Halwill Junction Track Plan (But as if it never closed!)

[sammyboy]

Please, if any of you out there could come up with a design for me of Halwill Junction station on the North Cornwall Line/'The Withered Arm' route, but as if it would have been if the Exeter-Padstow line had never been closed and is still open for rail traffic today? I would like to use it as a plan for a long-term project I have begun researching for a layout I would like to get round to building in the future. I would have imagined that the station would have still been the junction for the also still open branch to Bude and a interesting idea for the Torrington line but as if it had originally been closed and has now been re-opened as a preserved railway.

 

It would be built in N Gauge and the baseboard size would be approximately 10ft long x 6ft wide.

 

Looking forward to seeing your replies on here!

 

Sam

[BlackRat]

Have a look at the Gunnislake line and its junction at Bere Alston.

 

Or maybe Liskeard/ Looe and Combe Jcn.

 

You'd basically be looking at single line everywhere, same as the Exmouth and Barnstaple branches.

 

Single line, that's it.

Edited April 12, 2016 by BlackRat

[Joseph_Pestell]

Rule 1 will need to apply here. Halwill had a rather restricted layout for a junction station, partly because trains from the Bude branch ran through to destinations further east.

 

But the main snag is the short platform for the Torrington line which had no run round. One could come up with a trackplan which would get round this but it would not seem that much like Halwill and it might not be that much fun to operate.

[jonny777]

Fortunately, you are in luck as the NLS (Nat Library Of Scotland) website has a 25 inch map from the early 20th century for that area.

 

http://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/sidebyside.cfm#zoom=17&lat=50.7802&lon=-4.2096&layers=176&right=BingHyb

 

I find that the side by side option is much more user-friendly for choosing the required maps and zooming in or out.

[Rivercider]

I suppose it partly depends on what services you intend to operate over the routes.

Assuming that dieselisation and severe cost cutting had saved the Padstow and Bude routes

they would have survived with only a basic DMU service, would these have run separately from Exeter or Okehampton

or run combined to Halwill Junction (unlikely) and split there?  Either way you would still want the two platforms in use as a loop.

I would see the modern day service as being operated by class 150 or 153 units.

 

As Joseph says the main problem would be working out how to deal with the Torrington trains,

is the preserved line connected at Halwill Junction or completely separate?

The track layout will have been seriously rationalised. I would merge the two 'mainline' platform lines immediately north of the platforms

into the westerly (Padstow) line and run a short single line section to the actual junction of the two routes.

This leaves a short length of track space of the former Bude route to provide the short run round for the Torrington trains

which would require to propel out of the platform to run round as before.

 

Regular freight would probably be non existent, but perhaps a single siding could be retained in the yard for track machines

or may be has now been reactivated to load timber traffic.

 

cheers

[sammyboy]

Those ideas are great, but for the enhancement of layout operation (And the use of loads of Modeller's Licence!) I'd like more of the Exeter-Padstow mainline to be double track so I'd be able to run more trains using the excuse that BR partly upgraded the line a few years after the end of steam and for the 'ACE' (Atlantic Coast Express) to be still running with diesel loco hauled.

 

It's great as modellers when you can change history for layout building!

 

Sam

[Zomboid]

I think Crediton is about the best that you could hope for as a modern representation of Halwill.

[bgman]

I think Crediton is about the best that you could hope for as a modern representation of Halwill.HI

Happy to take photos of existing station if required.

[roundhouse]

You would need to call it Halwill Parkway!

[jonny777]

Those ideas are great, but for the enhancement of layout operation (And the use of loads of Modeller's Licence!) I'd like more of the Exeter-Padstow mainline to be double track so I'd be able to run more trains using the excuse that BR partly upgraded the line a few years after the end of steam and for the 'ACE' (Atlantic Coast Express) to be still running with diesel loco hauled.

 

It's great as modellers when you can change history for layout building!

 

Sam

 

 

But surely, rule 1 applies here and you have almost given the scenario yourself. The loop in the station serves for double track at that point anyway. Why not just implement your idea and continue the double track both south and northwest until after the scenic breaks on the layout.

 

The idea of a double track Padstow mainline seems great to me, for operational purposes, and just keep the station more or less how it was?

[Nearholmer]

Re-phrased, I'm thinking that the question amounts to:

 

please design a track layout for a passing station on a single line, with a diverging single-line branch, as it might exist on a modern, rationalised, railway.

 

See below for a suggestion.

 

I've added an "engineer's siding" to allow for the berthing of a tamper or a p.way train.

 

I know little about the sorts of "signalling signs" that go with RETB or ERTMS, so can't indicate those.

 

Thoughts?

 

Kevin

Edited April 12, 2016 by Nearholmer

[Nearholmer]

Woops,forgot that Halwill was a tri-furcation.

 

What about this?

 

K

[Oldddudders]

The idea of a preservation group running the Torrington branch echoes the Spa Valley between Eridge and Tunbridge Wells West. Good idea. But to retain the separation between Network Rail and Society rails, the loop on the Torrington branch would need to be retained, complete with ground frame.

 

And on my 4mm Halwill, a 159 in NSE livery will make occasional appearances. My era is really post-war to early '50s, and therefore a steam-era layout is required, but the complexity of the trackwork at the Padstow end does make it difficult to compress without losing facilities, e.g. the parallel departures from the Down Bay to Padstow and the Down Main to Bude. The modern era layout would indeed be thinned, the yard would be the inevitable car park, and the down bay platform long gone. The key crossover for the Padstow line to gain the Up platform is far too far from the "junction", but the long siding on the Bude alignment would also be gone, permitting the junction to be brought back there, perhaps, as already suggested. 

[34theletterbetweenB&D]

Those ideas are great, but for the enhancement of layout operation (And the use of loads of Modeller's Licence!) I'd like more of the Exeter-Padstow mainline to be double track so I'd be able to run more trains using the excuse that BR partly upgraded the line a few years after the end of steam and for the 'ACE' (Atlantic Coast Express) to be still running with diesel loco hauled.

 

It's great as modellers when you can change history for layout building!

 What you need above all else is the large coastal conurbation of Ilfrabudestaple, developed after the Bristol Channel completely silted up. What was Halwill Junc. has been restyled (over local protests) as 'Ilfrabudestaple Parkway' and the significant freight yard is always busy with traffic in supplies for the immense Cornish Pasty business, with its global export trade ('you be aving froies withat, moi duck?').

[roundhouse]

The station building at Halwill could have survived had the line stayed open and houses not built on the site.

 

Taken in 1982.

 

 

 

[Oldddudders]

Wow! If Stubby47 sees those, he may be interested......

[roundhouse]

Wow! If Stubby47 sees those, he may be interested......

I don't recall seeing any caravans burnt out but the dilapidated building yes!

 

I wish that I had photographed the pub though.

Edited April 12, 2016 by roundhouse

[Glorious NSE]

Here's an 80s-esque rationalisation, based on:

1. Loops extended in the 70s to allow for longer trains (mostly to the East/South of the station on the formation of an old yard) - also has the effect of swapping the straight route from one track to the other.

2. 80s rationalisation of the plan removed the goods yard (leaving one tamper siding) - and leaves a simple freight-only connection from Torrington (with the Torrington bay lifted) - I would envisage one through platform to be bi-directional, and the other single directional, both signalled with the ability to split (westbound) / join (eastbound) trains. I've kept the bay as it gives a potential for running one of the onward routes as a connecting rather than a through service if needed, or stable something.

3. When the freight traffic from Torrington finished (80s) a heritage operation takes over, reinstates the bay, and adds a simple runround. The slightly odd arrangement of the runround is a consequence of having to put it in without the heritage operation being able to change BR's 80s interlocking. I'd have loved to have put in a couple of sidings for them, but I can't see where you'd do it without some serious engineering, or access over BR metals!








 

[Rivercider]

Those ideas are great, but for the enhancement of layout operation (And the use of loads of Modeller's Licence!) I'd like more of the Exeter-Padstow mainline to be double track so I'd be able to run more trains using the excuse that BR partly upgraded the line a few years after the end of steam and for the 'ACE' (Atlantic Coast Express) to be still running with diesel loco hauled.

 

It's great as modellers when you can change history for layout building!

 

Sam

Using your modellers licence there are a number of 'what if' scenarios that come to mind.

What if the traffic levels and financial figures were much better in the 1950s and early 1960s?

What if the Southern retained control of most of the lines in the South West?

 

I know there were plans by the Southern to dieselise services in the West Country.

There was to be a DEMU depot built at Exmouth Junction for example, but beyond that I know little.

 

I could imagine that in the early 1960s a fleet of 2-car or 3-car DEMUs took over local branch and stopping services in the west,

including Exeter/Okehampton to Padstow/Bude. But what of the Waterloo services?

The Waterloo and other long distance services could have been handled by a small fleet of DEMUs similar

to the 'Hastings' units but built to the normal loading gauge. One or two of these would work through to Padstow or Bude each day.

Another guess is that an additional twenty or so class 33s were built and the Waterloo services remained loco hauled throughout.

Another scenario sees the Waterloo route electrified to Salisbury in the late 1960s and class 33/1s work the trains forward formed 

of two 4TC sets which could then be split again at Exeter or Okehampton.

By the late 1980s the DEMUs or class 33s would be life expired, may be electrification is extended to Exeter?

Or possibly a  larger fleet of class 159s include a batch allocated to Exmouth Junction to cover the Padstow/Bude workings.

 

(you can tell from the above ramblings I have thought about this before, and I have too much time on my hands!)

 

cheers 

[Zomboid]

No doubt if Salisbury had been electrified around the same time as Bournemouth there would have been another handful of 4REPs built to operate in the same manner as Weymouth trains did. Would most likely need quite a lot more 33/1s, or maybe even a type 4 variant (probably some pre-scotrail type of shove-duff), if there were still fast trains over the route, but I imagine traction beyond Exeter would depend on what could get over Meldon viaduct (would 33s or 47s have managed?). DEMUs would take over the local trains, including almost all the withered arm.

[Nearholmer]

I too have played the "let's imagine nationalisation never happened" game with the SR Western Division in mind.

 

A good start point is a paper by the then Chief Electrical Engineer, C M Cock, in 1947, where he says that approval in principle had already been given to complete elimination of steam east of the Portsmouth main line, then talks about DE traction for branches that don't justify electrification, and holds out high-hopes for the 1600hp main line DEs.

 

So, I postulate steam to diesel transition west of the Pompey line being largely complete by 1960, with perhaps the WC & BB hanging-on into the 1960s, concentrated on fewr and fewer depots. The branches would all be DEMUs, and the main lines would be 2000hp DE, like a Class 40, but with Southern-style cabs. Freight, except for coal, would be dealt with by depots every c20 miles, using road distribution, a plan which the SR started to introduce in the late 30s. Not sure what the freight locos would be: maybe Class 20'ish; maybe pre-33 Sulzers, like the Irish ones.

 

Has anyone ever followed this through and built a SR 1950s layout?

 

Kevin

 

(Too much train journey home on his hands)

[brianusa]

Have a look at the Gunnislake line and its junction at Bere Alston.

 

Or maybe Liskeard/ Looe and Combe Jcn.

 

You'd basically be looking at single line everywhere, same as the Exmouth and Barnstaple branches.

 

Single line, that's it.

 

Still think this would apply!  NR doesn't like clutter!

 

Brian

[sammyboy]

Big thanks to Martyn - AKA 'Glorious NSE' for the modern track plan, looks like I'll be using your example (or something very similar) for my layout. And thanks to everyone else for your input, especially the ones who came up with a realistic 'back story' on how the North Cornwall Line survived into modern times. 

 

That's why I love this forum, the help you can receive from some excellent fellow modellers!

 

Sam

[Zomboid]

I too have played the "let's imagine nationalisation never happened" game with the SR Western Division in mind.

 

A good start point is a paper by the then Chief Electrical Engineer, C M Cock, in 1947, where he says that approval in principle had already been given to complete elimination of steam east of the Portsmouth main line, then talks about DE traction for branches that don't justify electrification, and holds out high-hopes for the 1600hp main line DEs.

 

So, I postulate steam to diesel transition west of the Pompey line being largely complete by 1960, with perhaps the WC & BB hanging-on into the 1960s, concentrated on fewr and fewer depots. The branches would all be DEMUs, and the main lines would be 2000hp DE, like a Class 40, but with Southern-style cabs. Freight, except for coal, would be dealt with by depots every c20 miles, using road distribution, a plan which the SR started to introduce in the late 30s. Not sure what the freight locos would be: maybe Class 20'ish; maybe pre-33 Sulzers, like the Irish ones.

 

Has anyone ever followed this through and built a SR 1950s layout?

 

Kevin

 

(Too much train journey home on his hands)

Assuming they were done with electrifying Kent in the 50s, as BR pretty much was, I expect attention would have turned to the western side soon after, with both Exeter and Weymouth lines being considered. By the time the MN and light pacifics were becoming life expired there would probably be electric trains to both Weymouth and Exeter Central at least, with diesel locomotives to take trains further west. Probably some kind of 1500hp design, most likely EE powered, and with some luck built to stylistically rip off the EMD E & F units, though possibly not as I think they were going out of fashion by the 60s.

DEMUs seem most logical for branch services for the same reasons as BR built them.

I wonder how many of the lesser routes would have survived without Beeching, actually, since his reports would possibly not have been needed had BR not been nationalised. No doubt some would have fallen prey to the economic reality, as the SR would have had a duty to shareholders...

[DCB]

The Glasgow Map is pre the Halwil to Torrington line (1925).

 

I think a gurt dollop of modellers license is required.   I would assume either  that the Torrington line was freight only, Clay and maybe the Torrington milk until the mid 80s if Torrington to Barnstaple had closed instead before Torrington to Halwil.  Crediton is maybe a bit more complex than Halwil would have been, but using that modellers license why not preserve the Torrington line.  5 coach trains of MK1s with Tornado or Flying Scotsman connecting with single unit 153s sprinters  and 142 pacers..

 

Or in 00 Torrington could be 009 with Lynton and Barnstaple stock....