UPSTAIRS at the Bright Men's Shed is an almost five–year work of craft.
The large table in the middle of the meeting room is covered with boxes, spray glue, tools and modelling grass, while most of the walls are taken up with rolling hillocks and a railway snaking through them.
"It's a very calming, relaxing hobby," Bill Connolly said.
The 75–year–old Bright resident is crafting a model train reproduction of the Ovens Valley and Everton to Yackandandah railway lines, using historic photographs and years of experience in miniature modelling.
One of his newest additions to the landscape, Eurobin Station, is almost uncannily similar to a 1979 photo in a book about the Ovens Valley railway line, but it's not just the stations that get detailed treatment.
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Even the railway ballast, the crushed stone underneath the train tracks, has been selected to match the crushed granite and quartz that was used for the Bright line, according to historic colour photographs.
"The satisfaction of doing something really well and having other people appreciate it, gives you a real buzz," Mr Connolly said.
He has been making models for much of his life, including making HO scale models (1:87) of his own homes, including his previous home in Warranwood, Melbourne.
"I shared houses with a lot of people, and I would measure their houses up and do HO scale models of their houses and put them in a glass case and give them as a Christmas present," he said.
"I've done that three times at least."
The urge to create life–like models has spawned a range of products and techniques which assist the modeller, such as static grass – small coloured fibres charged with static electricity.
Modellers use an electronic applicator when spreading the grass on glue so the fibres stands vertically, creating more lifelike grass.
Mr Connolly also has beads that are heated up to create self–levelling water and seagrass that can be used to make trees.
But not everything is purchased from a hobby shop – Mr Connolly also uses crushed dirt from out the back of the men's shed, while the builder's foam that forms the base of the landscape was free from his son–in–law.
He will also be enlisting help through a tree–making workshop planned for this year so the landscape can be properly forested.
Mr Connolly moved to Bright with his partner around eight years ago, but he had travelled to the Ovens Valley many times before.
"I used to come up with friends of mine during the late 70s–mid 80s," he said.
"We'd come up here during the summer, spend a weekend taking the piss out of each other and having canoe races from Harrietville down to Porepunkah."
"I thought this is the place I'm gonna retire to.
"It was one of the most beautiful spots on the planet."
Mr Connolly's rail reproduction isn't as beautiful yet – Beechworth station and Myrtleford station are yet to be built, and Bright doesn't exist – but Mr Connolly thinks the project will be completed in about a year.
"When it's open to the public parents can come along with their kids," he said.
"I can teach parents and kids how to how to shunt and give them virtually a history lesson of the Ovens Valley."
"Just a donation of a gold coin and they can sit up and play trains here just to have fun."
