About us
Sharing our passion for trains
Our love for trains
Trains have always been a passion for us whether riding trains or playing with toy trains and we hope to share that passion with you as we design fun and engaging layouts.
I remember the joy I had I playing with model railways. Some very beautiful sets made by Hornby were on display in a (sadly now gone) chain called Beatties and I would frequent the stores in both Kingston and Croydon marvelling over the beautiful detail with trees and grass and station houses.
Putting together the puzzle
Our layouts are carefully planned in order to ensure your little train lover will get maximum enjoyment out of our train sessions.
It requires a lot of playing around and experimenting and figuring out which pieces go with which pieces. Only once we have an idea of what is going to work can we designing our layout for each chosen venue using our special software.
Figuring out the puzzle is actually part of the fun of it. We find that older children who would otherwise have moved on from trains find this process quite engaging and this is particularly evident among SEND children.
Fast forward several decades and I still occasionally visit model railway exhibitions. I’m completely in awe of the passion and dedication the enthusiasts have for their hobby. But I noticed one minor detail – these beautiful toys weren’t aimed at young children. While great to look at toddlers are obviously very tactile and these particular trains aren’t suitable for them to play with due to their fragility and the small parts they contain.
My two sons have been fortunate enough to have grandparents in Japan who have sent them over some amazing train sets over the past few years featuring the Shinkansen(bullet train) and also some favourite Steam Engine character adored by children. Looking into this I realised that while similar train sets had been on sale in the UK, they had already been discontinued a few years back.
I therefore thought about how I could introduce this to other children in the UK and so came up with the idea of Happy Tracks.
The trains and track we use is specifically designed for young children due to their durability. While not having the detail of Hornby sets it offers features that are more engaging for youngsters including rising towers and bridges and track switches and level crossings.
I hope you and your child will come and enjoy one of our sessions as we help create the next generation of train lovers.
