, 28 Marine Terrace a shared store room.
1975 Fremantle Railway Station, one room 33m² in Parcels Office, President Jim Anderson made
most of the arrangements, club sign placed outside our entrance.
1977-78 Croke Lane, in offices of an abandoned Flour Mill – arranged through Dr Mike Wisdom,
token rent, while the owners, Mike’s parent in-law, were biding time – Don Milbourne died
while helping us shift into the new premises.
1979 Back to the Parcels Office room at the station, for which we had continued to pay rent, just
to play it safe! Also visited different member’s lay-outs while waiting to expand, we had
too many members to meet in the small room.
1979