JCL

Hi David, that's perfect! The layout will be set primarily in the 1960s, but there was so little change that I could probably use the same model to cover a couple of decades by just changing the cars and adverts. The big change was the closure of the goods yard in the mid-60's and the removal of the footbridge, and hen the whole thing being unmanned from '69. The great thing about your pages is that it confirms my uncle's memory. He was pretty sure that he had to have finished loading as the train left at 3pm, and that's exactly what it says in your post! It's interesting also that there was just one train a day via Wainfleet, and that in '62 Havenhouse (between Wainfleet and Skegness) still must have had its siding. Thanks also Pilgrim, I've seen a photo of a black 5 in Skegness, but didn't know about the Crabs and Jubilees. I've come to the conclusion that if you want to run a wide variety of engines on a layout with some sort of prototypical accuracy, then modelling a length of line that hosts excursions, especially one that also had trains composed of hand-me-downs is the way to do it!

I completely agree! I was about to ask a stupid question about the livery of the loco in photos 2 & 3 before I realised I was brass. Then I wondered if you'd bought that loco described a "brass painted" on Ebay

Thanks for that! It was great seeing some different photos. I'm pleased I got the J39 going, and it appears to have been on a freight, so now I have two engines suitable for that - J39 and the 4MT that is in one of my books about the Skegness line. And thanks for the timetable as well. I have to agree, I'm going to have to take a course in reading timetables to work it all out. At least there is GMT now though, I read that initially each timetable worked to local time, and local time was different in different districts, so you had to also use a conversion chart to work out when trains would arrive and depart. With my numeracy I'd have missed every train going!

Hi there, thanks so much for putting up the photos from my old neck of the woods - Skegness -> Boston. There's not that many photos about, so it's always great seeing some more. cheers Jason

Cheers Pilgrim, that's good to know. I had guessed that V2's were out, but, well, I bought it a number of years ago before I'd decided on the layout. I know Tangmere came over a couple of years ago, were there many other unusual locos along this line?

BTW, anyone looking to add skies to photos could do worse than look on this website: http://www.photos-public-domain.com/2012/04/27/cloudy-overcast-sky/

I thought I'd put up a couple of photos as it's been a while, and it'll show just how far I still have to go! It was a dull day today with no colour in the sky. The first white board has gone up at the back, and another is resting on the chest freezer in the garage waiting for paint. They are going to be positioned temporarily in the background until I get around to putting together a sunny September morning. So, guess the class! ... That's right, it's a J39 having just undergone a major stripdown so that I can add a Digitrax decoder. As you can see, the decoder is in the tender with the wires going between the two. I'll be cutting off the spare wires before I put the "lid" back on. If I can find some thin black wire I'll try using that for the connection as they'll be easier to hide.The engine is working well, consider it's just been taken out of the box and used for the first time since I emigrated in 2009, but does have a tendency to stick slightly on the insulfrog points. I may end up trying to collect off the tender wheels. To ensure that I'm really not very cool at all, it's worth saying that I have a banjo in the back room that needs it's strings replacing. I've read somewhere that these are pretty useful for turning into wipers. Anyway, I'm happy with it at the moment. Now it's tested I'll be replacing the body and tender and making use of it again. I've another two split chassis engines to do; a V2 and a V1. The J39 wasn't as difficult at I thought it might be given the information on the internet, but that's probably because I had an easy location for the decoder. I think I'll be following the Trains4U steps for the V1 installation. Next up is Everton, which is my father-in-law's football team. This loco has another Digitrax decoder (DH123) in the tender. Looking at the photo, unfortunately the shell of the tender isn't sitting very well. I think I might be replacing the decoder with a smaller HO/N (DN123) scale one. I like the look of these engines, but it can be very temperamental on the Peco points. It shorts half the time when running over them (is it the depths of the tires?). I've read about using a triangular file on the V of the point and infilling with clear nail varnish, so I'll be giving that a go to see if I can remedy the problem. The only other loco that does this is an old Hornby A4, but it's wheels are so wobbly and out of wack it's been relegated to the shelf at the back. I can see that if I start buying nail varnish, and the recommended eye shadow in browns fr weathering purposes I'll get a reputation around town! Eventually there will be bushes and an allotment in the foreground (I've always wanted an allotment, and this seems to be a way of getting one without the ongoing work). I've found a site that recommends painting dried peas to be used as cabbages, and there's all sorts of other tricks knocking about, so I'll be looking forward to doing this part of the layout. The final photo is the class 25 taking a summer trip to Skegness passing the signal box. H&S aren't going to be impressed - where are the gates? In the background you can just see the church. This is a print out of the full size plans that I taped together a while ago to check clearances. The church looks imposing, but it's far too big for it's space, so I think that there's going to be some "judicious pruning" needed before a proper model is made. The pavement is a strip of mat card with black 400 grit sandpaper on it. The whole lot was painted grey, and cracks were introduced into the tarmac surface.There's a fair bit of tidying up to do in the foreground now that the platforms are down permanently, such as the tarmac surface of the car park needing to be glued down and the edges covered appropriately.

That's good enough for me. Oliver Cromwell turned up in Skegness a couple of years ago on a steam special, so I know that, technically, the was a possibility. I think that seeing this on the news was one of the things that started me off modelling again after years of doing other things.

Looking very neat! It'll be interesting to see the underside once everything has been connected together.

I'm with you there!

Owdo, Still up - 24 hours so far and counting. That would be marvelous thank-you - 1955 for preference if possible. I'm wondering how I might get info about freight. I know that my uncle used to have to be done loading by 3pm, but I've no idea if there was just one goods train per day or one every so many days per week... That said, I've got that B17, so I'm not going to claim to be super accurate!

Well, I have to stay up and wait for a computer program to finish it's processing, so I decided to add a decoder to a Hornby tender drive B17. The B17 is well outside it's normal area, and I've no proof that they made it to Skegness, but I have one in a drawer that I bought a long time ago, and I don't want to be churlish! Adding the decoder was pretty simple. Just take the spade connectors off the motor, and solder the red and black wires to them before soldering the grey and orange wires to the tabs the spade connectors were attached to. Make sure everything is isolated, and test on the programming track. The only difficult bit is finding room inside the shell for the decoder itself! A Digitrax DH123 *just* fits, but it took some positioning to make it so. I've only another hour to go before the program finishes (I hope). I've a Bachmann V2 split chassis loco on my worktop, but that one is going to need a bit more concentration than the last one, so I think that it can wait until later in the week, along with a J39 that was chipped but seems to have ground to a halt. In the meantime I have some 2' high backboard made of hardboard painted white. It took four coats but looks ok at the moment. I'm going to assume 10/10ths cloud cover for now, the blue will have to wait! Only forty minutes to go...

Hi Robert, those photos are great! I like the colour of your track. oh, and I'm green eyed with envy over your Atlantic.

I think it's official, I'm in too deep and need rescuing. In the post yesterday I received the "Eastern Region passenger services 17th June to 8th September 1963". AND I found it interesting! I thought it'd give me an idea of the frequency of trains around the (loose) period I'm modelling. It also includes loads of other information such as the various named trains, etc. I know for a lot of people it wasn't that long ago, but being published 5 years before I was born, it almost feels like another country. Two titbits for you: First class passengers can carry up to 150lb, and second class passengers 100lb of luggage for free. If you are on a train that doesn't have a restaurant carriage or refreshment cars, you can buy a packed meal at your departing station. For 2s. 6d., you can enjoy a sausage roll, cheese sandwich, Kup Cake, and fruit. If you want to push the boat out, for 3s. 6d. there's pork pie, ham sandwich, tomato, packet of biscuits and a slice of Gala fruit pie. For parties of 16 or more you can buy tea for 12s. 0d. or coffee for 20s. 0d. a gallon. Hopefully the carriages had toilets!

Finally, two photographs taken over 120 years apart. No prizes for guessing which is newest The signal box and goods shed were both knocked down with the doubling of the line. The new one, made of brick, is the one that I put together with help from a lot of friends in a different thread, and the replacement goods shed is the corrugated one mentioned a while back on this one. You can easily see where the canopy had been before it was taken away. Right, back to fencing (rain stopped gazebo mending)

Here you go, this is from an old postcard, and it shows the station before the line was doubled and then sent out to Skegness. What looks like a second line is actually just a siding. The station building changed very little over the years. The only difference I can find is that the front of the valancing was taken off for some reason.

It's honestly not a problem,I go through periods of only having time to click he like button as well. I'll see if I can dig out an old photo of the station building. It was fairly plain compared to stations further down the line, probably because it was built to a budget locally by the Wainfleet and Firsby Railway Company. Like all good ideas, it was originally agreed in a pub, in this case The Angel, which was a five minute walk away. The line was to stretch from Firsby, which already had a station on the line to Spilsby, to Wainfleet where it terminated. It was to be a few more years before the Skegness Extension was constructed.

Hi there! looking good! Do you have any overall plans drawn up at all? Edited to Remove helpful autocorrects!

Thanks Westerhamstation I just read your interests. My dad always says, everyday he wakes up is a good day.

The new angles almost make it look like we are seeing the layout for the first time - all over again. Love the interiors, and the woman in the pub obviously popped out to powder her nose. Well done on the smooth move.

Hi Ian, I'm not going anywhere! It's certainly been a bit quiet, but I'm assuming that either people are busy, or I'm just not making (m)any glaring mistakes. The button pressing shows me that people are reading what I write. This thread is also useful for another reason, it keeps me as focused as possible and it keeps things moving along! So to the fence. I've some scale 2x4 and 4x4 for the posts, so that'll have to do. I'm going to build a jig to make sure everything lines up properly, and hopefully that'll save a bit of time as well (AND keep the swear jar empty). The fence will be 4' high and 6' between the posts. There will be three bars. I'll be priming the wood before I start. At the same time as doing the fence, I'm looking at the waiting room which I promised myself I would start a while ago. The time is rapidly coming so here are some photos. Its amazing how ugly you can make a building by making it look like it's been attacked by fridge magnets! The building is a simple shape, but I'll have to work out how to do the ornamentation (stepped bricks). The workings that I did on the pinfold roof should help here on the hipped roof. It'll be another guess I'm afraid. And finally the cutting pattern for the various layers of walls. All very subject to change right now. But the first thing I'm going to do is rebuild the gazebo outside that collapsed underneath the weight of 2" of very wet snow a week ago!

Talking about fencing, there's going to be a couple of types on the layout. I'm going to be using post and rail for a fair bit of it, then concrete post and pipe, and possibly a bit of barbed wire - not sure about the last one. Finally, there will be a fence on the platform that is a three rail. There is also an original GNR fence that still exists in situ: A couple of good fencing websites with measurements and technique are: http://www.backwoodshome.com/articles2/sanders103.html http://www.jacksons-fencing.co.uk/fencing/agricultural-fencing/post-and-rail-nailed/agricultural-fencing-post-rail-nailed.aspx

That's the cattle dock finished. I glued it down onto the layout and grabbed a bunch of ground foams, twigs, and the like from the cupboard, and embedded the whole thing into the layout. It's the first bit of landscaping other than ballasting that I've done, so it's been great getting some colour down. The violent pink and browns of the baseboards don't do the old eyes any good! I also wandered out with my dog yesterday into the field next door (see photo below), grabbed some soil, and put it into a dog-poo bag (keeping it polite). The great thing was that the soil had been thrown up by some ground squirrels, so it was already fairly fine and remarkably free of twigs. It was also almost exactly the right colour for the layout! A blast in the microwave on an old margarine lid and sieving later, I had enough to do the surface of the road heading up to the dock gates, with a load more in the bag (now outside) for other purposes, and a reservoir worth out in the field. I think I'll microwave some more and extend the road right up to the main road. I wasn't sure what the surface of the road was supposed to be, so I think dirt is as good as any. Next, I'll need to put some fencing in to stop those cows from straying onto the line! Now I need to be careful here, because I had a summer job putting up fences around Hebden Bridge, so I'd better do some research - also, hopefully the fences that I aim to get vertical will be closer to vertical than the 1:1 scale ones that I did way back when. Another quick photo, this is of a bear-proof bin at the end of the path. Pretty necessary as there was actually a bear next to it last autumn. They can't get in because the latch is under a metal plate that's too close together for a bear to get it's paw in.. I know they are way off topic, but hopefully you like the non-railway photos I'm putting up here.

I'm really looking forward to seeing how you get on. I'll be poring over your photos.