Some of you may have come across Millport Victoria in the past on the exhibition circuit. The layout was the creation of the late Norman Heaton who sadly died in the spring of 1998. The layout continued on the exhibition circuit for a few years afterwoods until a major electrical fault caused it to be placed in storage.
Below, I have copied the text from our webpage www.wiganfrm.org.uk which explains some of the history of Millport from its early days as an 'L Shape' layout to its final format.
Millport Victoria
Millport Victoria is the creation of the late Norman Heaton, for many years a stalwart member of Wigan & District MRS. Started in the 1970's, the layout first became into being as an 'L' shaped layout (appearing in this guise in the December 1984 edition of the Railway Modeller).
After a few years Norman felt Millport, in this form, was becoming difficult to place in exhibitions, and so between 1988 - 1991, rebuilt the layout into its current format as an end to end layout (as featured in the 1998 December Railway Modeller).
The layout attempts to capture the atmosphere and period of a small but properous North West manufactuing town at the trun of the 20th Century, railway operations being carried out in accordance with the practices of the London & North Western Railway Company.
Norman based the concept around two totally ficticious companies, the Millport Junction and Millport, Crawford & Pemberton Railways. Indeed he even gave Millport its very own historian, the Rev, James Seddon who wrote
- The most striking feature of the history of the place is the extraodinary rapidity with which is has risen from obscurity into a degree of splendor and importance, without example in the history of any commercial country. The grandeur which pervades the modern building of our English town may scarcely be out vied in stateliness and certainly not in fitness and utility, by any palace-city of the past.
For any layout based on an urban conurbation, the architecture becomes all important in making a realistic setting and so it is with Millport. Buildings are based upon actual prototypes, indeed the station building and canopy is a copy of Wigan Wallgate Station ( still in existence today). A myriad of details further helps to fix the period as that of a bustling Edwardian town.
Norman was paricularly fascinated by this era and its innovations and set to giving Millport a Barber's Shop for the sole purpose of including an advertisement for 'Clamps Rotary Brushing Apparatus'!
Track is SMP 'Scaleway' flexible track whilst all the points and crossings are constructed using SMP rail and copper clad sleepers. However the only original track work is found int he area of the station throat and turntable, as Norman regularly undertook to modyfying the track plan even after the re-build.
Motive power consists of a stud of approximately fifteen LNWR locos, mainly kit built with extra detailing although there are some that have had to be scratch built where necessary. Passenger stock is also hand built using Ratio, Slaters and etched brass kits with the use of Trevor Charlton sides and finished by Larry Goddard or David Sudley. The resultant rakes of stock are some of the finest examples of pre-grouping vechiles to be seen on the exhibition circuit. Goods stock is again a mix of kit and scratch built items ( the perils of modelling a pre-group railway).
Norman sadly passed away suddenly in the Srping of 1998 and for a time the continued exsistence of Millport was in doubt. However his relatives kindly passed the ownership over to Peter Thomas and Stephen Roberts of Wigan Finescale Railway Modellers.
At present the layout is earmarked for a complete rewire as some of the original wiring has started to give problems and after completion Millport will continue to be exhibited as a fitting testament to the memory of its creator.
The above is a bit of background information about Millport Victoria, further posts/updates will concentrate on the work being undertaken.
Simon
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