However, it certainly has not been fifty years of continuous construction. Rick had built a room to house his layout in the back yard, and work on the layout was carried out until about 1960. A glance at the track plan below will show that there was no possibility of any "phased" construction; all the track needed to be down before any running could occur, and therefore there was no opportunity for "watching the trains run".

Rick became a professional model maker, and like so many before and since, once the hobby becomes the profession then interest in the hobby side drops. The unfinished railway in its purpose built room languished, moribund and decaying, unwanted, until late 1978. In fact, as Rick describes in his highly entertaining six-part series of articles in the Australian Model Railway Magazine (Apr 85 onwards) the only reason he resumed work on the line was as a direct result of the impending demolition.

He went underneath the layout to decide how best to attack the process of wrecking the model, saw the framing and his stored rolling stock, and fortunately for us all, had a change of heart. After an 18 year hiatus, work resumed and a few years later the Vulcan Vale was opened to traffic.

And what, exactly, was the traffic? The railway existed primarily to support the Tomb and Graves factory at Charade, manufacturer of the finest Plinkers in the whole world. The raw product needed to make Plinkers is Trinkle, and that is milled and shipped from Pseudo, on the other side of the mountain.

Sadly though, advancing years has forced Rick to close the layout - an entry in his visitors book reads Railway Closed November 2000. Fortunately he spent the two days it takes to clean the track, and reopened it for my visit. I feel honoured that I might have been present at the last operating session on the Vulcan Vale

The convoluted track plan of the Vulcan Vale. Click on the image for a larger, slightly more readable version. Note the date of the original design: December 1952.
		A cherished possesion - my pass to the Vulcan Vale Narrow Gauge Railway Company