Civil engineers yard / sidings in the early 90s

[Foden]

I'm trying to come up with some ideas for a garage layout, and I'd like as best as possible to be able to choose something that will realistically allow me to run most of my stock (trainload era early 90s diesels mostly). I've decided on a freight specific layout, and I'd also quite like a layout with some sidings to allow some shunting movements, something that adds a lot of play value to me personally.

I've come up with an idea of some civil engineers sidings, accompanied by a small service shed, and locomotive stabling point. I've a decent size to work with (~18ft) so can get some decent length sidings in.

 

Did such sidings exist? I'm thinking of holding areas for rakes of ballast awaiting weekend/evening work, equally holding sidings for enginners wagons of spoil and other spent engineers materials just back off site, but not yet disposed of. I'm wondering if this is a realistic operational concept, or whether in reality ballast was transported straight from quarry to site, and spoil straight from site to landfill? I'm assuming at the very least there must have been some dedicated sidings strategically located for empty hopper and spoil wagons to be stabled when not in use?

If the idea works it'd give me scope to use the few varieties of dutch locos I have in my collection. Also as a secondary question, were other locos of suitable types 'drafted in' from other sectors? I've seen photos of RFD 37s lending out on engineers duties, but what of other sectors? Can't think I've seen many photos of RF: Metals, or Petroleum motive power on the front of ballast trains (pre privatisiation that is). Pretty sure I've seen a few parcels and RES 47s pulling ballast workings on weekends though?

And finally, if that all works, how was the block working of ballast hoppers moved between quarry and sidings before it was actually used on a specific engineering duty? Were engineers sector locos used, or did the block working of ballast come under the operation of RF: Construction? I'm wondering if I can squeeze in a few contruction sector workings as 56s and 60s to add some variety to the layout.

Sorry for the many questions guys! Help and thoughts appreciated.

Edited December 30, 2016 by Foden

[Trog]

The engineers target locos used to run hoppers and opens to and from the local quarry on the area I worked on, also spoil wagons to and from our local tip.

[ess1uk]

Sounds like you are planning something like Bescot?

[Foden]

This may seem very naive from a person with a railway interest but I'm really not sure how large sidings like Bescot even operated. I've seen videos on YouTube from the era that interests me and there seems to be a lot of movement of freight in many commodities moving around Bescot yard in the 90s?

 

Maybe you could enlighten me to its usage?

[Foden]

The engineers target locos used to run hoppers and opens to and from the local quarry on the area I worked on, also spoil wagons to and from our local tip.

Were the workings direct to/from site, or between sidings and quarry/tip?

Edited December 31, 2016 by Foden

[Rivercider]

On the Western Region I do not recall the class 56 locos based at Bristol Bath Road and Westbury being used for engineers trains in the early 1990s.

There was still a lot of vacuum braked engineers stock in use (dogfish hoppers, mermaids, grampus, tipplers, topes etc) that an air braked class 56 (or 60)

would not be able to haul. This was often compounded on an engineering site if several trains were working on the same line, as on completion of work

an additional loco would attach to the rear of the last train to haul it back out, the loco of that train then attaches to the rear of the previous train etc etc.

so all locos woiuld probably need to be dual braked vacuum and air. So class 31s 37s and 47s were popular for engineers trains on the Western Region.

 

I do not know when use of RES parcels class 47s on engineers trains started, but certainly after 1996 when RES became part of EWS class 47s

from Barton Hill were sometimes sent to Westbury for weekend engineering train use.

 

Westbury Yard became a hub for forming up engineers trains with a virtual quarry and loco stabling, (I am not sure when the depot closed)

so you may find some useful photos on Flickr,

 

edit - Prior to Westbury Yard becoming the principle yard for engineers trains the yard at Bristol East Depot Downside was used for stabling

and forming up of engineers trains. During the week loaded spoil wagons would be tripped to Stoke Gifford Tip and the empties returned to East Depot. LIkewise empty ballast hoppers were sent to Meldon, or Machen Quarries and loaded ballast hoppers back brought to East Depot ready for the next weekend. There were engineers trip locos to move the spoil and empties between yards, the ballast trains to and from the quarries were often timetabled trains. 

 

cheers

Edited December 31, 2016 by Rivercider

[Fat Controller]

We're the workings direct to/from site, or between sidings and quarry/tip?

They'd be spread throughout the week, as most tips have only limited stabling facilities; I worked for a while opposite the reception sidings for Alsager tip in the early 1980s. Each day, one or two spoil workings would arrive for tipping- the loco that brought the incoming 'fulls' would then take the empties back to Crewe Basford Hall or Stoke Cockshute. There was no on-site pilot, so either the train engine moved the wagons, or a chain to an excavator would be used.

Have you seen Paul Wade's 'Tonbridge West Yard? This is set in the period you're looking at:- https://www.google.com/url?q=http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php%3F/topic/95231-tonbridge-west-yard/&sa=U&ved=0ahUKEwj7-KrBup7RAhXZMFAKHUkVC50QFggEMAA&client=internal-uds-cse&usg=AFQjCNE3br1qdCZqvt2AsfUxP_sFHOv1VQ

When it came to using non-engineer's pool locos, it would depend on the size of the job. The relaying work to upgrade the Kent 'Boat Train Routes' in readiness for the Channel Tunnel opening, which were on every weekend in the early 1990s, employed far more locos than were allocated to the NSE-Sector's engineers, so locos would be hired-in from the Freight sub-sectors. A typical day's work might involve ten to twenty locos per worksite.

[Trog]

We're the workings direct to/from site, or between sidings and quarry/tip?

 

Usually the workings were to and from local sidings, then the empty hoppers and full spoil wagons would be shunted out and sent to the quarries or tip as required.

 

Occasionally someone would try and be crafty and arrange something at bit more exotic. I was once asked by a colleague who preferred digging big holes to going to meetings to come up with a train working plan for a relaying item on the Bletchley - Bedford. I came up with a cunning plan in which three sets of locos moved four trains, with several run rounds and a bit of swapping locos from the front of one train to the back of the next. The Prefab train ran from and to Bletchley which was sensible as the new track would be made up in the depot at Northampton Bridge St yard, and the old broken up in the CMD on the other side of the crossing. The spoil train started from Bletchley Cambridge sidings, and finished in the tip sidings at Millbrook, ready for unloading on Monday morning. Having dropped off the spoil the loco's then picked up the hoppers which had been out stabled there late the week before and returned to site. While they were doing this a train of Mermaids with bottom stone also did a Bletchley - site - Bletchley move.

 

So I wrote all this out and at a time where the ballast train workings were published in the form of a printed form filled in by hand they stood out a bit a normal jobs train workings took up five or six lines, this one was three quarters of a page. So I went to the ballast meeting with the operating at which I had to read out my proposals to a Mr Bill Hay a chap from the operating department who knew the standage available at every point and siding to the foot off the top of his head and was the oracle for all things operating. If he said yes that was the end of the matter no one would argue my plan was approved, if he said no there would be a good reason and even if I did complain no one would listen. So I start reading out this dance of the locomotives, while Bill Hay just sat there and silently listened supporting his head in his hands. I eventually got to the end of my master piece and he simply looked up and said "Pardon".  So I read through it all again, at the end of it he said sounds OK to me provided we do the second run round in the other direction so we will be running over the automatic level crossings in the right direction. I will put so and so on duty to work the gates at X it is his anniversary next week, and he will be grateful for a bit of overtime this week so he can treat (insert wife's name here).

 

So there it was my plan was Bill Hay approved and nothing would dare to go wrong, and sure enough the whole thing went like clockwork, the track got relayed and some very deserving chaps including myself got a bit of overtime and some exercise in the fresh air.

Edited December 31, 2016 by Trog

[stevex59]

As a spotter who frequented such places, i would suggest a few locations to look at like, Leyton, Chesterton junction,

Beighton, Nothampton , Crewe gresty green, Three Bridges, Horsham, Tonbridge, Guide Bridge.

Most of these were termed CCE yards or PADs

There was no better place on a hot day to smell tar and creosote.

Usually most place were quiet on saturday as the trains had already gone for weekend trackwork.

Late sunday and into the next week arrivals would be old track coming into the depots for stripping into various components

some were scrap others re used.

Track assembly of points and crossovers would take place on large flat sleeper covered areas, usually with rails inset to allow component parts to be brought in,

Usually a depot crane would assist in heavy lifting.

Chairs would arrive in open trucks, usually 13t opens

Sleepers would arrive in similar opens and Grampus or large loads on Sturgeons.

Rails would arrive on Salmons or Borails.

Assembled track would depart on Dolphins, Sturgeons and Salmons

Point work would be made on site, then disassembled for transport and re assembled on site.

At Leyton Yard, East London.. I once came across a pop group making a video, prancing around over piles of sleepers and rails.

Not my cup of tea.

At another shed I knocked on a door to a shed where I could hear staff working, thinking I would ask to look around the yard.

A rather sheepish man opened the door and inside he was spraying his van a nice shade of Yellow... the same as a track machine.

The yards were excellent places to spot old or odd types of wagons, some were in internal use only.

I hope that gives you some inspiration for your intended layout.

[Foden]

Really interesting reading guys thankyou.

 

The idea I'd liked was to have an end to end layout and a few decent length sidings of around 10ft, probably 5 or 6, and a small loco stabling point off to the side. A single track would emerge from the fiddle yard through a tunnel and onto a loop where an incoming train can detatch and run around it's load. A shunter can then break down the incoming wagons into respective sidings.

 

I was imagining the following scenrio:

A train would bring in a rake of full ballast wagons (Sealions, Mermaids, Dogfish etc), the shunter would then reallocate the wagons to a holding siding, or in the case of a large rake of 20 or so bogied hoppers, split the rake up into different lengths. After sitting awaiting their engineering turn, a loco would then come in and pick up a certain rake and dispatch it off to its required destination for engineering work. A similar story in reverse would happen for the empties before being shuttled back off the quarry to refill. And indeed a similar kind of pattern for loaded spoil wagons also, meanwhile the engineers department locos could rest up at the stabling point between jobs.

I could use the excuse of a busy weekend enginnering timetable to draft in some of my other sector locos of suitable type (31/37/47s) as an excuse to have them on the layout also.

I have a couple of 56s and 60s that I was really hoping to use on the layout as I love the models, but noting they were air braked only as pointed out does limit this possibility. Unless I could get away with an occasion of a long heavy rake of air braked Sealions and or Seacows being brought from the quarry by a construction liveried 56 or 60, to then be broken up to different 'job lengths' by the shunter on arrival?

As a footnote to the moderators, I appreciate this subject has gone a little off piste from the original prototype discussion, to more of a 'plan for my layout', for that I apologise.

[black and decker boy]

I was at Uni in Newcastle in the early to Mid 90s and the weekday engineering trains were a staple of our interest. Lots of 37 hauled trips, wagons for repair to / from the old GatesheadMPD (then only doing wagons). Trips to / from Tyne Yard, which was the spoil tip and main staging yard. The engineers still had a presence at Low Fell I think as well. Ballast trips worked up the tyne valley line to quarries. You also had trip workings to other yards to balance up between weekends and then more specialist deliveries such as sleepers,rail and so on would pass by as required.

 

So overall, loads of interest.

 

If you combined with a small yard for speedlink type trip / source then you can justify anything. Small source terminals could be scrap (in SSA and HSA wagons), household coal (HEA and 20/30ft containers), steel (coil, rod or strip in SPA/ OCA / BDA), general merchandise in VCA/VGA/Cargowagons), Cement in PCAs or bagged in Cargowagon, Timber in OBA/OTA and BDA.

 

Examples would be Blackburn, Salford, Burton, Preston, Elgin/Aberdeen/Inverness, Warrington Dallam, Hereford.

[Foden]

I was at Uni in Newcastle in the early to Mid 90s and the weekday engineering trains were a staple of our interest. Lots of 37 hauled trips, wagons for repair to / from the old GatesheadMPD (then only doing wagons). Trips to / from Tyne Yard, which was the spoil tip and main staging yard. The engineers still had a presence at Low Fell I think as well. Ballast trips worked up the tyne valley line to quarries. You also had trip workings to other yards to balance up between weekends and then more specialist deliveries such as sleepers,rail and so on would pass by as required.

 

So overall, loads of interest.

 

If you combined with a small yard for speedlink type trip / source then you can justify anything. Small source terminals could be scrap (in SSA and HSA wagons), household coal (HEA and 20/30ft containers), steel (coil, rod or strip in SPA/ OCA / BDA), general merchandise in VCA/VGA/Cargowagons), Cement in PCAs or bagged in Cargowagon, Timber in OBA/OTA and BDA.

 

Examples would be Blackburn, Salford, Burton, Preston, Elgin/Aberdeen/Inverness, Warrington Dallam, Hereford.

 

Really insightful and an interesting thought regarding the speedlink trip workings. Thankyou.

[Rivercider]

Really interesting reading guys thankyou.

 

I was imagining the following scenrio:

 

A train would bring in a rake of full ballast wagons (Sealions, Mermaids, Dogfish etc), the shunter would then reallocate the wagons to a holding siding, or in the case of a large rake of 20 or so bogied hoppers, split the rake up into different lengths. After sitting awaiting their engineering turn, a loco would then come in and pick up a certain rake and dispatch it off to its required destination for engineering work. A similar story in reverse would happen for the empties before being shuttled back off the quarry to refill. And indeed a similar kind of pattern for loaded spoil wagons also, meanwhile the engineers department locos could rest up at the stabling point between jobs.

 

That was exactly the sort of operation I was thinking would work well, either using removable spoil and ballast loads, or two sets each of ballast/spoil wagons.

 

If you want to justify a yard pilot loco then may be there is a carriage and wagon repair depot nearby, this means you can shunt out the odd wagon or two to go for repairs.  Class 56 locos may have worked trains of sealions or seacows as you describe in other parts of BR, and black and decker boy's suggestion of a local Speedlink terminal is also a good one.

 

This sounds an interesting project, good luck with it,

 

cheers  

[Foden]

That was exactly the sort of operation I was thinking would work well, either using removable spoil and ballast loads, or two sets each of ballast/spoil wagons.

 

If you want to justify a yard pilot loco then may be there is a carriage and wagon repair depot nearby, this means you can shunt out the odd wagon or two to go for repairs.  Class 56 locos may have worked trains of sealions or seacows as you describe in other parts of BR, and black and decker boy's suggestion of a local Speedlink terminal is also a good one.

 

This sounds an interesting project, good luck with it,

 

cheers  

 

Thankyou for your input, yes it's certainly got a lot of exciting operational possibilities, and I'm blessed by a decent sized garage space (just under 18ft x 8ft) to implement it.

 

It's been an idea of mine for a while, but I wasn't sure if what I had imagined was actually reflective of operations in the afforementioned era.

[porkie]

I know Bletchley use to have holding sidings for forders landfill at Stewartby. Not exactly ballast terminal but their is a RMC now cemex site their too

[18B]

Sounds like you are planning something like Bescot?

I was going to say the same thing.....

 

May set it at the start of 1994 when all the former trainload designations were disbanded and replaced by the three shadow freight companies thus you can still run all your locos without worry of whether a coal sector Loco would be on a departmental service... I seem to remember class 58s turning up on such trains at that time as asppossed to purely being the MGR locos they previously were

[ess1uk]

Did a layout get built?

[Foden]

It was started, and then a house extension was planned, which will also join my new garage on the side of the house to my old one behind the house, when connected the total length will be 55ft, so I’ve redesigned the plan for a 55ft x 3.5ft scenic section and 15ft fiddle yard.

 

Building work starts in April now the planning is approved, so depending on when that’s finished will then allow construction to begin. 55ft will be not far off a scale mile which has been a long term dream of mine.

 

In the meantime I’m building up quite an extensive fleet of engineers wagons, I’ve got around 30 Topes, 20 Clam, 20 Rudd, 15 Bass, 15 Grampus, 24 Dogfish, roughly half way through 20 Cambrian Salmon kits, 5 Catfish, and a couple of sturgeon, then a few other odds and ends wagons and brake vans.

[Shed]

That was exactly the sort of operation I was thinking would work well, either using removable spoil and ballast loads, or two sets each of ballast/spoil wagons.

 

If you want to justify a yard pilot loco then may be there is a carriage and wagon repair depot nearby, this means you can shunt out the odd wagon or two to go for repairs.  Class 56 locos may have worked trains of sealions or seacows as you describe in other parts of BR, and black and decker boy's suggestion of a local Speedlink terminal is also a good one.

 

This sounds an interesting project, good luck with it,

 

cheers  

sounds good

[ess1uk]

It was started, and then a house extension was planned, which will also join my new garage on the side of the house to my old one behind the house, when connected the total length will be 55ft, so I’ve redesigned the plan for a 55ft x 3.5ft scenic section and 15ft fiddle yard.

Building work starts in April now the planning is approved, so depending on when that’s finished will then allow construction to begin. 55ft will be not far off a scale mile which has been a long term dream of mine.

In the meantime I’m building up quite an extensive fleet of engineers wagons, I’ve got around 30 Topes, 20 Clam, 20 Rudd, 15 Bass, 15 Grampus, 24 Dogfish, roughly half way through 20 Cambrian Salmon kits, 5 Catfish, and a couple of sturgeon, then a few other odds and ends wagons and brake vans.

Sounds like quite a Collection.

Looking forward to seeing the new layout and your stock on it