Barry Ten's Blog

The most common arrangement would have been for the yard to be shunted by up train but there will be plenty of locations where there are exceptions to the rule.

If traffic over the route was heavier at one end than the other for example there may have been two freight trains each way a day. One freight in each direction running over the whole route with another working terminating short and returning the way it had come. Eggesford on the North Devon line at one time had such a working up from the Exeter end, while Topsham on the Exmouth branch also had one that terminated and returned to Exeter. Christow on the Teign Valley route was another example. 

 

cheers

It depends on the size of the place and level of business (and to some extent the type of traffic).  Yards generally tended to be shunted by the trip which could set-back into them without need to runround and the freight timetable would be arranged so that trains in that direction offered a morning arrival and an afternoon/early evening departure although in later years this pattern often collapsed to just a single trip where once there had been two (or sometimes more).

 

The most likely 'wrong way round' train would be, I think, and engine and brakevan coming to collect outward traffic at a time the ordinary trip(s) could not readily serve the station (or indeed a special working of inwards traffic).

Thank you, both - very informative.

It could also be done by the train reversing from the down to the up running round then propelling the train into the yard to drop off wagons at the front. Run round again and then pull forward onto the down line. Another train could have passed on the down whilst the train was on the up.

Don

Thanks, Don!

 

This week I added a second Spratt & Winkle uncoupling magnet on the down road, to at least allow for run round moves if and when they're required.

This is very interesting stuff.  Very helpful to me, as well.  Folks, can I also ask a few questions here, please?  I've looked for information on shunting station goods yards for years and years.  I've come to believe that it's so obvious, that everyone knows, bar me.  Any articles in my many back issues of RM, BRM, MRC, etc go into details about reception roads, headshunts etc on large marshalling yards.  Little though, if anything, on shunting station layouts like Barry's.  I've picked up comments from people, even bought a book on operation and practice but it didn't mention small yard freight working. Stationmaster, (Mike?) can you explain the 'trip', please?  I can hazard a guess but what exactly is the trip?  

Also, if the station (say a small country station terminus) did have a run-around loop would a freight train first of all come into the platform a) to release the loco so it could get to the back of the train to shunt that way and also so box vans could be unloaded of parcels, papers, livestock (pigeons, small piggies etc).  Or would it all depend on other wagons and rules regarding what got dealt with first?

Would the signalman know the composition of the train (eg pick up goods) and therefore which road the train should come in on anyway?  Did station staff know in advance what was coming? 

I recall reading somewhere many years ago that pick up goods were assembled en route according to destination to ease shunting 'at the other end' and that if a 'so and so' so decided he could 're-arrange' a train's wagon order to make things more awkward for his counterpart at the other end of the line.  Is that simply folklore?

Bob Essery's article in one of the monthly magazines recently was interesting and a help.  But is there a specific, simple, informative explanation on shunting station yards in written form?  If there's such a publication I'm more than happy to search it out and pay for that rather than people type out replies here.  Or maybe there's something on this Forum that I've missed time and time again?

Sorry for the long posting and taking up people's time.  What I'm reading here on this Blog is very informative.

Steve.     

I would also like to hear more on this, Steve. As you say, it's a topic that's not very well served in the publications.

 

I'd throw in a question of my own. During shunting moves, would an engine be allowed to pass a signal at danger, on the assumption that it would not be preceeding up or down the line, but just (for example) going as far as the points at the end a station loop, to run around? Or would interlocking mean that the signals necessarily had to be clear to allow the movement to happen in the first place?

Hi there, I would also like to join in on this topic, as I am wondering how a small branch terminus such as Sproston would have been shunted, - especially as the traffic to the creamery would require the loco to propel back into the siding from the runround loop, again, there seems to be nothing written down to follow, but there must have been common local operating proceedures for dealing with each set of circumstances- can anyone shed any light on this?