Newspaper Article 2004 – Train buffs realise dream with ride-on Brookie

Train buffs realise dream with ride-on Brookie

CHRIS WEBB

When Michael Deitz first saw a “Brookie” at an American train collectors’ meet, he knew he had to have one.

Having your own ride-on electric train set is perhaps not a dream shared by everyone, but Michael and fellow “train nutter” Peter Bulford are delighted with the latest addition to Napier’s Trainworld.

Brookie is a small but defiantly yellow electric engine, towing two carriages on which human passengers can ride.

Now, after weeks of preparation and setting up, Brookie is trundling happily around the large upstairs space in Dickens Street, which Peter and Michael have turned into a model-train paradise.

Peter, who spends each day maintaining and running 800 metres of track and hundreds of accompanying model trains, believes Brookie is the only indoor electric train ride in New Zealand and hopes it will attract rail enthusiasts and the generally curious alike.

“We’re not a rollercoaster, but at least it’s something to have a ride on and great even on rainy days,” Michael says.

He and wife Anne, both from the United States, first saw Peter’s train layout in Ahuriri several years ago, on one of their many visits to New Zealand.

Peter had a plan to move into the central city, in the hope of getting a bit more traffic through the doors.

Michael, who had more than a passing interest in model trains himself, took a share in the business and financed the move into town, which was no easy task.

The 117sq m of detailed countryside and tracks was so large and heavy it had to be broken into four pieces and transported by a house-moving truck. When the miniature landscape arrived and was lowered through the new building’s roof, the largest crane in Hawke’s Bay was at its limit of weight and reach, manoeuvring the pieces in.

After 15 months spent reassembling and repairing the layout, Trainworld reopened above Mossy’s Cafe in June 2003 and Michael has since added a few American trains to the collection, of which Brookie is the latest example.

Both Peter and Michael have loved trains since they were children. Peter recalls watching steam trains rumble past his grandmother’s house, while Michael can still remember buying his first electric model for $1.99 in 1946.

“Any department store worth its salt would have a train set going around it, and I used to go along just to see that,” Michael says.

The pair have a few more plans in store for Trainworld, including displays on the history of rail transport, but for now they are quite happy to finally have a model they can take a ride on, even if if the round trip is somewhat under two minutes.

Photo caption – ON TRACK: From left, Michael Deitz, Garion Herman, Calleacha Bulford and Peter Bulford take a ride on Brookie, Napier’s newest short-distance train service.
HBTODAY PICTURE: PAUL TAYLOR