The Big Move

Hello there,

Well it has been quite some time since my last post, hasn't it?

A lot has happened in that time, of course.

The big event was that the Goulburn Workers Club asked us to vacate the Nissen hut in late 2010, and with the need to find a new home for our club, the search was on.

Some investigations led us to a couple of leads.  The first was to investigate the old refreshment rooms on the island platform at Goulburn station.  This would be ideal for a model railway layout, wouldn't it?  Despite first appearances it became apparent that there were some significant drawbacks.  RailCorp/ITSR would require us to have PL insurance.  Being a small not for profit group with limited income this would be a major hurdle.  Second was the difficult access to the site.  Access was only available via the overhead footbridge.  This could prove awkward for our older members and caused us some anxiety with regard to visitors and members of the public.  Thirdly we were concerned that members/visitors could run out onto the platform to see trains go past and could potentially startle crews of passing trains.  So, reluctantly, this option was discarded.

The second lead was also rail oriented.  The Goulburn Rail Heritage Centre (managed by the GLRPS) had some vacant buildings.  An approach to the GLRPS was fruitful.  The Fitters Amenities building had been unused since the railways closed the depot in 1986.  Unfortunately the building had deteriorated somewhat with broken windows and fittings.

A local motorcycle group had investigated using the building and had gone so far as to remove the lower window sashes for repair.  This group had not proceeded with their plans and after some negotiation between the AMRS and the GLRPS agreement was reached.  We had a new home!

The first thing to do was to ensure that our new home was secure.  We boarded up the broken windows with sheets of plywood and secured the doors with padlocks.  The GLRPS assisted by adding some fencing and two gates to allow access from either inside the GRHC or directly from outside the fence on the Braidwood Road frontage.

The final running night at the Workers Arena was on Friday 26th November 2010.  The layout was dismantled the next day and transported to our new home.  Unfortunately the Goulburn part of the layout was not designed to be moved, so we had to cut and label wires and some of the boards suffered structural and track damage due to their method of construction.  Much remedial work will be ahead to get the Goulburn section fixed to working order.  Argyle (the exhibition layout) fared much better during the move, probably because of its design and construction as an exhibition layout.

Because we had no power (electricity) for transformers and lights we had to store the layouts for a while until we could undertake some work on the windows and get the electricity connected.

More on our saga in the next post.

Happy clubbing,

John