SWAN HILL

I’m liking the sound of this more and more!

Hi kitpw,

 

This looks wonderfully evocative of time and place. Very clever idea to have scenery below the railway. Beautifully drawn track plan.

 

You pointed out that Uxbridge Vine Street only had one passenger platform but your plan above appears to have two or three. Can you explain a bit more and how it, or they, will be operated?

 

Edited November 19, 2019 by Harlequin

Hi Harlequin  (don't know if I reply on this form or somewhere else - let me know if I'm doing the wrong thing!) ...operation, that's a good question.  It's noted in “Branch Lines of West London” (Mitchell & Smith, Middleton Press) that one or two vans with fresh produce arrived at Vine St early and were left on the buffer stops during the day - not moved to the goods yard. At Swan Hill, these arriving vans will be moved to the up siding and unloaded/loaded there rather than on the passenger platform. That traffic could include parcels, horseboxes and similar, perhaps not just early, but during the day as well and so a shunting spur and dock is provided: all “brown vehicle” activities. This is more like operations at Windsor where the goods shed was sited next to the passenger station whilst the goods yard was at the lower level, accessed on a steeply graded double reversal from the station - I've effectively subsituted the reversal arrangement at Windsor for the goods yard at Vine Street. I have it half in mind that the reversal siding at Swan Hill could also provide a “bay” platform for a single coach push-pull service running to and from the mainline junction (the platform widens at the stop end) and perhaps accomodation for the odd spare carriage or saloon car when required to be added to an outgoing train. It may be necessary to provide a pilot engine – its shed will be in part 2, off scene for now – and signalling to make all that happen! 

 

I particularly like the early GWR horseboxes and have an N5 under construction - progress being  made on days like today when the railway workshop is too cold for comfort - photo attached...