I can’t say I’ve really visited Tennant Creek. I only know from hearsay that it’s not the sort of place you take your mother for a Mothers’ Day treat. Nevertheless, our train did stop there for a considerable time in the ‘small hours’, while we slept soundly in our sleeper berths.

The reason was twofold; it ensured that passengers saw as much of the…

In the post-war years, a new tram system was being born. Although tramways were being dismantled all over the United Kingdom, tram enthusiast Claude Lane, who owned a factory which made battery-electric milk floats, adapted his manufacturing techniques to build a scaled-down double-deck tram, to run on a 15-inch gauge track.

Lane’s miniature tram ran off…