A bit of history

A request from the east coast main truck ( well I think thats what it is unacronymed) leads to todays post. While not per-say a history of NZ 120 according to me, its still an interesting historical subject. While staying with my parents at christmas in Timaru ( we really know how to live, don't we!), my uncle tells me of an N scale NZ layout that his group had brought from a property in Dunedin. I imediately clicked that it was John Rappards home layout. It resided for many years at the top of signal hill road in a converted farm shed the was about 20' by 30' with a separate workshop. It was a very large layout depicting scenes from railways in otago. the main line swept down through Port Chalmers to Dunedin, out to Wingatui, then a branch line up to Cromwell, via another station, modeling scenes from the otago central branch. the whole set up was run with Zero-one, the great grandaddy of comercial command control systems. I was able to arrange a visit to confirm that the layout was still in existence ( though it had to be cut into sections to be removed) even after Johns death. I don't think it ever appeared in the local rag, so here are some of the pictures I took.

the first is Dunedin railway station according to John. For some odd reason, his station was in red brick, and it was never really finished as a scene properly. the second picture is of Dunnyburn, somewhere up in central otago. John made this location up as a 1/2 way point on his otago central branch line. The final picture is Johns interpretation of Cromwell, now long gone.

It was a great experience to see the layout again after so many years, and to see the modeling that had gone into it, even when there was no one who would ever see some of it.

Hopefully the current owners will be able to build it into a layout. it is a wonderful piece of the scales history.