Happisburgh

When the layout was acquired it had been on the exhibition circuit for nearly 25 years and it was beginning to suffer from the constant movement and jolts that came from being hauled around. It was also getting heavier for the MRC team to transport and at the time none of us were getting any younger. So an honourable retirement was sought. I did not have the space to take the full system and in any case the MRC wanted to retain the smaller goods yard as an independent layout as it was a great deal smaller and more easily managed. The large fiddle yard which was situated behind the Sugar Beet factory frontage was just too big and the builds were disposed of some going to other model layouts. The wagon tippler used to unload the sugar beet was presented to the Luton MRC who now use it as part of their Central Works layout.

So what came to me was the station boards which were 24 feet by 4 feet and they fitted my garage and the plan was to have return loops in the garden leading to a fiddle yard on the other side of the garage. Due to space restrictions there were no freight facilities and it was assumed that the freight yards were down the line a bit. The layout came without a signal box or loco shed as these were returned to the original builders. The marvellous model of Hertford East station at the end of the concourse was purchased from the builder Ian Hopkins. The station never had any canopies over the platform roads and I soon realised why as they made uncoupling and coupling almost impossible. That said I did make two canopy units one six foot long and one five foot for the two platforms using parts from Poppy’s Woodtech  which had the typical GER hipped roof as seen at March and Ipswich. Use was also made of some etched GER style spandrels attached to cast whitemetal support posts not that you could see them once the canopies were erected.

A new signal box was made using the GERS drawings for the box at Walton on the Naze which was re-sited on the model to the station throat rather than the original position. The former signal box location became a permanent way gangers store for track materials etc with a few sheds for use by the track staff. A motorised trolley was kept at the depot for use by the track gang. The loco shed was made to fit two roads as opposed to the original one road and it was made from adapted Brittains farm buildings which had the cast concrete type of construction seen on the LNER after the second world war. The manual coaling stage was donated to Roger Kingstone for his Mid Suffolk line and an automated coal hoist was built from the kit provided by Walsworth models which represents a type used at Colchester amongst other places. I tried to make this work but the mechanics eluded me but the hoist was fed from coal tubs which ran on narrow gauge rails from the unloading area to the bottom of the hoist where they were lifted and turned over to discharge into the loco coal space. Again this was a crib of the system used at Colchester.

I also fabricated some of the missing signals most of which were ground signals of the relevant LNER type made as a kit by Model Signal Engineering. These were made as working models and interlocked with the relevant points. As the station was now operated from what was the public viewing side, the control panel also had to be altered to meet the revised configuration.

Further details were added namely street lights for the station approach road and a small end board which had some houses and shops on so as to represent the town of Happisburgh. The layout now looked a great deal different to the original and to my mind was an improvement.