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It wasn’t anything to do with railways that motivated Lionel Woolf to set up his model train business Trainmania, in Warkworth.
Rather, it was the motorway.
“It’s such an easy commute, which is one of the main reasons we chose the town,” he says. “Also, it’s not too big, not too small. Goldilocks, if you like.”
Woolf and wife Barbara recently upped sticks on the North Shore’s Birkenhead, bought a house here and started to fit out the former Vodafone shop in Winscombe Mall on Queen Street as Trainmania, a business which sells and repairs model trains.
And they have no regrets.
“It’s a lovely area and I see a lot of potential for growth. You’ve got such great places around here and it’s on the way to other great places like Mangawhai and the Bay of Islands.”
Now 34, Woolf says he fell in love with trains when he was just four, largely because of his grandfather’s passion for them, and that love eventually transformed a hobby into a business, leading him to quit his former job as a dive instructor.
He points out that Auckland alone has 5000 enthusiasts with private model railway layouts, giving him plenty of clients willing to make the relatively short trip to Warkworth.
He’s still a member the North Shore Model Railway Club, which has 250 metres of track, and features US MidWest scenes, and Sussex and Cornwall countrysides, as well as New Zealand’s stunning Raurimu Spiral.
Woolf lets on that a Warkworth resident – “I won’t name him” – has a massive rail layout in his garden, featuring the larger G class of models designed for outdoor use.
So, is there a bit of a nerdy stigma attached to collecting model trains?
“I guess. I mean, for some it’s golf, for some it’s bird watching And some of us are just obsessed with trains. It’s not just the trains that keep us interested in this hobby. It’s all the other things that you have to know how to do to be able to run a model railway, such as electrical skills.
“If you want to make scenery, you need to be quite artistic. You need to have an imagination. So it can keep you busy if you need to be kept busy.”
But by and large, it’s a hobby for retired folk, largely because of the cost. The trains in Trainmania cost up to $1000 for special edition models.
“If you want to have 10 engines and stuff, you could invest anywhere from $5000 to $10,000, but if you look after it, it will last you a lifetime.
“And it’s not something like phones that need to be upgraded every two years.”
