MELSA Home Page
Links to other MELSA pages:
FIND US SUNDAY IN THE PARK LOCO 299
CLUB CALENDAR MEMBERS NOTICEBOARD
RECENT HAPPENINGS
COMPETITION AND DISPLAY WEEKEND
MODEL ENGINEERING REGIONAL TOURISM
HISTORY OF STEAM POWER
Our Next Sunday In The Park: will (hopefully) be on 27th May, 2012. Rides will run from 9am to around 1pm at a cost of $1 per person and if we are there, you can expect to listen to one of the districts fine brass bands and the children can have their face painted and the Mary Ann should also be operating on the lower track. The band will operate a barbeque and there could even be some sumptuous ice creams by Fusion.
Welcome to the official website of Model Engineers and Live Steamers Association (MELSA), Maryborough.
This website aims to not simply tell about our club, but to do our part in promoting tourism for our region, to promote the hobby of Model Engineering, to provide some stimulus to those contemplating starting into a most fascinating hobby of construction, and also to set the scene and describe where our industrialised world has come from thanks to the POWER OF STEAM.
MELSA was founded in late 1976 by a group of interested railway enthusiasts. Their aim was to set up a track and facility to allow the running of miniature trains and encourage construction of scale models of railway and other engines - both steam and internal combustion. The Association built a track in Queens Park, Maryborough with the blessing of the Maryborough City Council, with help in kind from a number of sponsors, and with many volunteer manhours to dig, form and pour concrete, and cut and weld steel to create the track. We have members mostly living between the far north of Queensland down to the southern border to Mexico (sorry - NSW) but there are a few members as far south as Victoria.
Our Club was the first of several to use the name "Model Engineers and Live Steamers" - the other clubs taking help in setting up their organisations from our then Secretary Bob Kimber. A number of other clubs use the name "Model and Experimental Engineers" which covers a similar range of interests, and there are many other clubs with a variety of names. Regardless of names there are almost 80 clubs around Australia which are registered with the Australian Miniature Boiler Safety Committee (AMBSC) - the body which oversees the regulation and safety of the steam aspects of our hobby. Most of these Clubs would also carry an affiliation with the Australian Association of Live Steamers (AALS) which oversees the safe operation of Miniature Railways up to 8 inch Gauge. Our Railway comprises mainly 5 inch gauge but there is a loop of 3 1/2 inch gauge as well.
The Clubhouse (left) is an old World War II Air Raid Shelter which was constructed for use in emergency by the Government employees working in the adjacent Government Offices.
To find us, Maryborough is at the gateway to the Fraser Coast region - approximately 300 km northerly from Brisbane along the Bruce Highway. Queens Park is adjacent to the historical CBD of Maryborough.