The full circle moment

Coffs Harbour Railway Station. September 2024.

Sometimes a modeler's hobby and personal life come together in a full circle moment. For myself, another holiday in Coffs Harbour has come and gone, and while I never meant to grow old, age has quietly crept up on me. You see, this visit marked almost 30 years since my wife, and I first ventured to Coffs Harbour on a family holiday shortly after welcoming our first child back in 1995.

Despite returning 10 years later with 2 children in tow, (pictured left), and again in 2007, 2009, 2014 and 2018, heading back for the first time as empty nesters to a place that has long been synonymous with being a happy family holiday destination, took on a different feel. After those initial family holidays became the catalyst for my venture into modelling Australian HO scale outline, it felt like I'd arrived at a full circle moment.

Look at the top photo taken in September 2024, and you will see the fenced off expanse of grass which is all that remains from the goods yard at Coffs Harbour that completely disappeared sometime in 1996. So, after I'd revamped my former inner-Melbourne based layout around the idea of it being a fictitious what-if scenario set against my photo backdrop of Coffs Harbour, I was expecting it to feel as though I was stepping into my model railway on our recent holiday. But for several reasons, that didn't turn out to be the case at all.

If my layout was supposed to have preserved those earlier memories in some sort of miniature HO scale time capsule, then turning on the layout lights when I got home only highlighted that it doesn't. While it is still a great looking model railway, the evocative memories that I thought were such an important fabric of this layout strangely aren't there anymore.

My Coffs Harbour holiday reading material, but I never finished reading The NR Story.

My holiday reading material included Frank J Hussey's new book The NR Story to keep the model railway juices flowing while I was away. Only I never finished it. While I loved the introduction and in-depth look at National Rail's inherited locomotive problems faced in the early 1990's, it only reminded me that this period of change had also totally decimated the goods yard at Coffs Harbour. I ended up collecting even more reading material after visiting the Yarilla Arts and Museum in Coffs CBD, while the September issue of Australian Railway History had an article on Coffs Harbour. Along with my copy of Scott Schache's excellent book Bananacoast Railway: Rails of The Coffs Coast which I already had at home; I've been able to round up even more information on the history of Coffs Harbour on this visit.

I'm probably highlighting another age thing, where you skip a visit to the Big Banana now that the kids are no longer with you and instead visit cool things like museums and art galleries in peace and quiet!

Coffs Harbour Jetty, September 2024. The rails have long disappeared.

Whenever we headed down to the Jetty Foreshore, I would become totally immersed in reading each display that explained the history of the Jetty and the railway lines that once connected it to the shipping trade. The fact that it is still there and preserved as an interactive historic display for all to enjoy is a testament to the local council. The smell of salt air while walking along the timber planks and watching fishing trawlers returning from sea was more than enough to make me forget about the railway station a short distance away on the other side of the dunes. I caught a glimpse of the XPT as it arrived in Coffs Harbour on a Sunday morning while walking through the Jetty Markets, and on another occasion saw a northbound steel train late one afternoon from the top of Muttonbird Island. But for the large part I seemed more interested in photographing the Jetty.

Before we had even left to drive home, I found myself wondering if I would have been better off just building a small layout featuring the Jetty branch as it would have existed back in its heyday, instead of modelling a fictitious representation of a modern railway. The Jetty dates to 1892, well before the arrival of the New South Wales Government Railways Raleigh to Coffs Harbour extension of today's North Coast Line. Yet the Jetty has survived well beyond the rails being removed and has been something I've enjoyed strolling along in the almost 30 years that we've been holidaying there.

The railway jetty can be seen in the background behind the breakwater of the fishing harbour.

In the first week since arriving home, the idea has only grown, particularly with the era between 1906 to 1914 when the British Australian Timber Co. first laid rails out onto the Coffs Harbour Jetty prior to the arrival of the New South Wales Government Railways. Once you get to thinking what a simplified layout plan might look like, you can almost sense the change in the air, much like an oncoming storm. Scratch-building the Jetty holds enormous appeal as a long-term project away from the public eye, as does the idea of building a model of a ship moored alongside it. Once you start to cost out the benefits of scale, gauge, size and era, suddenly your mind is half made up.

What that means for Philden Beach I'm still not sure. While there will no doubt be some very serious modelling conversations with friends over what the future holds, the layout was essentially completed a year ago when I put the finishing touches to my book Revamp an Existing Layout. My concrete plant side project has only made me realise that the layout has now entered the tinker with it until it's no longer recognisable stage. I don't want that for this layout.

Given that I built the 3.3 metre long shelf layout a little too big for an average sized apartment, there has already been talk about whether it will be able to come with us whenever we are next faced with moving house. It's replacement to go alongside my small OO9 Welsh Highlands layout would have to be equally small, and while I generally take my time to consider things carefully, once I make my mind up on a matter, things normally happen very quickly. With my thoughts on wanting to exhibit the layout again next year already fading, perhaps my days of modelling in HO scale have come full circle too.

If I wanted to model Coffs Harbour in modern times, this is all that the northern end of the yard is reduced to. A single-track crossing on the approach to the Jetty Foreshore.

One thing remains certain however, I can sit back and say that I achieved everything that I wanted to with building this NSW North Coast shelf layout. A layout and family holiday memories I've now learnt are two very different things. While building Philden Beach has been a lot of fun, everything has a season. You can't hold onto everything each time a new idea springs to mind, but it's the research, planning and building a layout that is three-quarters of the fun anyway. Perhaps I will take my time deciding what to do while I enjoy running some trains over the remainder of the year. And finish Philden Beach's story with one final post with the lights on in the cement plant before I call it a day.

Until next time...

See also; Lazing by the Sea