Melbourne Homeowner Discovers Intricate Model Train Setup Under Home

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After finalising the purchase of a home in Melbourne’s northern suburbs, a Melbourne man found something unexpected.
There had been no mention of the expansive model train network beneath the home’s floors.
Coincidentally, new owner Daniel Xu is a keen train enthusiast and engineer.

As any new homeowner will know, there are always unknown things to be found in a new place.

From a kitchen cupboard that never seems to close properly, a curiously painted over area or the real performance of an air-conditioning unit, discoveries abound.

But after Daniel Xu and his wife finalised the purchase of their house in Melbourne’s northern suburbs, he found what can only be described as a train enthusiast’s dream beneath their feet.

Underneath his new home, Xu discovered a model train setup, designed around an extensive network of train lines and miniature landscapes.

An extensive model train set in an enclosed area beneth a house.

Xu, a train enthusiast himself, had no idea this was what was under the home he ha just purchased. Source: SBS News

With plans for renovations, Xu needed to get beneath his house, much of which is raised, sitting above a carport.

Entering the undercroft of his new home via a small door, Xu was shocked to find the area, which is just tall enough to stand in, entirely taken up by the elaborate setup.

“To do the renovation, I would have to go downstairs to have a look and do some inspections and when I got down I saw this massive incredible train model just sitting there,” he told SBS News.

“I was shocked and I immediately asked my wife to come down to have a look — she was shocked.”

“It’s unbelievable, so massive, so huge.”

He said nothing had been mentioned about model trains during the open home inspections.

Coincidentally, Xu is a train enthusiast.

He works as a rolling stock engineer for a company that manufactures new trains and designs and constructs new rail lines.

A model train on the tracks of a model set with a person in the background.

The model train set was put together by the former owner of the house Daniel Xu recently purchased and could be about 60 years old. Source: SBS News

His love of rail started when he was young, through a Japanese cartoon about a crime-fighting train.

“It tells you how trains act like people to protect children,” he said, describing the show.

Xu has since been in touch with the previous owner, who told them their father built the train network in the 1960s when they were a child.

The set had likely not been used for some years, with the area full of spiderwebs when Xu first went beneath the house and found the dusty set.

An old, dusty control board for a model train network.

It is not the project he had in mind when buying his house, but Daniel Xu has committed himself to restoring the old model train network he found beneath his home and hopes to upgrade some of the technology. Source: SBS News

Xu, who said he already had a number or train toys and model trains, plans on getting the lines cleaned up, in order to test what still works and get the entire network back up and running.

While the separate control desks for each of the different zones of the train tracks likely represented modern technology when first installed, Xu hopes to upgrade it with some newer technology to share his love of trains.

“My friends kids come and play, they don’t want to leave, they spend the whole afternoon here although there is no power at all [running through it at the moment],” he said.