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to visit Thurston village website click below http://www.thurston-village.co.uk ELY & DISTRICT MODEL RAILWAY CLUB
AWARD WINNING LAYOUT Thurston layout was judged "best layout" (judged by modellers) at the two day Kendal Model Railway Club Exhibition 3rd/4th March 2007 at the Kendal Leisure Centre and was runner up (one vote behind winning layout) in the visitors voted poll. http://www.kendalmodelrail.co.uk/ Thurston layout was judged "best layout" at the Ipswich Railway Modellers Association Exhibition on 18 November 2006 at The Coppleston Centre Ipswich Thurston layout was judged "best layout" at the two day Stafford Railway Circle Exhibition 4/5 February 2006 at the Stafford County Showground . http://www.staffordrailwaycircle.org.uk/index.php Thurston was awarded the "Saggy Barrier" award by the MMRS barrier crew for having consistently having the most members of the public viewing the layout at the Manchester Model Railway Society exhibition at the New Century Hall 1/2 October 2005. Thurston layout was judged "best layout" at the two day Derby Model Railway Exhibition 23/24 April 2005 at the Assembly Rooms organized by the St. John's (Mickleover) Model Railway Group. http://www.mmrg.org.uk/ Thurston layout voted "Best in Show" at the Southend Festival of Model Railways and Hobbies 23/24 November 2003 organized by the Shoeburyness Model Railway Club. http://www.shoeburynessmrc.co.uk/
Exhibitions Attended Norwich 2000 Ely 2001, Colchester 2001 Ely 2003, Chatham 2003, Southend 2003 Festival of Model Railways - Doncaster 2004 Beckenham 2004, Spalding 2004 Derby 2005, Ely 2005, Manchester 2005, Wakefield 2005, Stafford 2006 Derby 04/06, Bressingham 09/06, Ipswich. 11/06 Kendal 02/07 Ely 05/07
LAYOUT DETAILS FOR EXHIBITION MANAGERS Owners
Name:
ELY
& DISTRICT MODEL RAILWAY CLUB Scale/gauge:
4mm / 00 gauge Type
of layout:
Through station Prototype/period:
British Railways, Eastern Region / 1950-1960 Signals:
Working
semaphore and ground signals Power
points required:
1 Number
of operators:
5 Insurance
value:
£10000.00
including stock Transport:
Hired Luton van/truck Support:
Layout is self supporting with integral legs. Lighting:
Layout has its own lighting. Stock: Mixture of RTR and kit built. Shunting stock fitted with Sprat and Winkle couplings First Exhibition: Norwich March 2000
Thurston
lies some four and half miles east of Bury St Edmunds and is a small Suffolk
village. Today it still has a railway station, albeit an unstaffed
halt and is served by trains of the Anglia Railways train operating unit and has
nine trains a day in each direction. On Sunday there are five in each direction. The line was built by the Ipswich and Bury Railway Company and opened for goods traffic on 30th November 1846. The first public passenger train left Ipswich for Bury St. Edmunds at 0910 on Christmas Eve 1846. Frederick Barnes of Ipswich was the architect, who won the design contract for the majority of intermediate stations, between Bury and Ipswich; (Bramford) Clayden, Needham, Stowmarket, (Haughley Road), Elmswell and Thurston . Thurston station buildings are set on a high embankment and consists of two and a half storey buildings constructed with local red bricks with white stock bricks used decoratively on the corners and around door and window openings. The down (to Ipswich) platform building also had a diagonal cross pattern of white brickwork on some elevations, which matched a diagonal cross pattern in the roof tiles. When originally built the building had Dutch gables. It is believed the buildings were re-roofed during the LNER period of ownership and the gables reconstructed as pointed types. The tile pattern was not reinstated and the main body of the building was re-roofed with plain tiles and the two wings with slate. The up (to Bury) platform building was demolished around 1965 and was thought to have been a contemporary structure with the down building, although much smaller in size. The goods
shed was a timber framed building with vertical feather edged boarding and a
felt covered roof. The rails ran right through the shed and were curved up at
the ends to act as (buffer) stops. The granary
at Thurston is believed to have been built during the late 1850’s /early
1860’s and been added to probably by every owner since that time, especially
during the 1940’s and 50’s in Harold Clarke’s ownership. As with most
areas, owing to competition from the roads the level of goods traffic handled
had decreased by the 1950’s but the station still had traffic in coal, barley,
general merchandise and occasionally agricultural implements.
The barley traffic could be quite intense during September to March with
a train in the morning and one in the evening collecting or delivering 8-10
grain wagons at a time for the shipment of barley to the brewery of Messers
Bass, Ratcliffe and Gretton at Wolverhampton. In 1952 the
working timetable shows how railway traffic had developed over the years, with
the following trains passing through Thurston. Down (to Haughley)
Up
(to Bury) 17 freight trains 15 freight trains 2 mail/parcels trains 2 mail/parcels trains 10 stopping passenger trains 12 stopping passenger trains 6 express trains 4 express trains 1 pick up goods train 1 pick up goods train 1 fish train 1 empty
coaching stock train. The express
trains included The North Country Continental, which ran between Liverpool
Central, and Harwich, for passengers using the sea ferry route between Harwich
and the Hook of Holland. Also the overnight services between Colchester and
Scotland and services to and from Peterborough, York and Newcastle. |
