About Us

Hi, we are the Pate family and we have a model railway for the fun and enjoyment it brings us. It is an excellent hobby and highly recommended. Our freelanced railway is set in the period up to the late 1950s and the main theme is inspired by the fact that my father and my children’s grandfather Tom Pate worked in the timber industry in his early years and set up and operated a sawmill with some of his brothers in the 50’s. The actual mill was located on Britannia Creek Road not far from Warburton. My maternal grandfather, Percy Adams also worked at Powelltown mill in the early part of last century.

My brother Graham sent me this photo of our grandfather Percy Adams (Pop to us is second from the left) and the Powelltown 2-4-0 Baldwin circa 1915.

As we develop the layouts, photographs displayed in this site will indicate how successful we have been. In any case, we are having a great time doing it! 

This web site also features a showcase for Nathan and Robert’s modelling skills.

Britannia Creek Layout set in Australia’s Upper Yarra Valley

Our model railway is freelanced to allow us some poetic license and avoid the inevitable issues that arise with a prototype layout when we just want to have a bit of fun! It is inspired by the pioneering spirit of our forebears, like my father Tom Pate, now a fit 82 year old, who worked as a young man in the timber industry along with his brothers Arthur and Bob, cousin Wally and to be father-in-law Percy Adams. Logging naturally became one of the major themes for our model railway. The ‘backwoods’ logging theme lends itself well to small to medium sized layouts and gives plenty of scope for running some interesting ‘geared’ locomotives through the scenery and for scratch building using scale timber. An unexpected and very pleasant aspect of the hobby is the research and discovery of facts about my father’s early years and the area where we lived until the mid 60’s.

Our model Britannia Creek logging line links with a branch line of the Victorian Railway (VR) system so we can also see some VR diesels and rolling stock. We chose the name Britannia Creek as that was the name of the road where Tom’s mill was located. We have had some decals made so that rolling stock can be named for the mill. Interestingly, whilst doing some research on the subject I found that over 60 mills of various sizes have existed at one time or another in the area and a significant wood distillery plant called Britannia Creek had operated nearby in the 1920s. We are not trying to model this plant as such but it lends itself to some interesting features that may be included.

December 2002 I can thank, or blame :) , my daughter Suzie for getting us started in this hobby. A Christmas wish for a train set got us going. So it began! The ROCO DCC system was the next step, then additional visits to model railway shops, then joining an online forum. 

Trial Layout - June 2003 to April 2004 Our first layout was a 13’ x 4’ loop design with 4 turnouts so that we could get experience with DCC, track laying, turnouts, scenery and basic operations using the Roco DCC system and a variety of decoders from Atlas, Digitrax, Lenz, Roco, Soundtraxx and Train Control Systems. The track used was mainly Peco flextrack 100 and Peco turnouts. This trial layout was demolished in April 2004 and all the turnouts and track and some scenery items salvaged to make way for the first modules of our new layout.

January 2004: During a field trip to the Wesburn and Powelltown my father Tom showed us around the area where our Britannia Creek sawmill is set. We explored a recently abandoned sawmill, walked the old tram track that the Powelltown Baldwin, Shays and other locomotives used to run on and generally had a great time. To see some photos of the day, click here.

April 2004: Joined NMRA after chatting with Mario Rapinett whose description of light weight modular construction I came across on the Australian NMRA website. At this time we are on to our second HO scale layout. For this layout a timber mill and logging line was planned to link with a VicRail branch line at the Britannia Creek station in the Upper Yarra Valley, circa late 1950’s. The scenario is that in nearby Powelltown the logging operation has two 2-truck Shay locomotives (which was in fact the case in real life). Tom Pate and his brothers set up a sawmill on Britannia Creek Road in the Yarra Valley (which was also true). We now part slightly from the facts... Not to be outdone by the Powelltown operation, when a Shay geared locomotive becomes available the lads get it. The sawmilling operation is at the height of its glory and milled timber is transported by the Shay to the Britannia Creek railway station to be loaded on VR wagons. In reality the connection at Britannia Creek was a simple siding but we have elevated it something more substantial.

April 2005 Planning for a small On30 layout begins and Bachmann On30 Shay arrives.

January 2005 The hobby room is created by enclosing the double car port at the side of our house.

August 2005 - Bachmann On30 Climax received.

October 2005 On30 has taken over for the most part, so the O scale layout is the main one we are working on. Hand laid track has been attempted and the results are pleasing. 

December 2005 After various track plans a workable design has been arrived at.

May 2006 Framing and backdrop are done and the first section, which features a mountain area to cover a return loop is nearing completion.

January 2007 Land forming and track laying on the other side of the bridge continues.

February 2007 Bachmann On30 narrow gauge Baldwin 2-4-4 Forney arrives with factory fitted Tsunami sound decoder. Amazing value for money.

August 2007 Track laying of the second reverse loop nears completion

February 2008 Base track is completed and the line up to the raised section commences.

Photographs used are mainly taken by me or are clearly accredited. Special thanks to Mike McCarthy for permission to use photos in his excellent book Mountains of Ash. Some images were found on the net. We have taken care not to infringe copyright and trust no one is offended by our use of these images. If any copyright infringement has accidentally been made we apologise. Please let us know and we will correct the situation as soon as possible.

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