Volunteers give thousands of hours to maintain Victoria's 140 years of railway heritage and the fruits of their labour are on public display every two years. We entered the Newport Railway Yards to the memory-evoking sounds of steam whistles, clouds of steam and the rumble of large engines. They crossed the multitude of wide and narrow gauge rail lines, climbed aboard first and second class carriages, blew the whistles and stoked the boilers of an age long passed.
From the red rattlers that many of us rode to school to the majestic Spirit of Progress, from the almost tiny early steam engines to the gigantic Heavy Harry (largest steam train engine ever built in Australia), members recalled events and travels long passed and shared memories evoked by the sounds and smells of the steam age.
We saw the last steam weighbridge, watched the turntable in action as a huge engine was moved onto it and rotated 180 degrees at the hands of four volunteers.
Visiting historic aviation cockpits, model railways and the restored clocktower, we then moved from the yard to the Railways museum on the period shuttle bus, still green and yellow and still labelled with the logo of the Melbourne and Metropolitan Railways Board.
Having seen or boarded 29 steam locomotives and a few more recent but already superseded electric carriages, members left the smoke and noise of another memorable and fun filled day.