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Design Your Own BLT


Nearholmer
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I am sorry for posting this reply a couple of weeks late, but I wanted a single line terminus for ages and eventually built one at the end of a 6-foot extension to my main layout. I found, it worked well as a bit of extra track to give trains a longer run, but it was never quite enough for operations. Operations were always intended to be minimal, but all I could do was send a push-pull train up the branch, send something else behind it to an imaginary intermediate location, and then pull them out in the reverse sequence.

 

After a while, I pulled it all out and built something with one siding. The track plan doesn't match up with the protoypical plans above, but it does work as a model and it is all I can manage in a space I can barely reach - and much better than no railway at all. This is a wall-hugger type layout.

 

- Richard.

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It's recorded Ludgershall (Wilts) MSWJR /GWR, while not a BLT, gravity shunted carriages for the Tidworth shuttle into a bay. Once the passengers were off, the train would back up the main line. The loco would then go forward staying on the main line. The carriage/s would be then be released to roll into the bay. Then the loco would then go off to be turned if required or be directly reattached to the new front of the train in the branch bay.

 

I suspect this was only done when another train was blocking the main lines run round route.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Gravity shunting, if it’s at a terminus, would be ECS rather than with passengers. On the NG lines, Towyn Wharf was worked like that. I’m pretty sure Eyemouth NBR did it, although originally there was a loop at the platform. One place I’ve seen it done was Wellington Salop in the two bay lines off the down main. The Much Wenlock and Coalport branch trains used the bays and there was a scissors crossover with the two bay lines into the approach off the main line and an inclined siding.

I have a photo of St Ives just after conversion to narrow gauge and its pretty apparent that an ECS gravity shunt was being carried out when the photo was taken.

 

post-34294-0-74094100-1545161690_thumb.jpg

Edited by Martin S-C
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Gravity shunting is academically interesting but is it possible to model it realistically?

 

How would the carriage be braked while the loco was uncoupled? Would the carriage accelerate too fast because of momentum scale problems? How would the carriage avoid clattering into the buffers?

 

I can imagine installing a DCC controlled progressive braking system in a carriage to allow for all of the above but has that ever been done?

DCC would make gravity shunting and slip coach working fairly easy. "Fairly" being relative vs your wallet depth and modelling skills. Certainly "fairly" easy vs DC control. The coach(es) would be a loco with a power bogie.

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DCC would make gravity shunting and slip coach working fairly easy. "Fairly" being relative vs your wallet depth and modelling skills. Certainly "fairly" easy vs DC control. The coach(es) would be a loco with a power bogie.

I can't remember the builder's name but for a long time there was a working gravity shunted coach used on a model of Maiden Newton (Dorset) which was often seen at shows around the Wessex area. (That was how the Bridport branch coach was dealt with prototypically at MN.) Not seen it for a few years now though so it may not still be around.

 

No fiddles with motor bogies, system genuinely worked by gravity; I have feeling from memory that the braking, when it was up the spur, was a simple vertical rod behind one of the bogie axles (raised before the loco backed away) that was dropped below the axle level for release. Coach weight did the rest. A simple non-barbed hook set in the buffer stops on a rocker to drop/lift behind the loop on a tension lock (on the coach) would also work - pull down the non-coach end to lift and release.

Edited by john new
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I think actual gravity working in model form would require a great deal of prior design - in track layout, track gradients, the specific coach that will run, any form of faux braking system, etc. Also models do not behave correctly to gravity vis their full scale counterparts. Using DCC negates the need to worry about most of this, but adds the expense of a motorised coach and the need to match the (digital) speed and (gigital) gearing of its motor bogie to the loco that hauls it, so a dedicated consist is still needed.

When its done well gravity working looks superb, it is though a great deal of work whether in DC or DCC for what is, in effect, a gimmick, much like a working crane that picks up and deposits loads on wagons. A big modelling project for something that might make a viewer at an exhibition say "oh, cool" but only once.

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 Since I'm looking at gravity into a bay, I'm seriously looking at some sort of braking system fitted to the track hidden in the bay. I think to make it more realistic,the coaches would have to be weighted, but with only 2 coach trains that shouldn't be a problem

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A variation of the turntable / sector plate at the end of the platform lines was, of course, the traverser at B'ham Moor Street. I don't recall seeing mention of such an arrangement anywhere else

I am sure you mean in the UK. Abroad, they existed too. The Gare de Bastille in Paris had them, for example.

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Yes, and Euston I think. It was a standard solution on early mainline railways, but didn’t last long.

 

I think at Euston their original purpose was to shuffle coaches to and from the storage roads in the centre, breaking down incoming trains and making up outgoing, at a place that was cable, not loco, worked, and that other railways copied the idea.

 

Edit to correct: early Euston had a string of turntables, not traverses.

Edited by Nearholmer
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I have an idea that Bristol T.M. original GW terminus, the one with the hammer beam roof, also featured traversers in broad gauge days.

You mean like post 61 :)

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Sutton Coldfield, built as a terminus in 1862, had the end-of-platform turntable arrangement. The turntable seems to have been large enough to turn a McConnell Small Bloomer, if coupled to the 4-wheel tender which Harry Jack says several of those allocated to the Birmingham area had. Despite the largish goods yard, apparently shunted directly off the down main line - i.e. many facing points - as far as I can make out, the turntable provides the only run-round. 

 

The turntable release survived the rebuilding of the station for the Lichfield Extension Railway in 1884 and was still there in 1913, although by then a trailing crossover had been added as in the NER examples mentioned above.

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Hi Modellers. My idea of a  BLT was to utilise some space on an Inglenook, and now I am half way through it does look a bit crowded. The Inglenook works well but I wanted somewhere to run my “ Hornby Push Pull Set “ . The ideas that I have read here have given me encouragement, but, I need to fit in a platform which in this instance is more likely to be more of a “ Halt “ not very grand as a terminus, more like a backwater. Any suggestions please. Happy modelling Kev 

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I started another, separate, thread about ”halts as termini”, and it brought to the surface a good number. 

 

 

Without a plan, it’s hard to know what your layout is like, but for a halt and a few sidings as a terminus, Dyserth (LNWR) might inspire. If, on the other hand, you have a circuit, then there were several where goods trains continued beyond the halt passenger terminus, my favourites being a couple in the Wrexham area, which might suit if you have a GWR bias.

Edited by Nearholmer
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Hi Nearholmer.   Thank you for your reply. I have grown fond of my Inglenook, as it is, although I am willing to adapt it by making an Insulated connection to the Branch. I added a fiddleyard at the right hand side, and trains can run onto either the branch or the Inglenook ( 3, 3 & 5 Standard Design) if required.

 I don’t have a Western bias, strictly BR ( S ) , apart from one or two GWR errors when I purchased something that I liked the look of ? At the time of writing there isn’t any scenery just the minimum of ballast to keep the track in place.

Happy Modelling. Kev 

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Is the ‘push pull’ that you’ve got the LSWR gate stock, or the late BR Maunsell conversions?

 

I’m trying to think of SR ‘halts as termini’ as inspirations, but not doing very well at the moment ....... what about Beluncle Halt and Miskins Siding? It wasn’t a terminus, but it was effectively an inglenook, and very characterful. It might give you some ideas.

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3 hours ago, retiredoperator said:

Hi Modellers. My idea of a  BLT was to utilise some space on an Inglenook, and now I am half way through it does look a bit crowded. The Inglenook works well but I wanted somewhere to run my “ Hornby Push Pull Set “ . The ideas that I have read here have given me encouragement, but, I need to fit in a platform which in this instance is more likely to be more of a “ Halt “ not very grand as a terminus, more like a backwater. Any suggestions please. Happy modelling Kev 

 

Probably best to put an extra, independent, track alongside the inglenook for the passenger service.

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1 hour ago, retiredoperator said:

Hi Nearholmer.   Thank you for your reply. I have grown fond of my Inglenook, as it is, although I am willing to adapt it by making an Insulated connection to the Branch. I added a fiddleyard at the right hand side, and trains can run onto either the branch or the Inglenook ( 3, 3 & 5 Standard Design) if required.

 I don’t have a Western bias, strictly BR ( S ) , apart from one or two GWR errors when I purchased something that I liked the look of ? At the time of writing there isn’t any scenery just the minimum of ballast to keep the track in place.

Happy Modelling. Kev 

It would help to see a photo or a plan of the existing layout with some idea of dimensions. It's difficult to suggest anything concrete just from the description.

 

The only thing that occurs to me in a small space is to combine the inglenook with the passenger side, both to save space and to give the two parts some cohesion. E.g. use the long inglenook track as the run round loop - if a run round loop is needed when running push-pull services.

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Here is Beluncle Halt, with Miskin’s Siding behind.

 

it latterly had two sidings, I’m fairly certain, and the platform and shack were ready laced with concrete ones, in the 1930s I think.

 

What I can’t find a photo of is the lovely little signalbox. I don’t think it was a block post, but, as you can see on the map, it did have signals, although goodness knows why.

 

I’m imagining using the bridge as the end of the scene modelled, so no track beyond the bridge, and perhaps assuming gravity shunting to run around goods trains.

 

nice photo of a push-pull with an H class here, although after the sidings were lifted 

 

and, a photo of it in full inglenook mode, where you can just make out the signalbox https://picclick.co.uk/Photo-Beluncle-Halt-Railway-Station-Sr-1955-362560375691.html#&gid=1&pid=1

 

and, another similar photo https://thetransportlibrary.co.uk/index.php?route=product/search&search=Beluncle&tax[]=0&op[]=IN&val[]=148&relation=AND

Beluncle Halt. 31324 & train. 2.12.61

 

 

 

FADEDCB9-3223-49EA-92CF-ED51F2EA5931.jpeg

DCDF7BB1-1E00-4780-8A3C-CBD26147E445.jpeg

Edited by Nearholmer
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Hi Nearholmer.   Thank you again. The Push Pull is the late BR Maunsell Set from Hornby but with an M7 . One report that I read, said that the Hornby model of the H Class didn’t Pull as well as their M7 . I have been watching a series of YouTube videos and Beluncle Halt featured in one. I would have liked to have bought the LSWR gate stock, and I would have if I had enough space to justify the expense.

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Hi Phill.  Thank you also. In the reply from Nearholmer when he mentioned Beluncle Halt , that is what put the idea into my head. I believe that they call it “ Modellers Licence “ ? And the Inglenook could act as the sidings. The YouTube series on branchlines in Kent is quite interesting. As for a “ Run Round Loop “ , that would be superfluous with my 

Push Pull Set.   Happy modelling Kev 

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