All aboard ... there are more than 100 historic trains and a cutting-edge museum at Trainworks.
Bruce Elder visits Trainworks, a new $30 million museum in Thirlmere.
There is an argument that any country town can be turned into a major tourist attraction. All that is needed is lots of money.
Think of the $12 million poured into Longreach to build the Australian Stockman's Hall of Fame; the millions Lord McAlpine spent building his Cable Beach resort in Broome; and the way the five-star El Questro Homestead turned an isolated property on the Gibb River Road into a destination in the Kimberley.
Closer to home, the question is: will an investment of $30 million turn Thirlmere, a nondescript town between Camden and Bowral in the southern highlands, about 90 kilometres from Sydney, into a magnet for tens of thousands of tourists?
Thirlmere was never much of a destination. It was one of those scruffy towns that sprang up as the construction of the Great Southern Railway rolled through the southern highlands in the 1860s. The main railway camp was at Thirlmere between 1863 and 1867; at Mittagong and Bowral by 1867; Goulburn from 1869 to 1875 and so on.
Some decades ago, the State Rail Authority (now Railcorp) decided to remove its historic trains and rolling stock from Sydney. In conjunction with the volunteer-run Railway Heritage Museum, space was allocated at Thirlmere.
The museum, which was a kind of junkyard for old trains, was one of those fun, ramshackle places where rail enthusiasts in blue overalls tinkered with ageing steam behemoths while visitors wandered through hectares of miscellaneous rolling stock. It was very amateur and very passionate.
Then the NSW Labor government decided to spend $30 million to turn this home of railway enthusiasts and volunteers into a state-of-the-art "train experience". With that amount of money, how could it not succeed?
NSW Governor Marie Bashir opened the impressive result, named Trainworks, last March. Inside the 100-metre-long main building, the obvious highlight, and appropriate starting point, is a clever 15-minute audio-visual display created by specialist tourism project management company HPA Projects. It is built around a Cardiff 1012 steam train - built in 1916, operated at Catherine Hill Bay for years and retired in 1970 - which is located on the "stage" in a theatre at one end of the main building.
This display is a brilliant museum demonstration of cutting-edge technology. The history of the old locomotive is told through a mixture of back projection, audio and a series of 3D images of the men (specifically the engine driver and a blacksmith) who worked on and drove the Cardiff 1012. Although they're in conversation and look like real human beings, they are nothing more than holograms. Children brought up on a diet of IMAX 3D action will be impressed.
Projects such as Trainworks, staffed by a mix of paid employees and volunteers, rely on passion and enthusiasm. Our guide, Arthur Tubby, knows everything about trains and comes from a long line of railway workers.
Tubby speaks with great enthusiasm during a tour of the 100-plus trains and restored carriages assembled around the main building: the old governor-general's carriage, with its elegant interior of polished English oak and Australian cedar; a prison van, with a disconsolate hologram prisoner sitting in a corner; the mail-sorting carriage, where bags of letters and parcels were sorted while the train proceeded to its destination; a delightful green-and-white rail bus (designed to run on railway tracks), which delivered the pay to railway workers; the huge 6040 Garratt, one of the largest engines ever built; the 1905 steam train that was the first to cross the Sydney Harbour Bridge; and, most impressive, the huge railway roundhouse, where engines are turned 180 degrees so they are pointing in the right direction for the return journey.
Having explored the museum and five-hectare site and refuelled at the Trainworks cafe, Sunday visitors can take a 50-minute trip on old trains from Trainworks through the surrounding countryside to Buxton and back.
Given the enduring love affair with Thomas the Tank Engine, there is also the possibility of hopping aboard Thomas on the fictional island of Sodor on a "Day Out with Thomas", accompanied by Toby, Henry, Bulgy the Double Decker Bus and the Troublesome Trucks.
Trainworks is an outstanding museum and, in my view, $30 million well spent. It's a major contribution to the tourism of the area and the history of rail in NSW.
FAST FACTS
Getting there
Thirlmere is about 90 kilometres south of Sydney via the F5 Freeway and Remembrance Driveway.
While there
Trainworks, at 10 Barbour Road, is open Mon-Fri, 10am-4pm; Sat-Sun, 9am-5pm. Entry $19 adults, $16 concession, $11 children. Phone 4681 8001, see trainworks.com.au.
For details of vintage train trips in the region, see heritageexpress.com.au.
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