A MORNINGTON man has been joyfully reunited with his prized vintage model steam train more than a year after it was stolen from his backyard shed.
Geoff Woods, 64, a lifelong train enthusiast and passionate collector, had nearly given up hope of ever seeing the 80-year-old gem again, but thanks to an unexpected tip-off that came through a chain of personal connections to the thief’s partner, he was able to recover it.
“Little did I know the thief was right under my nose and never left Mornington,” Woods said. Police arrested the thief at his Mornington property in June after executing outstanding warrants for separate matters.
Woods added his personal connection had found the steel green train sitting on the floor after managing to look around the house with the consent of the thieve’s partner. The contact also sent photos via phone of the relic that Woods thought he had lost forever.
“I went straight around the next day and picked it up,” Woods said, as well as “a heap of other stuff he pinched from me”. “I’m very happy to get it back. And now I’ve just built a steel trestle bridge with an arch that my mate has built to display the train.”
Woods said he had spoken to police but decided not to press charges after the offender already had a string of charges against him for other unrelated matters. He said he was just relieved to get his train back, which had a “few things missing from it, but 99 per cent of it is intact”.
Woods, a life member of South Mornington Football Club, and a foundation member at Mornington Football Club, said the American-made steel train with a coal carrier was a rarity, with a four-and-half inch track gauge, which didn’t exist in Australia.
He paid $5000 for it ten years ago, saying it “was just one of those things you see in your life, and you’ve got to have it”. But he said the train, which runs on real steam, hadn’t been fired up for about 70 years.
Woods, a big history buff, has a five-acre property where he keeps his historic and collectable items in his personal museum. Among them are a F-18 jet fighter windscreen and an old porthole from a boat that sank at Rottnest Island 1889.
Woods said he and a mate were working on creating a TV show like American Pickers, where collectors go on a search for rare artifacts and treasures. “I’m a big collector of unusual things.”
First published in the Mornington News – 30 September 2025
