Ipswich Museum | The Workshops Rail Museum

All aboard for BIG LOUD FUN at The Workshops Rail Museum! There are so many places to go if you love trains in Brisbane but number one on the list would have to be the Ipswich Rail Museum! Back in 1865 the very first train to run in Queensland steamed west from the Ipswich Railway Workshops to the small settlement at Grandchester. Today the site is home to Australia’s premier rail museum which was built with the young train enthusiasts very much in mind.

The Nippers Railway playground

It’s big, it’s hands-on, it colourful, it’s educational but most of all it’s FUN! A dedicated children’s adventure playground aptly named ‘Nippers Railway’ (a nipper was the youngest member of a railway gang) features a kids-sized railway network with a port, goods yard, country station, city station and even a signal tower. Kids can pedal through city stations pretending to be station masters and even don a hardhat for effect.

Model railway display

The Workshops Rail Museum features the largest model railway of Queensland anywhere in the world. Kids can discover a micro version of suburban Brisbane, busy ports, coastal landscapes, the cane and coal fields, outback Queensland and the iconic Kuranda Railway in Cairns. Tiny cameras are mounted in the display to see the view from inside this miniature world.