Showpiece junction model will be heart of new heritage centre
A NEW railway heritage centre could open in a long-closed Lincolnshire station – with an accurate model of the nearby town’s lost four-way junction as its centrepiece.
Rippingale station, on the Great Northern Railway’s Bourne and Sleaford line, opened in 1872 and closed to passengers as early as 1930, although a ‘special’ for the Festival of Britain ran in 1950. The section from Bourne through Rippingale to Billingborough stayed open for freight until1964.
Model
The station was later bought by enthusiast John Scholes, who restored a standard gauge locomotive on a short length of track there. He sold it on to barrister Marc Maitland, who met former teacher Ken Wainwright through a chance conversation – and offered him space in the goods shed for his 160sq ft hand-crafted scratch-built OO gauge model of Bourne station as it was in the 1940s, which he began building five years ago.
Ken has spent more than 1000 hours on building the layout, which includes replicas of Bourne landmarks such as the Red Hall, which was co-opted for use as the ticket office for the town’s station when it was opened in 1860 as the terminus of the Bourne & Essendine Railway, and its gatehouse. The fire station and a garage which still exists today, plus the engine sheds which survived until 20 years ago, are also included. At the eastern end of the layout is a 1:76 scale model of the Midland & Great Northern Joint Railway’s three-arch Bridge 234, which is today the sole-surviving significant railway-built structure left to show that Bourne once had a railway presence, let alone a station or a busy junction that generated much of its 20th-century prosperity.
A local group, Save Bridge 234 Preservation Society, has been formed by campaigners to stop developers demolishing it to make way for a play area on a new development in the town’s modern Elsea Park estate (see separate story).
After finishing work on the model of Bourne station, which closed to passengers in 1959, Ken began creating one of Rippingale station to link the pair.
He said: “I’m just interested in heritage and preserving things, and letting people know what it was like.”
Tours
There are plans to open Rippingale to the public for Sunday afternoon tours of up to eight people – strictly by prior booking only – between April and September. Having researched timetables for the period, Ken will run historically-correct trains on his layout to the same times. Under supervision, children will be given the chance to use the controllers.
A mini cinema will also show a film about Bourne station, and there will be an outdoor café. It is also intended to turn the former goods manager’s office into a railway library.
No admission fees will be charged, but donations will be used to fund the centre or given to charity.