Tocumwal railway museum curator speaks of his showcase and passenger train pulling in this weekend

Nearly 100 are travelling by rail from Melbourne with their diesel locomotive train due to pull into Tocumwal railway station at 9 o'clock on Saturday night.

They will then join a crowd of up to 7000 for the flying showcase which is being held at the aerodrome where the town's aviation museum opened last year.

Lions Club member Bernie Williams, who curates the railway museum at the station, is looking forward to opening up the terminal to the visitors.

The former army member and catering driver has been volunteering at the station for the past five years.

"We don't have a fixed opening time, people ring the number if they turn up here and I can be here in a quarter of an hour and run them through," Mr Williams said.

"We have had groups from Melbourne, Echuca, there was a car group from Goulburn come down two years ago, so there's smatterings of three or four people, other times there will be 25."

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The station once was a meeting place for NSW and Victorian trains and there were up to 80 staff employed during World War II when the town was integral to air force operations.

Freight trains continue to operate, but the last regular passenger service was in 1983 to Narrandera, with Victorian commuter runs ending in 1975.

"There's a huge variation in what was and what is," Mr Williams said.

Maps show how many tracks once ran in the yard as transhipment between the Victorian and NSW gauged tracks occurred and a branch line went to the aerodrome.

Mr Williams hopes the aviation museum will provide a spin-off for the train station.

"They're complementary I suppose because a lot of people who are interested in trains are also interested in aircraft," he said.

"We're going to put some brochures at the air museum, so people that are there go 'train museum, we'll ring up'."

History at the station includes an array of photographs, model railway layouts and artefacts linked to the town's past.

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