Seymour Railway Heritage Centre is calling on volunteers to help keep it on track.
Photo by
Billie Davern
After four decades of operation, the Seymour Railway Heritage Centre is calling on locals to get on board.
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With the main street in town dubbed Station St, trains are at the epicentre of Seymour.
SRHC board member Matt Tennant said that mosts visitors can see the influence of trains on the town.
“Even when you’re driving into Seymour and see the welcome sign on the side of the road, it’s got that big steam engine on the side,” Mr Tennant said.
“It’s a huge part of the town.”
The steam engine in question, J515, was restored by SRHC in their early days when they were known as the Seymour Locomotive Steam Preservation Group.
Today, SRHC is run by a team of dedicated volunteers on a land depot behind the railway station.
Not only does SRHC work towards restoring their large fleet of heritage trains, but the team also puts together dining train experiences, circulating money throughout regional Victoria.
Despite these efforts, Mr Tennant said the organisation has had tough times in the past several years.
“Sadly, we’ve applied for quite a few grants and various bits of funding over the years, and we’re largely unsuccessful, which is frustrating,” Mr Tennant said.
“We’re doing something regionally that is moving money around and giving people a good night out.
“But we really struggle for funds, hence why things are on a shoestring budget.”
To aid the financial hardship SRHC is facing, Mr Tennant said that what the organisation needs is volunteers.
“An influx of labour would help because it would minimise how much we’d have to outsource,” Mr Tennant said.
“Just general hands-on-deck is a good way of saving a few hundred bucks.
“We’ve got a few hundred members, but probably only about 20 to 30 active volunteers.”
Restoring steam locomotive J515 was SRHC’s earliest project.
Photo by
Billie Davern
The gates of SRHC are opened to anyone who wants to come in and offer a helping hand.
And although the work would go uncompensated, Mr Tennant said the unpaid nature of being a volunteer is what makes it desirable.
“Everyone that’s here is here because they want to be here,” Mr Tennant said.
“The attitude is different. There’s a lot of fun.
“They’re not paid to be here, they can do whatever they want.”
Coupled with this is the feeling volunteers often get once they see the seeds sown from their labour.
“You see a dining carriage as it rolls into the shed, and it’s a skeleton, a wreck that resembles its former self, then, fast-forward one, two, five, 10 years later, and it rolls back out probably better than the day it was built,” Mr Tennant said.
“There’s a sense of achievement where people say, ‘yeah, I helped.’
“They might’ve put 10 screws in there, they might’ve done all of the woodwork, who knows, but as a group, there’s quite often some reflective times where you see some of the old fellas stepping back with a sense of achievement and a sense of pride.”
With cost-of-living pressures, the future of SRHC is unclear.
Mr Tennant urged anyone who had a desire to volunteer to reach out in order to ensure SRHC will continue to thrive in years to come.
“Without income, the place will die,” Mr Tennant said.
“The place operates so thin, that it’s almost close to not being here any more.
“It’s a pretty emotional roller coaster.
“It’d be a big waste to see it disappear with so many people having spent so many millions of hours here.”
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