Ozexpatriate

Doomben (QLD) on the Pinkenba branch - serving the racecourse of the same name.

Tingalpa (QLD) - home of the digger. (One of many many such war memorials in Australia, but this one had local renown.) This one had his own troubles long after the great war. He was originally made of local unclad sandstone. Kept having his rifle nicked and got moved around with roadworks. Home to a pub too. There's been one there for a while. (It's changed a little bit.)

Helensvale (QLD) - on the old south coast line, and the new, rebuilt Gold Coast line.

And what an attractive bit of urban architecture it is too. Is it listed?

Tweed Heads (NSW) - the terminus of the Coolangatta branch of the south coast line from Brisbane and in 'enemy' (cockroach) territory. At one time there was actually a gate at the border.

As Yoda says "There is another." You could catch a train to Croydon from there.

Ormeau (QLD) - on the south coast line at 19m 16c from South Brisbane, it did warrant a station when the new line was rebuilt.

Also fictionally, Helsingør fires mortar shells at lucky Jack Aubrey in 'The Surgeon's Mate'.

It's not cheating to go twice when you didn't change the letter. Estacada (OR) - on the banks of the Clackamas River, which flows down from Olallie Butte in the Cascade mountains.

Eugene (OR) home of the Oregon Ducks (from the University of Oregon) and terminus of the Oregon Electric Railway from Portland in 1912. (A 'clean' hydropowered interurban before the great war.)

Unpainted engineering samples of the shunters' truck are available. There are pictures on Bachmann's website. 'Upright' and 'sloping' handrails are clearly visible. EDIT: I'm at a loss as to how I missed this post above. Invisible ink I suppose.

North Bend (OR) - which is *nowthere* near and quite a distance to the west and south of Bend (OR). (Google says 238 miles by road between the two.)

Bilinga (QLD) - Like Tugun, right next to the beach. Almost the last stop on the old South Coast line before Coolangatta. Ooops - not 'b', but 'h'. Hemmant (QLD) - a sad little stop on the Cleveland line. At one point sugar cane was grown in this area. Here's a mill. Later it was famous for it's smells.

and Short Circuit and Kindergarten Cop. Now it's official.

Elanora (QLD) - an original stop on the old south coast branch to Coolangatta/Tweed Heads and a proposed station on the replacement Gold Coast line extension to Coolangatta, and ...

Salem (OR) - the state capital - no witches burned there! (At least not that I know of.) And close to Cape Perpetua (so named by the intrepid James Cook) and perhaps my one of many favorite spot(s) on the Oregon coast. Thanks! We got my earlier Umpqua reference in officially. Now I need to find something ending in "a" to get Astoria in officially.

Umpqua River (OR) - known for it's lighthouse on the river, and for it's ice cream. Actually I cheated a bit here. The nearest town is Reedsport. Let's keep playing "U"

Sherwood (OR) - where high-school atheletes were known as the "Bowmen" and incongruously, the "Lady Bowmen" Four votes for Eccles cakes now. They are mighty popular.

I learned something today. Thank you. I presume the one in Cornwall? There's another in Tasmania.

Tugun (QLD) right next to the beach on the south coast branch to Coolangatta (we'll get there yet!) The "Tu" is pronounced like 'tube' not 'tug' so tew-gun.

While I am a great admirer of layouts with a high fidelity to an exact place and time (and they have the advantage of containing details to model that might not be thought of in an imagined setting), I plan to build a freelanced layout. I want to be more or less true to a period and create a regional feel, rather than a specific location. I want to build a mainline with a branch. It will take a lot of room and time. By necessity and scope it will contain a lot of selective compression including short trains and short platforms. That and the additional research hurdle of living far away drives me into freelancing. Plus, living in the US, I feel less compulsion to build a fidelity model. I will be doing the inverse of a British modeller's generic "America". I plan something that hopefully has a "West country" feel. In some ways this will make it harder to look 'right' as opposed to a big train set, but that's the plan. I think there is a trend in the US for more faithful representations of a real place - with the usual accomodations for selective compression of course, but freelanced locations with RTR stock remain popular here.

Nambour (QLD) - on the north coast line, south of Yandina and not far from the Big Pineapple and the Big Pineapple train, sadly none of which have quite the appeal they once did.

Redbank (QLD) - which as of the 1950s became home to new railway workshops focused on diesel/electric traction. All work gradually moved away from the nearby steam locomotive workshops at Ipswich.

Lindum (QLD) - on the Cleveland line and where I went to school. Here's the station. The dual-gauge (3'6" Cape + standard) Port of Brisbane line is in the foreground (south side of the line). The old ticket office was quite charming, but many of these along the line have succumbed to fire (many arson) over the years and the station is a bit grim and utilitarian these days.

Keperra (QLD) on the Ferny Grove suburban line. (I have an aunt who lives there.) Here's the station today.