Happy ending for toy story

All the best children's stories include a spectacular transformation.

And as the Cinderella of the museum world, it seems only right that the new-look Sussex Toy and Model Museum is truly jaw-dropping.

Eight months ago the plaster was peeling off the walls at its premises in Trafalgar Street, Brighton.

Now the large brown patches of damp have been replaced by brightly- coloured model aeroplanes and the museum looks brighter and better than ever.

However, the last year has not been an easy one for the museum founder Chris Littledale.

After spending more than two years persuading Railtrack to make the 160-year-old building water-tight he faced a whole new set of problems when the contractors finally moved in.

Mr Littledale said: "Unfortunately putting young boys on scaffolding next to showcases full of very old models is like trying to mix acid with alkaline.

"We moved all the rarest exhibits out before the work started but we still had a situation where the contractors were using angle grinders on the walls next to 100-year-old models.

"The work took twice as long as we expected and there was dust everywhere.

"We had to come in every day to watch what was going on.

"After the workmen finally left I spent two whole weeks just vacuuming the floor to get rid of all the dust. Having said that, it does look fantastic now."

Mr Littledale was eight years old when he was given his first train set, starting a love affair which has lasted 50 years.

He ranks his collection of antique trains, limited editions and model cars as among the finest in the world.

Some of the individual locomotives are so rare they could fetch in excess of £10,000 at auction.

And when he opened the Sussex Toy and Model Museum underneath the arches at Brighton railway station a decade ago, it seemed like the perfect place to showcase his unique collection.

For seven years the small museum was visited by a steady stream of tourists, visitors and school parties who marvelled at the model trains, cars and dolls.

In the meantime, financial problems forced similar museums up and down the country to close, until it was the only one of its kind left in England.

Then in May 1998 water mysteriously started to pour into the premises whenever it rained.

By November of that year the leaks were so bad Mr Littledale was forced to shut the museum down.

He said: "We had had minor leaks before, which was fine. Then Railtrack decided to re-do the station forecourt and the taxi area.

"They brought in contractors to resurface it all and somebody messed about with the Victorian drainage system. This is when our problems started.

"We moved the exhibits to safe areas but we were having a particularly wet spell that year. The walls of the museum were damp, the air smelt musty and some of the metal exhibits were starting to show signs of rust.

"At times there was also water running across the floor of the museum which made the building unsafe for visitors as they could easily slip over.

"It was a culmination of these factors which eventually led us to close."

Mr Littledale immediately started talks with Railtrack, which owned the premises, about what could be done to stop the flooding.

He said: "The negotiations went on and on. It was very depressing in fact it was so depressing we got to the stage where we were beginning to come to terms with closing it altogether.

"This would have been extremely sad as we were already the only toy museum left in England.

"It is actually quite unusual for a serious collector like myself to allow people access to their collections.

Most people prefer to keep them safely in boxes or some sort of storage.

"However, if I did that, most children would never get the pleasure of experiencing them.

"It would be impossible to produce toys of this quality today, it would be too expensive and labour intensive.

"They may be old but I know from watching the children who have visited the museum in the past they are just as fascinated by them now as they have always been.

"We wanted to keep the museum open and were extremely persistent but the difficulty was finding somebody who would take responsibility for what had happened.

"We told Railtrack we were no longer going to pay rent for the premises until the matter was resolved, which they agreed to, then everything seemed to get stuck.

"I think they hoped we would eventually just give up and go away.

"The problem was we were dealing with a very large body which employs a lot of contractors and sub-contractors, and we found that more often than not the left hand did not seem to know or care what the right hand was doing.

"We spoke to endless different people but all of them said they had not carried out the work on the drains. We felt like they were just passing the buck."

The trustees became increasingly disillusioned until they managed to break through the red tape and begin talks with Espacia, the property division of Railtrack.

Mr Littledale said: "The department sent a female surveyor to look at the museum and she was extremely helpful. She immediately said it would be an absolute tragedy if it had to close permanently.

"It was at this point Railtrack really began to recognise the value of what we do here."

The arches themselves also have historical value.

Built in 1845 to support the station forecourt, they were initially used by a brewery to store beer barrels.

The lower arch, which forms the entrance to the museum and houses the shop, was once used for dray horses and there were also four stables and a corn silo.

During the Second World War the army used the arches as an area headquarters and there is even rumoured to be a ghost, a lovelorn young man who plunged to his death in the silo.

Railtrack launched an investigation to try to establish the cause of the flooding.

A team of surveyors pulled up paving slabs and brickwork and CCTV fibre optics were used to survey the pipework but were unable to pinpoint why it was happening.

Finally, in February this year, it offered to spend more than £130,000 on lining the inside of the walls to stop the leaks.

It also agreed to pay an undisclosed amount of compensation to the museum trustees towards the costs they had incurred.

The contractors started work in the spring, turning the museum into a building site.

However, after months of chaos, the museum will finally reopen next week complete with new attractions.

A giant model Spitfire with a wing span of more than 9ft has just been hung from the ceiling of the museum.

And Mr Littledale has also added to his collection of "O" Gauge Trains, with some extremely rare French, German and Italian varieties.

He said: "We are getting excited now though, to be honest, there is an even bigger feeling of relief that we are finally going to get back to normal."

The museum reopens next Friday.