Ballasting / Glueing / Swearing!

Well the track has gone down and my first mistake has been made. but Im keeping schtum on what I've done until someone notices it! Could have been worse I suppose, although there will be more swearing tomorrow if the glue doesnt do as it says on the tin.

Ballast went down well (with a little help from my partner) and the glue from tips on Model Rail Forum is down so I now have to wait patiently for 24 hours before hoping all has gone well and ballast has become stuck to track! If not then its back to the drawing board.

Points have been left alone until the test of the rest of track passes

Tracks lifted at Mablethorpe

Sorry to say the tracks have been lifted at Mablethorpe Station.

Luckily not BR this time making a catastrophic mistake..

 

Daves Rail Pics of Lincolnshire

Ive lifted all the track to paint down the 'ballast' undercoat for when the track and ballast goes down. Nice to see some colour on the board... even if it it grey..!

North of the Station

Then a little ballasting..

New Arrival

Taken delivery of my new shunter today.

Lists

Busy thinking of lists, which order would be best for the below:

• Ballast Track
• Pin Track
• Build Platforms
• Build Buildings
• Wire Up Track

Hmm..

Before all else is running in my new engine which should hopefully land in the post today.

Been a good couple of days getting tips from Model Rail Forum and LNER Encyclopedia from very friendly happy to help modellers. Ballasting is my main worry. Should ballast be laid with clean edged ballast on the trackside or more 'messy', still not sure. My era will have seen Mablethorpe as clean and tidy as its ever been I would of thought so most pictures of its last years in the 60s are a little misleading as the place was being deliberately run down by BR.

Only one comment on my curious liveried Jinty which was surprising. Im still hoping someone has a picture of a Jinty stabled at Mablethorpe in plain black livery.. or I might just make that up and go with it.

On the way home Sunday, stumbled across this:

Track Plan

This is my Track Plan..

Day 1 - Pointless?!

Day 1

Well Ive gone and bought some board to start the layout. A track plan has been fully planned out and a list of materials produced. Ebay was hit quite hard for some bits but the main came from the excellent Classic Loco, Cleethorpes who stayed open an extra half hour for me to reel off my list of track needs!

If only Id stuck with getting all my equipment from Classic Loco and not Ebay! The two left hand points ordered seemed to have disintegrated in the post. So I am one left hand point down now... annoying.

I am using Peco FlexiTrack which I have now self taught how to split down into sizes needed. A hacksaw from the Pound shop did the trick! Never said I was a professional at this did I?!

After laying down all the track, it all seemed to fit perfectly.. then came time to test using the 'builders Jinty' a curious loco from Classic that is in BR Black.. BR being the 1980s logo!!

Armed with a rake of three LNER clerestory's and four Teak coaches I tested my measurements...

Can you see the Missing Point??

Then came a mild worry that Id messed up measurements in a bid to fit the layout in the room Id had to shrink down to 2m length. Then came lots of comparing between Pictures from 'Disused Stations : Mablethorpe' and my strange BR Jinty / LNER Teak set.

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Disused Stations

Pictures above are a similar angle, but the Class 31 is on an eight coach set and my little Jinty only on a three coach set. The 31's third coach is sat on the crossover as is my Jintys.. so no problem there, my issue was that if the 31's train was all in Platform 3 then my measurements were way out. After checking every photo again I was happy Platform 3 was shorter than Platform 1/2 and the 31 must have been reversing out to come back into Platform 2 as was the norm with it being the northbound platform..? Thats my story and Im sticking to it! 

So Day 1 was done and the layout moved into its 'permanent' position in the house, so painting can now start.

Welcome to the Mablethorpe 00 Blog

Welcome to the Mablethorpe 00 Blog. This is my attempt at creating a 00 gauge replica layout of Mablethorpe Station. The era Im aiming for is pre 1948. The LNER era of the station.

I have 'played' with model railways as a child as my father was a keen builder and as I now have children they are keen to play train sets so a hobby has been revisited!

After building up a simple Hornby Trackmat layout I now want to build a 'proper model', trying to get it as realistic as possible to Mablethorpe station. This was made possible by the reams of information available online. Signal Box Diagrams, OS Maps etc.

Hope you enjoy the journey of me building the layout as much as I have fun building it!

From 'Disused Stations: Mablethorpe'

Ellis