You all know the miniature railway in Queens Park. But do you know about the Miniature railway that used to run initially on the beach near the Leicester Childrens home which then moved to the site on the High Street now occupied by the factory shop, Paper Rack and other shops? This was from 1924-39.
It was the brainchild of a couple of quite well known model engineers, Louis Shaw and Herbert Ballington and was a very successful venture in its time. Shaw and Ballington built several locomotives for the line most well known of which was nicknamed "Lorna Doone".
The line closed down for the war and the track was lifted in 1940 when the land was used as a tank disposal point!
The locomotive Lorna Doone was sold on in 1947 to a private collector and over 50 years later now is on display at the "Rails to the sands" exhibition in Cleethorpes near the miniature railway station.
A very interesting exhibition indeed and worth going just to see this piece of Mablethorpe history.
Here's a couple of pictures I took when I was there. The top picture also shows a large photo of Lorna Doone working in Mablethorpe with a background of George street houses...

Thanks for yet another brilliant topic. Are you the Ian who sends loads of photographs to The Leader? I have not received a reply from the Editor regarding the Web site yet but yesterday morning when my hubby checked and also 5 minutes ago, it says "currently unavailable."This may mean they have amalgamated it with the Louth one. I will keep an eye on it.
I will tell people to visit this exhibition in Cleethorpes. I used to live in Cheddleton, N'r Leek, Staff's and the Station was turned into a Museum. There was a Steam Engine and Carriage which you could take a ride on, it was great. I know very little of Mabo History so it is good to hear about it.

Alas Pam:
That's not me. It would be a bit difficult living in America as I do... But to really confuse things when I was living in Mablethorpe I used to get my name in the newspaper when I was involved with Maltby Players, Sutton Theatre Company and Tennyson Players. So a\ lot of folks thought it was all the same person
I have met the "other Ian" on several occasions in the past though. In fact the news did once run a brief story on the "two Ian's" when I was doing the Maltby Players Panto one year. Complete with picture, taken by a photographer from Skegness whose name I forget now

Ian

I'm glad you like my little snatches of Mablethorpe history. There some certain things that just stick in my memory. The others I will post about over time. It's good that you'll tell folks about the exhibit. It occurs to me that this could be a very useful function of a local "history society" A piece like this in the News might persuade other folks to make the trip up to Cleethorpes to see it too.