New Update

A lot of work has been carried out over the last few months as we have a full circuit operating now. There has been a major push to try to complete some of the scenery with Deansgate Bridge and the Bus Staion area being sorted out once and for all. Picture will follow.

Garden Street Level Crossing

After a lot of head scratching, looking on the net, scribbling on pieces of scrap paper etc. I managed to get the first of the two gated Level crossings to work!

View looking towards Grimsby Town Station

Gates on the move?

The real thing Garden Street L/C

I had issues with the style of gate that was required to give the Crossing that BR look, after all there are level crossing kits out there that give you the option of 2 or 4 gates but I required something a little more bespoke. As you can see from the images above Garden Street is located at the east end of Grimsby Station and was controlled by an impressive Manchester, Sheffield  & Lincolnshire Rly box which still stands to this day even though disused. The crossing it self was right on the station throat so the road deck Incorporated point work and 4 different length gates! The track diagram that has been used is much more simplified to ease the construction. All of what you see has been made form spares that I have collected over the years so in effect it is completely re-cycled!

I plucked up the courage to have a stab of making the whole thing work. It involved wire and arms attached to the gate shafts linked together so that the gates swing at different speeds but all operate at the same time. I must have spent most of the afternoon sorting an swearing to come up with the end result. It's not perfect but it works!

Rare bird...HS4000 "KESTREL"

On shed HS4000 and 25 at Marsh Lane

A detail study; Heljan have made a superb job of replicating a one off prototype, and now weathered this has now revealed the detail even more.

KESTREL slows her train for the run in to Grimsby Town.

Shed staff admire the new engine

Classic 3/4 shot of KESTREL.

Not very often you will see passenger services over the branch, Kestrel is seen passing Marsh Lane.

Side profile showing the light weathering that has been applied.

Yet another weathering job this time it took allot of confidence to attack a £100+ locomotive. After trawling the net for some half decent shots of her in service Rob chose the "Shirebrook depot" look just before she was transferred over to Hull Dairycotes where she ended her days, she was switched off and sold to Russia. However in our world she was never transferred over to Hull but BR decided to sent her over to Marsh Lane TMD instead and a good job too.

New Grid on the Block! 56 128

56 128 passes a very out the box 08 at Marsh Lane.

128 caught passing Wellowgate Box with the Bus Staion in the background.

Got the road.....Pyewipe Road Bridge

128 Approaches Friargate Level Crossing.

56 128 seen at Garden Street Level Crossing.

Behind the fence at Garden Street S&T Yard.

What seemed to be a long time coming my brother Rob was at a loose end and was wondering what to do insead of making buildings that he had been busy doing the past couple of days. I suggested that he dig out his Grid and finish her off and so he decided to weather it down, what a stunning job! He's only been doing this sort of thing for a couple of months now and what a result.

A little more done.

The allotment area to the right which is still under construction, 40135 makes her way past Pyewipe's Distant as she heads for Immingham.

View from Marsh Lane TMD

20's with a unfitted coal train

The low relief warehouse and bus station at Wellowgate: 45120 heads an empty MGR train back towards the Midlands

Because of the non stop rain (which isn't a bad thing!) we set to and did some more to Grimsby Town, I decided to continue around the Marsh Lane area and created a small allotment area near to Pyewipe Road using whatever I could lay my hands on! The grass is made from Hanging Basket liner cut into small strips and glued into place, match sticks for the line-side fence all on a Tri- Wall cardboard box which is like plywood.
                                     My brother had a go at scratch building and manufactured a low relief warehouse which was to be part of the Bus Station area behind Wellowgate Signal Box which he stated that this was his first attempt and he really enjoyed it (power to your elbow Rob!). All of a sudden things were starting to come together, but there is still loads to do. We know that this is to be a representation of Grimsby not an actual facsimile of the area, if that was the case we would need a bigger loft!

Marsh Lane TMD

Focus was drawn on the construction and development of a Loco shed area for the fleet. Although we have a large collection of Traction we know that we can't have all of them on the layout all at once. We have dabbled with layouts in the past with assistance and mentoring for a old friend of ours Mike Chambers or "Big Mike" as he is known, and one thing we both have learned from our Master is that you don't want to fill every inch of space with track, but you don't want to restrict the "Play value" of the layout. We agreed not to run to a timetable but we try to replicate the real railway in operation as opposed to timekeeping, so gaps between trains are kept to a minimum this keeps the interest going anything goes here......

A general view of the site of Marsh Lane TMD, show the branch line and the fiddle yard to the right..

Sizing up for space, the longest formation that we had to cater for was a pair of Class 20's

A close up shot of the shed front that is almost completed

The hand of God is playing trains!

Marsh Lane looking more like Toton!

6 months on.......

Busy concentrating on other parts of the layout we decided that we should return to complete as much as we can to get some photo's of our efforts; My brother and I have staged some shots of trains, some fictitious others are more plausable and tried to capture what may have happened in the Grimsby area during the late 70's early 80's.....

A line side view of the Junction at Friargate looking towards Deansgate Bridge and the Tope in the playing field!

20 215 & 188 head a summer Saturday return working back towards the Midlands from Cleethorpes.

31 162 drag 3 Deltics for scrap! Well it was set up only for the picture.....

Old meets new...

Blast from the past! HS4000 "KESTREL" hauls a train of loaded 16t wagons for the Docks area...

56003 hauls its train of 100t TEA wagons towards Grimsby....

Humble beginings!

Friargate Crossing, where it all started......

Where it all started almost a Year ago! The first of many baseboards to come, this is Friargate with its Level Crossing and Box.

Because we both wanted a Diesel Depot we had to install a branch to feed into it, so a Junction was installed! This was going to be the inlet outlet roads for the TMD but as time went on we opted that we should continue with a freight only branch with an adjoining feed to the Depot Area....

2 months later and the start on doing the scenery, just by doing this alone gave us the impetus to carry on