I grew up in Mid-Sussex, travelling by train to school in Brighton in the 1950s. The Brighton Works 'Terrier' in full Stroudley livery made a lasting impression and I did a little volunteering on the Bluebell Line prior to its opening, before a family move far away from Sussex.
My preference has always been to model a specific prototype – in the early 1970s, my first working layout was 'Fittleworth' on the Midhurst branch in EM gauge. A through station needs two fiddle yards, unless the layout is circular, and both require a lot of space in 7mm:1ft scale. I looked for a possible LBSCR terminus to model, but those in Sussex were far too large, with the exception of the Dyke. This had a lovely Downland setting, but offered little operational interest. I settled finally on Hayling Island, slightly over the border in Hampshire. With a little compression, the terminus would just fit into a 16ft by 12ft shed.
The extensive service of later years would have been fun to model but I was put off by the rather plain and dominant goods shed erected in 1900. Until recently, the only known photograph of the terminus pre-1900 was the well-known one from the National Railway Museum dating from about 1880.
In 2013, two photographs from the 1890s came to light, showing a wooden building on the platform and a tantalising glimpse of the water tank and engine shed. This clinched the decision to model pre-1900, with
