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| West-N-Trak |
A Special Interest Group of Southside N Scale |
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The West-N-Trak group started when
in 1994 the Southside N-Scale Club (SNSC) was asked to attend the Nambour
Hobby Expo. Alvin, John and Maureen Kathage took up the challenge of
getting together a small layout and taking it to Nambour. |
We are all members of Southside N-Scale Club and operate as part of the club; we joke that we are the small show committee of Southside. We chose the West-N-Trak name because we are from Ipswich, which is west of Brisbane, and it also shows that we are an N-Trak layout by our name. The logo was something fun we did to give the group our own identity. We talked about it then Alvin went to work on his computer and after a few small changes our logo was finished.
The rules of the group are simple. We represent Southside N-Scale Club even though we exhibit as West-N-Trak; we have no one in charge. I do the paper work and organising everyone who will be there at the shows, but everyone has a say in what they want. The group shares the expenses for the show e.g. trailer hire, accommodation and food cost so no one is lumped with the lot. To run a train on the layout you have to be there for either set up or pull down. You also have to have fun, that is the most important rule of all. We have met many people through the years; the person who stands out the most for me is Roger Otto from America. We were exhibiting at the RSL hall in Warwick and I was doing my usual public relations duties at the front of the layout. I asked a man who looked interested in what I was saying did he have any questions about N-Trak, he said no but he had learnt things from me. He introduced himself to us and explained he is a member of an N-Trak club in America. I could feel my face burn red in embarrassment, this man could tell me a few things but he explained that he had seen things on our layout that worked and looked good, that were not used in America. That made me feel better.
We asked him to stay for a while and he did. He was here in Queensland on a business trip and heard about the show in Warwick so came and had a look. He was surprised to see an N-Trak layout at the show. As we ran trains we kept seeing flashes of something white on the layout, then we caught Roger out when we saw that he was putting a toy mouse on the tracks. He had put a small loco mechanism under a cat toy so it zoomed around the layout; we had a laugh then we brought out our odd piece - the roach coach. It is a passenger car with a loco mechanism under it with a rubber cockroach wired to the front of it. It was decided then and there that it doesn’t matter where you come from we are all just as mad as each other are. The week following we had a show at Nambour, we told Roger about it. He said he’d try to get there. We all thought we wouldn’t see him again, until on the second day of the show when the doors opened in came Roger. We got him an exhibitors badge and he spent the rest of the day running trains with us. He showed us what being an "N-Traker" was all about which helped with the development of West-N-Trak. At the end of the day he helped us pull the layout down, he said it was a practice in American clubs that if you run trains on the layout you help in someway e.g. public relations work or setting up or pulling down the layout. So that is where the rule for setting up and pulling down for West-N-Trak came from. We had to bring this rule in because after a few shows on our own we started to invite other club members of Southside to join us. At one show one of the invited members arrived after we set the layout up. He and his uninvited mates took our trains off the layout, placing them on the floor and chairs, and then they set the yard up with their trains and set a train running on the main line. They then walked off leaving us no where to run our trains. The one rule for Southside N-Scale Club is that you don’t touch anyone else’s trains unless it has or is going to derail and will block another running line. Because of this rule we waited for them to return so we could have ago. After about half an hour we carefully took their trains off and we set ours back up so we could run trains again. On there return they grumbled about what we had done then they disappeared, leaving us with a damaged train and the task of pulling down the layout. Our show calendar started with just Nambour, now we do two major shows Warwick and Toowoomba (Nambour no longer has shows). This year we were asked to attend the Walloon school fete, Redbank Railways Workshops open day, and two other displays. We had to decline two other displays because of other commitments. Because of the number of shows we try to get other club members with modules to join us so we can have variety at the shows we go to. We are hoping that one day we can build another set of return loops so that both West-N-Trak and Southside N-Scale Club can exhibit at the same show but with independent layouts.
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southn@tpg.com.au