Atherington Victoria & East Yard.

I would suspect that once the rail network had fully developed a typical goods yard might settle down to a pattern of traffic unchanged by a decade or more, subject to seasonal variations, and war.

From the 1960s onwards when rail freight was in decline/transition the train service pattern and traffic levels would fluctuate/decline on a yearly basis.

As I mentioned elsewhere your yards at Atherington will have seen traffic levels in steady decline , but have been fortunate to gain traffic from other smaller less convenient yards as freight was concentrated at Atherington.

Siding length is always likely to be compromised for those of us with less space than we might like. On my shunting plank which features a modest goods yard I assume that traffic is brought  by local trip engine to the yard, maximum length 5 or 6 wagons.

Regarding wagon turn round time I agree it will vary between different wagons and traffic types. Bridgwater was a yard where Messrs M Thomas handled the unloading of the UKF fertiliser traffic, and also acted as agents for any other Speedlink traffic that arrived. Generally palvans of fertiliser and VGAs of bagged adipic acid that arrived on the morning trip were unloaded same day and sent back empty early the same afternoon. Empty VEAs for loading at the nearby ROF (Royal Ordnance Factory) needed a carriage and wagon check before loading, so sometimes hung around for a day before going to load.

If you assume your yard is served by one train in and one train out a day that is fine, but you can realistically add extra moves if you like. In Bristol we had a number of as ordered local trip engines in the late 1970s/early 1980s. Most of them would have regular booked work, but could also serve other nearby locations on request. I don't know if you had similar on the Southern in your area? Thus you could imagine that some urgent Speedlink traffic missed the overnight connections, or your daily train was overload/length, and a control special has run from the nearest main yard (Hoo Jn?) to bring the leftovers.

 

cheers

Thanks as always @Rivercider for your comments and suggestions, not to mention your inspirational photographs over the years.  Having got to grips with Freight Working Time Tables, I have only just discovered the 'hidden world' of trip-workings and Carriage Working Notices.  Sadly there appear to be few available for sale from the usual vendors, so I am not quite sure how these worked, compared to freight trains in the W.T.T. with a 'head-code'.  Indeed, were there any on the Southern, without its own marshalling yard?

 

Bridgewater is a name I keep coming across in collections of photographs; there are other smaller yards as well whose names I forget as I type, but wonder if more pictures were taken when busy (e.g., Shrewsbury?  Did this have a general yard until late into the Speedlink era?).

 

I will invoke Rule 1 where necessary, but not, I hope to an excessive extent.  Must stop larking around with the camera and do some more scenery!