The Paterson-Keating Lines
You may well ask why a British-born person, who has lived for the past 42 years in Western Australia, decided to model the NSW rail system. Well, I spent my younger days in the south of England and travelled many miles on the 2-BIL, 2-HAL and 4-COR suburban electrics. As an ardent train spotter at the time, I also remember seeing the experimental Bulleid 4-DD double-decker electric trains.
On arrival in Perth I soon had the opportunity to visit Sydney and was struck by the resemblance of the red rattlers to the Southern electrics of my childhood, a fact that had not escaped the attention of Tri-ang’s Australian subsidiary, when it produced the NSWGR ‘Sputnik’ suburban electric using some of the components of their British Southern Region suburban electric models. Captivated by this similarity, combined with my belief that “When in Rome, do as the Romans do!”, I decided to model the NSW rail system.
My layout is based on a hypothetical hamlet named Paterson, which is set in what was once
