Fouling Point Marking

[Gene]

I promise that I have searched not only here but in other forums and on the web also but can't find an answer so I'm hoping somebody can answer...did the GWR or the others of the big 4 have a simple way of marking the fouling point in yards etc? Maybe with a brightly painted post or perhaps by painting the ties white at the fouling point or something similar? and how about dureing BR days?

 

Cheers

Gene

[28XX]

The Talyllyn use(d) a piece of 6"x1" board, painted white with FP in black planted flat in the ballast between the diverging tracks. I don't know if this was a copy of practice from elsewhere.

[Penlan]

I'm not aware that there were any fouling point markers in the grouping period or into BR, there is now though.

At Longrock, Penzance, the carriage cleaning sidings have the sleeper painted yellow at the place where it's safe/clear of the points etc. (I was going to write '..at the fouling point..', but of course that's what their trying to avoid )

 

Don't forget in the grouping and early BR days there was many more people employed, including ground level 'shunters' or couplers or whatever they were called, to signal to the driver OK etc., etc., so in effect you had a mobile fouling point (human) marker.

 

OK I know there's going to someone somewhere who will tell us in Kings Cross...... there were markers, but as a generalisation, I don't think there were for the above reasons.

 

And.... the number of exhibitions layouts I've seen operated where the concept of being clear of the 'Fouling Point' is in some other, possible, parallel universe - perhaps I will take this up in the 'Grumpies thread'...

[The Stationmaster]

Basically they weren't - for the Simple reason that any shunter or Guard who knew his job knew what each road would hold. But in more recent years some places have seen markings used although I suspect they are probably a lot more 'comfortable' than the actual Fouling Point.

 

When you do need to know where it is - e.g getting past some derailed vehicles etc being the most common reason - you have a built in measuring device called the human body. Start walking away from the crossing (or towards it should you becoming the other way) and walk in the divergence between the two roads. When the sleeper ends on both sides of you are clear of a hypothetical line drawn vertically downwards from your shoulders you are clear of the point at which vehicles built to normal British Loading Gauge will foul each other, simples.

 

Mind you a measured fouling point will normally be more generous than that and a Fouling Point taken into account for signalling purposes (for such as block joints etc) will also be a bit more conservative side, especially nowadays.

[Cornish_Rail]

i didnt know if this was of any use http://www.railsigns.co.uk/sect11page2/sect11page2.html

[Penlan]

i didnt know if this was of any use http://www.railsigns.co.uk/sect11page2/sect11page2.html

That's a useful reference, though some 80+ years after the period I model....... I see it mentions Orange sleepers, perhaps my eyes have finally gone colour blind too, or we have a pale (yellow?) orange down here in west Cornwall - washed out, not bleached by the sun.

[Gene]

Gents...thanks for all the replies....looks like a webpage reference that I supplied in another thread actually has at least part of the answer, I just didn't understand the usage http://www.railsigns.co.uk/sect5page1/sect5page1.html

[DavidBird]

...

 

And.... the number of exhibitions layouts I've seen operated where the concept of being clear of the 'Fouling Point' is in some other, possible, parallel universe ...

Not only exhibitions... see this on youtube. There was a mark painted on the platform edge, but when the edgeing was replaced it was lost. A new mark appeared very soon after this incident.

[DaveF]

In August 1963 I was at Tetbury station when the train was hauled by a 16xx 0-6-0PT, replacing the usual railbus. The photo (link below) shows the loco running round, seconds before hitting the Gresley coach and removing a large portion of the beading.

 

Presumably the position of the fouling point had been forgotten by the staff who had become used to a railbus.

 

Link: http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php/gallery/image/2272-tetbury-16xx-1664jpg/

 

By the way in Switzerland fouling points are usually indicated by small red markers in the ballast at the trackside.

 

David

[The Stationmaster]

All well and good looking at what happens at one end when there's a scrape - you also need to think about how tight things are at the other end because that might account for the position of the stock.

 

Back in the 1970s we had a loco hauled excursion up a freight only branch on my patch and I was told it would be load 13 and despite my strong objections that it should be restricted to 12 vehicles 13 was what we got. It took us over half an hour to run round the loco because the train was so tight in the loop we had to keep shuffling it to & fro in order to try to get the end clear at both fouling points. Eventually the only way we could get it right was for a chap on the ground to pull the vac pipe off the dummy at the end remote from the loco while someone else watched to make sure the other end was going to be clear. That left us with less than two inches clearance at each end - so unless you have enough people, with enough experience to know tricks like that (increasingly rare in the age of the unit train), you are going to get scrapes - just like we used to from blokes in a rush

[Gordon A]

When shunting I judge fouling points based on the following:

 

Sleepers post 1WW are 8ft 6ins long.

 

If you allow 9ft for the width of the wagons, you will want a safe gap of at least18 inches between adjacent sleeper ends, longer if not sure, to allow safe passage past adjacent stock.

This gap may be longer if you are dealing with bogie or long wheel base wagons on a curve.

 

If not sure judge the width of the stock or loco against a standard sleeper and take into account the additional width when working out your fouling point.

 

I hope this makes sense.

 

Gordon A

 

Bristol

 

 

[DavidBird]

All well and good looking at what happens at one end when there's a scrape - you also need to think about how tight things are at the other end because that might account for the position of the stock.

Mallaig's very tight for 7 Mk1s, hence the extra caution in not going too far back. It's easier with a Blk5 as it bends in the middle, unlike a 37 which overhangs a bit more

 

...

Eventually the only way we could get it right was for a chap on the ground to pull the vac pipe off the dummy at the end remote from the loco while someone else watched to make sure the other end was going to be clear. That left us with less than two inches clearance at each end - ...

Excuse my ignorance, can you explain this process a bit more please?

[The Stationmaster]

 

re taking off a vac pipe when trying to position a long train in a run-round

Excuse my ignorance, can you explain this process a bit more please?

 

Sorry it wasn't clear, The problem we faced was simple - the train was too long for the run-round loop, but it was only 'a bit too long' so we reckoned that if we positioned it very carefully we might be able to get round it and avoid all the difficulties of getting a second loco down the One Train Working branch where the trouble faced us.

 

We tried having someone standing at each end, in the 6foot (refer my earlier method for establishing a minimum Fouling Point clearance earlier in this thread but handsignals from one end of a 13 coach train to the other were too slow to get the brake application just right. Doing the end near the loco wasn't too difficult, the other end caused the trouble and we weren't entirely sure if we really did have enough room to get both ends right.

 

So one of the Chargemen Shunters positioned himself at the 'remote' end with another at the loco end and to make sure the far end was right he pulled the vacuum pipe off the dummy on the coach to apply the brake - in more or less the right spot - while the chap at the other end made sure we hadn't gone foul at that end.

 

Heck of a lot of messing about and all because some twit hadn't taken any notice of me when I said I didn't want the train to exceed 12 vehicles. And of course it had a 1000 on with that little bit extra at just the wrong place.

[bécasse]

Traditional British practice did not include any form of fouling point marker - although I don't doubt that odd local homemade versions existed. As a result, minor sideswipes were remarkably common features of depot life - typically removing grab irons and door handles (which is why Southern emus almost always had their doors removed before being sent for scrapping, the doors were kept as spares).

 

Contrarywise, most, perhaps all, railways on the continent of Europe did routinely mark fouling points although the method varied - for example, a white-painted concrete bar in France, a small red/white-painted marker in Germany.

 

"Shunt limit" signs had nothing to do with marking convergence fouling points.

[Coach bogie]

Locally they just appear to breath in and hope for the best.

 

Mike Wiltshire

[TonyA]

One line where fouling point markers could be found was the Longmoor Military Railway. They consisted of a white painted concrete block with a central red stripe. The example here was in the permanent way display in front of the museum at Longmoor.

 

The Technical Orders and Working Instructions for the LMR, 1938, said that “Where tracks converge fouling points will be marked at the point where tracks are 11ft 3in centre to centre.†This corresponds with the guidance in Military Railway Engineering – Part 2, which specified “the maximum width of the loading gauge plus 2ft.â€

 

Their presence was almost certainly due to the fact that Longmoor was primarily a training establishment.

 

Tony

[roger440]

Traditional British practice did not include any form of fouling point marker - although I don't doubt that odd local homemade versions existed. As a result, minor sideswipes were remarkably common features of depot life - typically removing grab irons and door handles (which is why Southern emus almost always had their doors removed before being sent for scrapping, the doors were kept as spares).

 

 

My first introduction to damage in depots was at Old Oak carrige shed as an apprentice, after a rake of parcels vans got propelled past a vehicle that was foul. result? Every lower door hinge on the whole rake taken off with the corresponding damage to the bodysides and door pillars. A lot of overtime was worked to rectify!!!!!

[The Stationmaster]

My first introduction to damage in depots was at Old Oak carrige shed as an apprentice, after a rake of parcels vans got propelled past a vehicle that was foul. result? Every lower door hinge on the whole rake taken off with the corresponding damage to the bodysides and door pillars. A lot of overtime was worked to rectify!!!!!

 

The best 'trick' of the Old Oak Passenger Shunters was to part News Siphons without first opening the gangway clips (presumably they were too used to Mk 1 stock to think of such niceties?) and the resultant damage could be spectacular sometimes offering solid evidence that GWR gangway material was a lot stronger than the ends of gangwayed Siphons - I have seen the entire end of a Siphon 'hanging' from its gangway and nicely held up by the gangway of the adjacent vehicle

[CWJ]

At Oxenhope station on the Keighley & Worth Valley Railway, the fouling point at the south end of the run-round loop is marked by a white 'FP' post and a corresponding white line on the platform, as seen below. I don't know whether this would have been common practice in BR (or earlier) days.

 

 

Depots commonly paint sleepers white or yellow to indicate a fouling point - unfortunately the best photo I could find of this is the one below of Neville Hill a few years ago. There are various white-painted sleepers on the converging lines outside the DMU shed in the centre of the photo (apologies for the picture quality, you might need to enlarge it).

 

 

Hope this helps.

 

Cheers,

 

Will

 

 

[roger440]

The best 'trick' of the Old Oak Passenger Shunters was to part News Siphons without first opening the gangway clips (presumably they were too used to Mk 1 stock to think of such niceties?) and the resultant damage could be spectacular sometimes offering solid evidence that GWR gangway material was a lot stronger than the ends of gangwayed Siphons - I have seen the entire end of a Siphon 'hanging' from its gangway and nicely held up by the gangway of the adjacent vehicle

 

Nice!!!

[Donw]

So when we misjudge it on our models we are just being prototypical?

Don

[PWSlack]

The ones at the East Anglian Railway Museum are a simple light-coloured alloy plate with no markings, nailed to the sleeper with four nails.

[Penlan]

.......At Longrock, Penzance, the carriage cleaning sidings have the sleeper painted yellow at the place where it's safe/clear of the points etc. .......

So I thought about time I posted pictures of said Yellow (or Orange according to Cornishrail above) markings on the Sleepers.....# ...... (11 months later) and they've gone, replaced by pop-up markers.....

 

The first photo at least shows a couple of sleepers still painted yellow/orange,

As I don't seem able to interlace text with the photo's......

The second photo :- Here we have the new (but I'm told by the man on site old (short square) markers and the latest higher STOP markers

 

Third photo : A 'new' point lever too, with H&S cone to protect staff (it 's not as easliy seen end on, apparently)....

The orange colour on the handle does not catch the eye, allegedly, although the handle does catch something a bit lower!!

The other 'older' single arm point levers have a large yellow (or is it pale orange) metal cover plate painted over 'the works' at ground level, circa 3' square.

 

And finally another shot - all at Long Rock, today.

 

Note: all taken from the public path on the seaside of the main line - don't want to trespass, CK will have my nuts otherwise.

Camera is my 'old' Canon Powershot A400 that resides in the glove box of my 1934 Austin 7... so not brilliant photo's.

[Dungrange]

Basically they weren't - for the Simple reason that any shunter or Guard who knew his job knew what each road would hold. But in more recent years some places have seen markings used although I suspect they are probably a lot more 'comfortable' than the actual Fouling Point.

 

When you do need to know where it is - e.g getting past some derailed vehicles etc being the most common reason - you have a built in measuring device called the human body. Start walking away from the crossing (or towards it should you becoming the other way) and walk in the divergence between the two roads. When the sleeper ends on both sides of you are clear of a hypothetical line drawn vertically downwards from your shoulders you are clear of the point at which vehicles built to normal British Loading Gauge will foul each other, simples.

 

Mind you a measured fouling point will normally be more generous than that and a Fouling Point taken into account for signalling purposes (for such as block joints etc) will also be a bit more conservative side, especially nowadays.

 

Just to assist with my understanding here - is the fouling point the point at which two vehicles on diverging lines effectively just about touch one another?  That is, assuming both vehicles are constructed to the UK loading gauge - that is approximately 2.9 m (9' 6") wide - the fouling point can effectively be defined as being the point at which the diverging tack centre lines are 2.9 m apart (ie about 38 mm apart in 4 mm scale).  In practise, I assume the precise location will depend on curvature and the length of stock, but in broad principles, is that correct?

[TonyA]

Although not applying to main line railways, the army guide, Depot Layouts, Reconnaissance and Planning 1943, defines the fouling point as follows.

 

Fouling point - limit of wagon standing to be taken as 11 ft. 2 in. centres.

 

I make this a fraction under 45 mm.

 

However, Engineering 1940, gives a more general definition.

 

To determine fouling points, the maximum width of the loading gauge plus 2 ft.

 

As this works out at 11 ft. 3 ins. the result is (almost) the same.

 

Tony