LAURIE GREEN MMR

Born in 1950, I’ve been a modeller now for over 50 years, starting with cut out cardboard western style buildings that came on the back of Corn Flakes packets way back in the late 1950’s. I’m told I did a pretty good job on them. I started in the model train hobby like most kids, with a ‘Triang’ train set that I received for Christmas. My dad and I mounted it to a 6 foot by 4 foot board and we painted on roads, lakes and green grass. I think we only had three colours of paint  -  gloss green, gloss blue and gloss brown. It was just an oval of track with no turnouts, but I thought it was the best thing I had ever seen. Hopefully I have improved since then!

Apart from this early stint into Ho scale Triang trains, I have always been a narrow gauger. I can remember seeing my first 009 scale English narrow gauge layout in a 1964 ‘Railway Modeller’(I still have the magazine). From then on I spent every spare cent I had on 009 and Hon2½ locomotives and rolling stock. It didn’t matter what is was, it could have been English, German or American, as I didn’t worry about that in those days. All trains were interesting.

It wasn’t until I went on my first trip to America that I become aware of true Americian narrow gauge  -  Colorado and the ‘Rio Grande Southern’. This started a long term love of these railroads that still exists today, starting in Hon3 and now in On3. I also dabble in On30 (like a lot of other modellers) modelling logging and mining. 

JOHN HUNTER

I began modelling as a child tinkering with plastic model kits in the small country town of Great Western in Victoria, Australia. My first build was a model of the ‘Courage of Australia’ land speed record car, then taking a interesting military models, again in plastic kit form.

My interests then shifted to model cars in 1/25 scale and I started to compete on the world stage in the late 1980’s, with some success and achieved a modelling high when I travelled to the USA to compete in the ‘Greater Salt Lake City Model Car Championships in 1992. I continued to build model cars for many years, until I found myself wanting to put the cars onto bases for display.

This lead to me going to model railroad exhibitions, where I saw what I consider the best model structures I have ever seen to this day, built by now good friend Grant McAdam, who had constructed a 1/48 scale fire station. This sparked a huge interest in structures and the scale of 1/48 at this time.

I met my good friend and now business partner Laurie Green MMR. He along with Grant and others gave huge encouragement and direction to me to become the modeller that I am today I have won several major awards at the Australian narrow-gauge conventions and I have taken out several best layout awards at model railroad exhibitions and recently was the co builder of the ‘Dolly Varden Mines Railway’ built in On30, with good friend Dan Pickard.

I have been scratch building structures and rolling stock for my model railroads since the mid sixties, but about ten years ago I started to build them  as stand alone dioramas.

This gave me an added freedom to design and build structures that I was interested in, regardless of location, railroad, country or era. In fact I could do what ever I wished, and wasn’t tied down by the railroad I was modelling. About this time I leant how to use a CAD program, which opened a whole new area of building design and planning.

 I have built several exhibition layouts, starting with ‘Mount Ash’, then  ‘Narchuca’. I also took up a interest in casting model accessories in 1/48. I am a member of the NMRA and have written several articles for modelling magazines, giving me the NMRA Achievement Certificate of Model Railroad Author. My interests in life are simply the love of my wife Linda and family, the love of music, playing the drums, a good movie and the occasional bourbon. I also enjoy one day cricket , I hope that I have given inspiration to others and continue to do so in the future.

I have been displaying model railroad layouts at public exhibitions since about 1984, normally attending 9 to 10 shows a year. And while I still exhibit the occasional layout, I now display my dioramas at these shows. I have teamed up with several other excellent diorama builders, who can be seen in the above photograph. John Hunter, my fellow partner, is on the left, Grant McAdam in the middle and Gavin Hince, owner and editor of ‘Narrow Gauge Downunder’ is in the distance. I am located on the closest table.

Grant and I do all the shows together, while John and Gavin do shows when the are available. We have formed, along with another friend, Dan Pickard, a tight group of diorama builders that share ideas, new materials, new techniques and encourage each other. This sharing has enabled all of us to greatly improve our skills and the friendship gained in more invaluable than anything else.

 May we all continue to improve and enjoy our great hobby, and to make new life long friendships.