Steve has made a long and continuing contribution to AMRA and its members in many and various ways.
He is a quiet unassuming person, married with a daughter five years of age. He is honest and trustworthy and is always willing to help anyone with a problem. He has been particularly helpful to new and young members, suggesting and guiding in a practical way especially when building locomotives and rolling stock.
Steve is a prolific builder of steam locomotives using both styrene and brass. He has a tally in excess of 100 mainly Queensland outline. He has also produced many cane locos with both steam and diesel outlines.
The first documented evidence of his modelling available to the writer is in Journal 137 (Oct/Dec 1979) in which his article on scratchbuilding a QR C16 steam loco appeared.
He has also built and displayed many layouts at AMRA Qld annual model railway exhibitions following either QR or cane tramway prototype. An early example of this is recorded pictorially in Journal 143 (April/June 1981) showing part of the layout and some more of his scratchbuilt steam locos.
A later example can be found in Journal 256 (July/Aug 2000) where photos and a description of his "Canetoad Gully" layout which was exhibited in Queensland AMRA's 2000 exhibition are recorded.
This same article shows his ability as a photographer and numerous photos of his have been featured in Journal over many years, one being an article on the 1999 live steam convention in Journal 251 (sept/oct 1999) and another entitled "South Johnstone Street" appeared in Journal 250 (July/Aug 1999).
The first listing of AMRA members in the writer's possession is for 1979 in which Steve's name already appears. During all of the years since then he has been a tireless and devoted member of the Queensland branch. He has also occupied many positions of authority - president, vice president, committee member, librarian, branch reporter, layout committee member and probably others of which the writer is not aware.
He was heavily involved in the construction of the layout when the branch clubrooms were at South Brisbane Railway Station and likewise in the present layout in the clubrooms at Zillmere, especially with the electrical system.
During construction of the above clubrooms, Steve and a couple of other members saved the club much money as the installed all of the electrical wiring. For many years prior to 1999, Steve was responsible for the electrical supply to the various exhibits and canteen at the annual Qld branch exhibition.
Steve is a very regular attendee at club meetings and as previously mentioned is always prepared to happily assist any member with modelling problems. He is also co-ordinator of the Narrow Gauge Group which meets monthly in the clubrooms.
While some mention has been made to his articles in Journal, Steve has contributed many more articles over the years.
In recognition of his efforts, Steve has received a number of branch and federal awards including the Meritorious Award in 1982, Chief Executive's Trophy (Qld branch President's award) in 1994, and an honorary life membership in 1997.
