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 LINKS TO OTHER EVENTS
AUSTRALIAN SCOUT JAMBOREE 2013
MELSA mourns the loss of foundation member and No.1 Financial member Bob "Sooty" Kimber. Bob passed away last Saturday in Maryborough. His funeral is to be held at the Maryborough Crematorium at 10:30am Thursday 23rd May.
Our Next "MELSA's Sunday In The Park" will be run on Sunday May 26, 2013. Rides on the miniature trains will run from 9am to 1pm (or so) at a cost of $1 per person but please wear covered shoes to protect your toes. If we are there (weather permitting as always) the children can have their face painted (at a small cost) and the Mary Ann should also be operating on the lower (QR) track. Jumping Castles will be there for a small fee also. The Excelsior City Band will be playing in the Rotunda between 11am and 1pm and they will operate a barbeque and drink stall. There will 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, and 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 living from the far north of Queensland down to the southern border in 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 affiliated with the Australian Association of Live Steamers (AALS) and also the Australian Miniature Boiler Safety Committee (AMBSC) - the body which oversees the regulation and safety of the steam aspects of our hobby. 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.