The DA class diesel-electric mainline locomotive hauling three historically correct red NZR carriages pulled into Gate Pa mid-morning, on Tuesday this week.

No-one got off, no-one got on.

Then 91-year-old Miss Patricia Grant-Taylor clambered aboard, took the controls and eased the train away from the platform.

She's the former 28-year-and-one-term former Tauranga Girls College teacher.

'I enjoyed that as much today as I did in 1933.” That was when Patricia and her brother went to see a working model of the Wellington to Paekakariki line in the capital. 'There was even a Kapiti Island on the model.”

And to put the record straight, Patricia's DA locomotive was a 1/87^th model doing circuits of the lounge at the Hodgson House retirement home in Botanical Road. There's not a real rail track nor a station within a tuppenny return ticket of Gate Pa.

The model layout had been set up by the Tauranga Model Railway Society for the benefit of residents, many or most with age-related issues.

'They all grew up with trains,” says Hodgson House activities co-ordinator Trish Small. 'That's how they travelled. They all have rail stories and reminiscing is both fun and therapeutic. And they love to talk about where they've been and what they did when they were younger.”

Myra Macdonald – 'I think I am 92” – travelled the main trunk on steam trains between Auckland and Wellington. 'Long slow trips, but I always enjoyed them, quite a romantic thing steam travel.”

And she was poised like a vigilant station master to wrest the DA controls from Patricia, 'to have a play given the chance”.

Kevin Carrol lived alongside the main trunk line in Taumarunui. 'Saw lots of trains and got sick of trains.”

He remembers trying to drive a herd of cattle across the railway line and the beasts would baulk. 'They didn't like the railway line.” But today, watching the Tauranga Model Railway Society layout, he felt re-connected with rail. And he was grateful.

'Beautiful,” says Richard Manktelow, who's living with Parkinson's. 'Great for the imagination.”

Rail is in the blood at Hodgson House. Trish Small is a railway girl, her Dad an NZR goods supervisor at the Featherston railways yards in Wairarapa. As a girl she even took sly rides in the shunting yards. And when Trish took a couple of her Dad's ‘best of' rail trip videos to Hodgson House, they loved them.

'They were of an era when people depended on trains and they enjoyed trains.” Slow, sootie and late, cold cups of tea and pies, but an experience none-the-less.

When word got around Hodgson House that a railway was going to set up in the lounge for morning activity, the turnout rivalled peak hour at St Pancras. People who rarely showed up for combined group activities turned out. 'Just the nostalgia, sharing a story,” says Trish.

'Perhaps when they were younger, they yearned for a train set but were never in a position to own one. Today they fulfilled that dream. A train eh? Who would have thought.”

Trish sensed the enjoyment. 'Just the glow on their faces and the fact they wanted to touch and play. We don't often see that.” But being a railways child she wasn't surprised. 'Anything that triggers memories and special moments from their past is a blessing. As I have seen today.”

The members of the Tauranga Model Railway Society were all decked out in blue wigs in support of the Prostate Cancer Foundation's Blue September fundraising campaign. But they too are looking for funds to build a new clubhouse in Hewlett's Road so they can host events rather than cart layouts around town.

'We could offer more for longer. But this has been an embracing first such outing for us,” says the Society's Rob Thomson.

For more information on the Tauranga Model Railway Society message Rob on: [email protected].