ARHS Victorian Division - Williamstown Museum

The museum is situated in Champion Road Williamstown Victoria and is only a very short walk from the North Williamstown railway station. The museum is open from noon to 5PM every weekend and every day from Boxing Day (December 26th) through Australia Day (January 26th). The museum is accessible to school groups mid-week by appointment. If you need more information, give them a call on +61 3 9397 7412.

Most of the museum fleet is preserved as static exhibits, but a few of the diesels are operative and it may be possible to commission some of the steam engines with some major work. The museum is run by a dedicated group of volunteers who do everything they can to preserve the machinery in their care. Unfortunately they have trouble keeping up with the damage caused by the sea air. If you can help in the preservation duties such as painting I'm sure the museum would love to hear from you. A couple of years ago there were plans to move the museum to a disused historic railway property right next to Melbourne's CBD but the government of the day went the path of the $$$ and rejected the plan, instead building a sports stadium and car park.

Unlike many museums, the displays are interactive in that you can climb into the cab of each locomotive (except the working diesels - too easy to start one :) and fiddle with the controls to your hearts content. My kids Alex (6) and Matthew (4) love the place and will spend hours climbing in and out of the locomotives living out their imagination.

During a sunny day during July 2000 I visited the museum to update my photo collection, and those pictures are represented here. Some of the images are my own from an earlier visit with a low quality digital camera, and a couple of them were taken by my late father and scanned (poorly) by me. Since there are so many images to this collection, I've split these pages up into:

• Steam
• Diesel
• Electric
• Way & Works
• Other