Jan van Mourik

It is with great sadness that I have to announce the passing of my good friend Jan van Mourik, on December 7, 2023, at his home in Bergen op Zoom, Netherlands.

Jan was a member of the 009 Society, a straightforward character with a wide infectious grin and a good sense of fun. He had great patience with the public, explaining about his layouts and the ideas behind them. Children were always welcome to ‘help’ him operate. He made many friends both in this country and elsewhere - Belgium, Luxemburg, Germany and the UK.

I knew Jan since the mid-1990s, when he first appeared at a model railway show where Reinier Hendriksen and I exhibited Dunalistair, which at the time was partly completed. Later, he became one of the founder members of the Dutch 009 Group together with Reinier, Jaap Stuurman and myself.

Jan had an unorthodox approach to modelling, scrounging materials and second-hand kits which he turned into scratchbuilt or kitbashed models. He was involved in many projects. Over the years he built and extended two layouts of his own (Mouburg and Uivernest), and teamed up with Henk Wust in many joint projects, where Jan did the electrics and track, and Henk the scenery.

With an engineering background, Jan was well known for his animated models, and sometimes was nicknamed Mr Animation. His mechanisms were created using a wonderful Heath-Robinson approach involving transistors, gears, electric motors, pulleys and cranks. His final creation was the unloading system at the palm oil processing plant of Keretapi Minyak Sawit, Railway of the Month for the December issue of Continental Modeller.

Exhibiting in the company of Jan and Henk was an event in itself. The pair of them could often be heard all over the hall, making fun of one another and often at the expense of other exhibitors, who usually couldn’t help but join in.

A little known aspect of Jan’s life is that he also was a musician - he played in a local band.

In recent years Jan’s health started to fail, he landed in a wheelchair and progressively weakened. I last saw him a fortnight ago, when he was very low. And now we finally lost him. He is greatly missed, and we wish Elma and their son and daughter every strength.

It was a privilege to have known him.

Ted Polet, 14 december 2023