Train lovers build their own inspection vehicles just for fun
STAN Goodman and his son Peter made it their mission to recreate old-fashioned train track inspection vehicles. Stan had to finish off the last one on his own after losing his son to cancer.
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STAN Goodman and his son were obsessed with trains. The passion eventually caught up with the two of them.
They were spurred on after Peter was diagnosed with cancer a few years ago.
They made it their mission to create old-fashioned train track inspection vehicles and are known as a handcar or pump trolley.
They’ve created a bicycle powered vehicle, a twin bicycle power vehicle and the red one in the photo, complete with a roof and decorative fringe. All of it created at Mr Goodman’s Chipping Norton home.
They could be used on any train line in Australia, if it were still legal.
Mr Goodman said after Peter died, it took him a while to get back into the final project, the cream of the crop, but said it ended up being a great way to honour him.
“When he was diagnosed, it was like therapy for us both,” he said.
“We spent hundreds of hours just on one track inspection vehicle, finetuning and perfecting.
They often created the vehicles based on just an old image. With engineer minds and a love of everything that moves, they’d create the replicas.
Mr Goodman’s obsession with things that go doesn’t stop there.
He has built cars and boats.
“I’m a nut. I was born in 1922. When I was an impressionable teenager, there was a beautiful array of cars out in 1935.
“My neighbours had cars but had no mechanical mind if something went wrong.
“If anything hiccupped, they sent for me.”
Mr Goodman’s next project is a motorised scooter. He plans to create a roof for it and have it powered by solar power.
“I like to keep busy. That’s why I’ve always got another project to work on,” he said.
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