Following Geoff’s arrival at Powelltown in 1978, his early guide and mentor was Les Lasham. As they travelled around the District’s forests Geoff’s questions, and Les’s knowledge were, in time, to see a tramway related ‘vision’ start to emerge.

For a decade or two at least, prior to the early 1980s, a short section of tramline, Reid’s, that ran north for about two kilometres from the Powelltown/Noojee Road, commencing about 500 metres east of Powelltown, had been maintained by a number of Scout Groups. Bushwalking groups are also understood to have done occasional clearing of short sections of the network in the 1950s and 1960s.

Geoff and Les started to involve Fred Newcombe in their deliberations. Fred was now in his 60’s, and was working as the District’s carpenter. Among other things they set out to explore ways to preserve at least a section of the tramway network for the benefit of future generations.

After much deliberation, calls on Fred’s teenage recollections, and a number of exploratory bush visits, the latter of which often involved crawling around the thick bush at possible locations on hands and knees, looking for tramline ‘hints’, and then commencing revelatory clearing.

In time a plan began to emerge. It appeared that is should be possible to link Big Pat’s Creek, east of Warburton, with Powelltown, via Starlings Gap; using a series of historic tramlines and in so doing creating a 43 km. walking track, along mainly gentle grades. And a close-to-Melbourne track with great scope to portray an earlier time and way of living in the forest’s recent history.

And so, over the next several months the District budget, and associated works program were gently ‘tweaked’, and the task of re-opening the fast-disappearing tramlines proceeded.

Fortuitously, additional progress was possible over the summer months as, in those times the FCV Districts received government funding to increase their workforces in advance of each year’s bushfire season. And milder summers saw additional crew personnel available for other tasks. ¹

As the track work continued, research into the history of the lines being re-opened also got underway. All this work occurring with the tacit support of the Divisional Forester, Ken Harrop.

Among the vegetation that had re-established itself along the tramways since the 1939 bushfires were hundreds of tree-ferns. These, after careful removal, were transported to appreciative public facilities, such as Melbourne’s Botanic Gardens, for replanting.

And then ...

The Upper Yarra tramline project was not yet done. Following an approach by the Army’s 91^st Forestry Squadron, which wanted to conduct a timber sawmilling exercise in the Yarra forest, Geoff found himself in discussion with two brothers, Ad and Fred Kobiolke. The two had operated a local sawmill at Gilderoy for many years. A story emerged about an abandoned tram, comprising ten sets of ‘bogies’, that had been left on a branch tramline near the High Lead on Doweys Spur Rd, following the 1939 bushfires.

On this occasion the remarkable memories of the sawmilling brothers were pressed into service. Considerably more detective work followed, and the bogies were ultimately located, all but hidden by the regenerating forest.

Photographs were taken, and then two ‘bogies’ were carefully disassembled, and subsequently recrafted at the District workshop by carpenter Fred Newcombe - the bogies being chosen to display two variations of the rudimentary braking-systems in use on the tramways at the time.

Meanwhile, the 91^st Forestry Squadron had cut the timber to be used in the display.

The existing wayside stop opposite the FCV Powelltown office, on the Noojee Road, was used and, to this day, a rebuilt loaded ‘carriage’ can be viewed there. (Figs. 1a & 1b)

By the mid/late-1980s, the FCV had been subsumed into the newly-created Department of Conservation, Forest and Lands. Karl Rumba, the FCV’s last Healesville-based Divisional Recreation Officer had become CFL’s Project Officer for a mooted, visionary plan to convert the former Lilydale to Warburton broad-gauge railway alignment to what would ultimately become Australia’s first major "rail-trail" (a walking, cycling and horse-riding track).

Such a, then, visionary concept was not without it challenges. The Warburton railway line had been closed in July 1965 and with the dismantling of the track in the 1970s the land had remained vacant. On at least two subsequent occasions the State government investigated selling off the land, but withdrew these proposals at least in part due to community opposition.

Protracted negotiations were required with neighbouring farmers who had previously occupied the reserve and it was not until 1996, and the efforts of among others, local volunteers, particularly the Friends of the Lilydale to Warburton Rail Trail, the local Council, and State and Federal governments, that the 38 km. trail was opened. It is now one of Australia’s iconic Rail Trails, meandering as it does through the Yarra Valley, between the Dandenong Ranges and the Great Dividing Range. ²

At its Warburton terminus, the rail-trail is only a gentle 7 km. from the Big Pats Creek start of the tramway "Walk into History".

And meanwhile, and at the time of writing (January 2021), new rail trail projects are proceeding elsewhere in the Yarra Valley, adding to the wonderful recreational resource on Melbourne’s eastern doorstep.