ALMOST exactly two years after The North Central Review first highlighted the plight of the abandoned miniature railway in Apex Park, the train will begin running again.
The miniature railway - renovated, repaired, refreshed and reinvigorated - will be officially open to the public next Sunday, February 21.
There will be an official opening ceremony at 2pm at the Miniature Railway Station site in Apex Park, near the Leisure Centre carpark in White Street.
The train will start running (and taking passengers) at 11am, with rides at $2 each for everyone.
Special souvenir First Day tickets will also be available at $5 each. Other fundraising activities will include a barbecue, the sale of souvenir mugs ($15) and the opportunity to sponsor a sleeper for $2 or $5.
In addition, visitors can drop in to the Newspaper House marquee between 11.30 and 4pm for a souvenir Review front page with a personalised photograph.
"This will be an historic occasion," said Kilmore Miniature Railway Secretary Dianne Le Quiniat.
"It's the fulfilment of a dream that began more than 25 years ago in the early 1980s when the Kilmore Apex Club first proposed the idea.
"What the members of the new Kilmore Miniature Railway have achieved in the past two years has been very significant, but none of it would have been possible without the vision, the foresight, and the sheer hard work put in by the Kilmore Apex Club volunteers all those years ago," Dianne said.
The idea for a miniature railway in Apex Park was first mooted in 1982, when the Kilmore Apex Club took the proposal to the Kilmore Shire Council.
In October of that year, Apex Club members and Council representatives visited the Eltham Miniature Railway, and everybody agreed that something similar would make a great attraction for Kilmore.
On July 27 1983 the front page of the Kilmore Free Press carried the headline "Full speed ahead for mini railway", announcing the Kilmore Shire Council had agreed to fund $20,000 of the estimated $64,000 cost of the project.
Kilmore Apex Club was to contribute $10,000 over a five-year period and provide volunteer labour.
The Army's Sixth Construction Group offered to build one of the two bridges needed across the creek.
And the Free Press article also stated that there were plans for "the horse drawn tram in Hudson Park to eventually link up with the railway."
Work began almost immediately, with Apex Club volunteers and Kilmore Shire Council workers bulldozing out the route. The Army built the southern bridge and Council built the northern bridge.
A shed to house the locomotive and rolling stock was built and the track was gradually laid around the circuit, but the railway operated only a few times before the Apex Club ran out of money to make insurance payments and continue the project.
Maintenance of the track and engines also proved to be costly and time consuming, but skyrocketing insurance costs were the major problem.
"Public liability was the killer," said former Apex Club member John Stevenson.
Unable to run the train for paying passengers, the Apex Club was forced to abandon the project, and for may years the railway lay idle, weeds overgrowing the rusting rails, the engine shed a target for graffiti vandals.
Then, in February 2008, The North Central Review ran a front-page story about the neglected railway, headlined "At the end of the line".
It generated such interest that the Review, with the assistance of the Kilmore Chamber of Commerce, organised a public meeting to discuss a possible revival of the railway.
It proved to be one of Kilmore's biggest public meetings, and the John Taylor Room at the Kilmore Library was packed to capacity. A working committee was formed which led to the birth of a new group, Kilmore Miniature Railway Inc., and by April of that year work began on the long-abandoned track.
And now, almost exactly two years later, the revived railway is up and running.
Safety note
If you want to ride the railway on Sunday, please note that, for safety reasons, passengers must wear fully enclosed footwear. People in bare feet or wearing thongs or sandals will not be permitted on board the train.
