Engineers trains returning from possessions

[Foden]

Sorry, another couple of my 1990s engineers train questions!

 

When a train left an engineering possession loaded with various old materials from site, where did it all go? I'm aware that spent ballast went to landfill, but I don't know about other materials such as lifted track panels, old loose sleepers, old/broken signalling equipment, and concrete troughing, and other associated scrap such as large bags, spool drums, wooden dunnage etc?

 

Secondly, if a mixed formation of the afforementioned scrap left a posession, I'm thinking a mixed airbaked rake of a few Rudds/Bass full of spoil, one or two more filled with other job related scrap, and then a few salmon flats loaded with lifted track panels, where would this train go to?

 

Would it then go to an engineers sidings to be split up, and formed with other material from other posessions, and then onward to their respective processing points, such as a tip for spoil, and whereever the old track panels go to?

[Rugd1022]

Coming out of the possession a mixed engineer's train would return to a yard such as Bescot orToton for example, where the wagons would be split up to go on to other destinations, depending on their specific load.

[Calimero]

At Stratford all our trains made their way back to Leyton CE Depot.

 

Trains would then be split up and put into other services, some would be unloaded and/or transferred so spoil would be in the Clams and Topes which would go on the Parkeston Spoil on a night time. Other spoil wagons like Rudds would go on the Tonbridge and end up at Peckham Tip.

 

Rails and Sleepers would be put onto the Chesterton Junction service and sometimes certain materials would be dealt with and reclaimed at Leyton.

 

If the ballast jobs were further a field service would filter back through out lying yards so Ipswich, Parkeston, Chesterton, March/Whitemoor, Peterborough, Brent, Hither Green, Hoo etc and then the wagons would more than likely filter out to that region/areas relevant locations.

Edited October 11, 2023 by Calimero

[Foden]

Cheers guys, what would become of the old lifted panels? I'm assuming that the steel is removed and cut down at a site somewhere and then transported by road to a scrap merchant? What of the sleepers?

[Jim Martin]

Didn't the little scrap compound at Northampton process a lot of old rail? There was a feature about it in, I think, Model Rail a good few years back.

 

Jim

[Calimero]

Reclaimed, sold on, reused for track or other uses.

[Calimero]

Cheers guys, what would become of the old lifted panels? I'm assuming that the steel is removed and cut down at a site somewhere and then transported by road to a scrap merchant? What of the sleepers?

Reclaimed, sold on, reused for track or other uses.

 

 

Track panels would come out on the trains, old panels loaded on to empty Salmons or swapped out with the new track. On the weekdays we'd work north to Chesterton with old track panels, wagons with old sleepers and bolsters with loose rails. We also worked the nightly Willesden too with rails, can imagine the probably ended up going West or North from there for recycling!

Edited December 18, 2017 by Calimero

[Phil Bullock]

That'll be like this one.....earlier than the OP's era I know but a cracking train to model...

 

http://www.miac.org.uk/class14.html#brd9525

 

Phil

[Fat Controller]

Didn't the little scrap compound at Northampton process a lot of old rail? There was a feature about it in, I think, Model Rail a good few years back.

 

Jim

I think it may have been in 'Rail Express Modeller'; scrap rail from Northampton was sent to places like Stocksbridge by rail. These days, Whitemoor sends rail offcuts (and possibly re-bar from scrap concrete sleepers) to Stocksbridge, again by rail, using SPA plate wagons. Not sure what the other places around the network do.

[enz]

Didn't the little scrap compound at Northampton process a lot of old rail? There was a feature about it in, I think, Model Rail a good few years back.

 

Jim

 

 

Using the Model Rail index at Huddersfield Railway Modellers  https://huddersfieldrailwaymodellers.weebly.com - was it Oct 2005 (issue 85)? I seem to recall something like this (and as a small layout idea it stuck with me) but I can't find the issue to be sure.

 

Regards - e

[Trog]

Old panels from relaying mainly on the Watford Civil Engineers Division / Area would be tripped to Northampton CMD (Central Materials Depot) in the early part of the week. The panels would then be examined and broken up, with the materials being graded as being serviceable or scrap. Scrap rail was sent to steel works on bolster wagons, I once had to go up there and sign the labels for a load as the depot staffs loading certificates had expired.

 

New panels were assembled in the PAD (Prefab Assembly Depot) on the other side of the Bridge Street level crossing.

 

Spoil would be tripped to Bletchley, then taken to Liddlington tip which was in an old brick pit at the Marston Valley Brick Co sidings about ten miles down the branch to Bedford.

[The Johnster]

A lot of planning is involved in this.  Once the occupation has been granted, which is not until all the plans have been completed, approved, and ratified, the equipment and materials must be got to the site (as well as the staff, engineers, traincrews and their reliefs arranged, and messing facilities provided for them if necessary.  Some work must be carried out at locations where there is no road or public right of way access, and everything must come in by rail).  The wagons containing materials, empties for spoil or scrap, and the ballast hoppers and tamping machines, and other plant like cranes or excavators, will assemble at yards or sidings in the general area during the week preceding the occupation, and be worked out to the site as soon as the occupation starts, so will be on their way during the hour or so prior to that.

 

Movements during the operation are under the direction of the Per Way engineer in charge of it, and handsignalled.  When the work is finished, hopefully on time but this an area where things can easily go badly wrong as we all know from the subsequent chaos, there should be an hour or so for the trains to assemble; some will be let out of the occupation before it ends, but normal traffic rules apply as soon as the occupied section is handed back and the red flags taken down.  Empty ballast hoppers, spoil, rail sections or other re-useable track components, scrap, plant, tampers, mess coaches if used; all have to be worked off the site to predestined and planned locations for further disposal.  This sort of working from the site at the end of the job is usually back to whatever yard the stock came from, but not always; some may be required elsewhere for next weekend and can be taken away without re-marshalling to that localitiy.

 

This is an entire hidden world of which even most railwaymen are not particularly aware, never mind enthusiasts or the general public.  Occupation work is sometimes seriously and genuinely heroic; men who boast that their forebears were navvies struggling to complete a job to standard and time in foul weather and at night, dramatised by the floodlights, using sweat and physical strength as well as skill and experience.  

[cobbler]

The Northampton article was in Model Rail, I also wrote an article for the DEMU magazine

The Rail was brought in by road from local sites, it was moved from worksites and stockpiled alongside the track at sites with road access,

 

The Rail was cut into lengths and sent by rail to Aldwarke or Sheerness.

They also loaded rail into 20ft containers for export to China, Rail was also loaded into Norbert Dingledangle lorry’s and taken to a rolling mill in France

Most of the Rail sent out by rail from the CMD went to Marples and Gilliott at Attercliffe in Sheffield, either loaded on bogie bolsters with runner wagons for the overhanging lengths or open wagon types with short Rail offcuts, old chairs, bolts clips etc

 

Richard

[Foden]

Some excellent info here guys. thankyou so much.

[Philou]

Chaps,

 

I'm should like to revive this thread - if I may?

 

I've been gifted at my recent birthday with three Hornby mess vans (R40006/7/8) - yes three! I trying to find out how I can make use of them and what would have been the consist. I saw the photo to which @Phil Bullock linked - so a short train can be made up - but how short? The train in the photo had a mess van, two guards vans (top'n'tail) one or two bogie wagons (salmons?) with track panels and A.N. Other. What about ballasting? What wagons would have been used? I know absolutely nothing about track maintenance or the associated rolling stock, but I have heard of sea-cows, dogfish and turbots - but as to what they were used for ......

 

Can I use a handful of assorted ones to go with the mess van (or vans)?

 

Cheers,

 

Philip

[Phil Bullock]

Have a look back up this thread and also page 2 of the Herring build thread .... there may be useful gen to answer these questions!

 

Cheers

[Dungrange]

1 hour ago, Philou said:

I've been gifted at my recent birthday with three Hornby mess vans (R40006/7/8) - yes three! I trying to find out how I can make use of them and what would have been the consist.

 

The Hornby website seems to suggest that these are Mark 1 Staff and Dormitory coaches converted in in 1978 and served with a ballast cleaning train in the 1980s.  Therefore, there would presumably be a ballast cleaner in the consist, but that would need to be scratch-built.

 

I'm not sure if this thread on 1980s engineering trains is of any help, since it's presumably your time period.

 

[The Stationmaster]

Having attended more than a few possession pre-planning plus run for several years the WR part of the organisation which dealt with the plkanning of departmental train movements lets get a few thing sorted.

 

I. At the pre-planning meeting the responsible local civil engineer for the area where the job was to take place would either personally attend or would nominate somebody to attend on his behalf.  That meeting would agree, in cnnection with the work to d be done -

a. The exact times of the possession,

b. The exact limits of the protection for the possession,

c.. (Once they had been introduced into possession management) the details of all Work sites and the boundaries between them plus who - ideally by name even at that stage who would be the person in charge of the possession (later entitled PIC) and who would be in charge of each work site.  Tran crew relief sites were also supposed to be fixed at these meetings

d. What trains would be required, how they were to be formed, which way round certain equipment such as ballast cleaners (in particular) was required to be on entering the site, and from which direction and in what order trains would enter the site.

e. The trains would consist of materials and/or empty wagons depending on what was being done.  For example if it was a ballast renewal a ballast cleaner had to go through first digging out the old ballast - that material would would be either loaded to empty wagons or tipped down an embankment (or even gifted to a farmer if the local PerWay had had a chat with him beforehand).  So the ballast cleaner - which had its own mess van - went in first, train(s) of empty wagons on adjacent line to load with spoil.  The spoil trains would be worked away from site as quickly as possible to either a not too distant yard or possibly direct to a tip but that depended on resources being available.

f. Next step would be either track removal and relaying - various methods over the years so a train to take both old track sections and provide new ones was one way of doing that or old sections away before new sections arrive.  Then once the track is ready a ballast train, or trains would come in to unload - ideally using hopper wagons.

Track would then be. levelled etc once the plough van had been through to spread the ballast then (era related of course) tamping and lining machines would come into site to finish the track to running condition.

 

Note - generally when a machine such as a ballast cleaner or crane or track relaying machine was involved it would arrive with its own mess van, mess vans were rarely provided for any other reason.  in earlier years Perway staff would use the nearest lineside hut(s) although some sort of canteen facility might be provided by road vehicle on really big jobs such as a junction renewal.  in later years all messing for all but machine operators took place in the road vehicles used to get men to site

 

On small jobs things could perhaps all be included in a single train  And that might involve a small crane to handle heavier and bulkier materials.  But note that single rails didn't need a crane to unload them nor did individual sleepers - that was all done by manpower but a crane would be used for switch and crossing components and usually for signal erection.

 

The way in which materials etc trains arrived at and left the site varied from Region to Region but generally trains might be formed at a nearby yard or worked in from various sources as complete trains.  Thus ballast would come from a quarry, empty wagons for spoil would come usually from a yard as most tips had fairly limited capacity to hold wagons, rail or track sections (this changed over the years) would come from a depot of some sort.  But normally all these trains would be pre-positioned to yards or sidings near the site to ensure they were ready for the job and that might even involve a yard re=forming them to match what had been decided at the pre-planning meeting.

 

As work progressed the best way to work any job was to get trains out as quickly as possible once they had served their purpose - either on through in the right direction (definitely preferred) or back in the direction from which they had entered the site (almost inevitably a bl**dy nuisance because other trains would be waiting to go in - why do you think so much is now done with road-rail vehocles?

 

The important thing was that everything had to be clear of the site and the block section in which it lay before the possession could be given up.  This tended t be where delays occurred because if something went wrong early on in the job it could sometimes be difficult to get the time back unless the work had been planned cleverly with a bit of an allowance built in.  The ability to do that depended on time preessure - i.e. in the time available for the possession and also how good the civil engineer planning the work was.  In my experience the latter could vary considerably and might also be affected by design constraints.

 

This BTF film 'Making tracks' showed how the WR did the job using its PADs (Pre-Assembly Depots) as a key part of its track relaying methodology -

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8I3QM0PBn0A

 

[TheSignalEngineer]

A good summary Mike. Very much in line with my experience of attending Planning Meetings 30-odd years ago. On the LMR. 

Regarding messing, on the S&T most of our staff were using the vans they used to get to site, for major works where a lot of staff were being imported by car or train and staying over I had acquired all the necessary kit to fit out a gang bus as a mobile tea room and First Aid post to be parked on site over the weekend. 

On one winter occasion where I had a lot of staff working in one place on a very intensive schedule I arranged for a local burger van to come to the site at a particular time during the shift to serve hot snacks and drinks. 

On such occasions my car always carried a hot water dispenser and supplies. The boss turning up to visit a team working at a remote location carrying hot water and a selection of tea, coffee, hot chocolate and soup always seemed to go down well, especially when I 'accidentally' forgot to pick up a tube or two of drinks. 

[Philou]

@Dungrange Thanks for the link to the 2010 thread - very interesting. I now have a few other named wagons to make up a consist and the early photos were good too, as they show the formation of the consists. I wouldn't have known about vac and air-piped wagons and probably would have mixed them all up for variety - as one is wont to do in ignorance.

 

Thanks too to Mike, The Stationmaster, as it greatly expanded my knowledge-base regarding the actual ops.

 

Cheers,

 

Philip

Edited November 30, 2020 by Philou
spulling

[WillCav]

Following on from Mike's comments on getting the trains out, I was involved in possession planning for Devon and Cornwall in the 2000s  - no exit route for the trains except back where they came from.

 

One trick we used was to top and tail the last train (loco each end). When in the possession, the Penzance end loco of the last train would uncouple and would be used to haul the next train out, with that train's loco uncoupling for the next and so on until the first train (last to leave) exits top and tailed.

 

This used fewer locos than if all trains were top and tailed.

 

Will

 

 

[Rivercider]

Back in the late 1970s/early 1980s I was in Bristol TOPS, we produced the TOPS train lists 

for weekend engineering trains. Our office was generally single manned at weekends

but there was an additional 08.00-16.00 post on Saturday to assist in producing the engineering train lists.

Bristol East Depot was the main yard that handled some materials but also formed up engineering trans.

Generally there were about 10-12 trains booked to depart mostly from late Saturday afternoon through to Sunday morning. When there were larger engineering blockades in the winter there might be 14-16 trains to go out.

Back then it was quite rare for trains to be top and tailed with a loco each end.

 

cheers

[TheSignalEngineer]

14 minutes ago, WillCav said:

One trick we used was to top and tail the last train (loco each end). When in the possession, the Penzance end loco of the last train would uncouple and would be used to haul the next train out, with that train's loco uncoupling for the next and so on until the first train (last to leave) exits top and tailed.

I can remember that happening on some LMR four track sections when there was a possession of two tracks. If work on one line was being supplied from the adjacent one and it was not possible to get the engineering  trains in say from the north and out at the south they would draw up and be stacked beyond the worksite when finished with. A loco would then come in and pull the last train back to the start point with the loco that took the train in then going to pull the next out and so on until you just had a loco left.

[The Pilotman]

On 30/11/2020 at 11:36, The Stationmaster said:

As work progressed the best way to work any job was to get trains out as quickly as possible once they had served their purpose - either on through in the right direction (definitely preferred) or back in the direction from which they had entered the site (almost inevitably a bl**dy nuisance because other trains would be waiting to go in - why do you think so much is now done with road-rail vehocles?

Reminds me of a busy twelve hour night job I did once between Swindon and Didcot. The possession was between Bourton and Wantage Road and I was stationed at Uffington (outside my normal area but Swindon didn’t have anyone available) for train movements. There was a major relaying site east of Uffington with several spoil trains required. The first one arrived on the up line and went to site. When the second train arrived it stopped west of the crossovers, its loco was detached and went forward onto the back of the first train. When the first train was full, locomotive 2 hauled it back through the crossover at Uffington and away to Swindon on the down line. Loco 1 would then collect train two and haul it to site. The same process was followed with the subsequent trains and so it went on through the night. 

Edited September 17, 2023 by The Pilotman

[Trog]

11 hours ago, The Stationmaster said:

.......... (or even gifted to a farmer if the local PerWay had had a chat with him beforehand).  ...............

 

 

 

..............This tended to be where delays occurred because if something went wrong early on in the job it could sometimes be difficult to get the time back unless the work had been planned cleverly with a bit of an allowance built in.  The ability to do that depended on time pressure - i.e. in the time available for the possession and also how good the civil engineer planning the work was.  In my experience the latter could vary considerably and might also be affected by design constraints...........

 

 

Railway friendly farmers could usually be identified by their spent ballast surfaced roads, and sleeper built silage clamps. BR paid for access using a dozen or so old sleepers per relaying job for years, then the graduate knobs of the privatised railway came along offering thousands of pounds instead. 

 

 

Myself I used to see the progress bar chart as a challenge and try to get as far ahead of it as I could. On one job planned by one of my more cautious colleagues, I had a quiet word with the clerical staff who ordered the plant and swapped one of the excavators for one nearly three times the size. I was on the night shift and worked like a demon. Taking the rails out using the big machine then running it round to the end of the job while its smaller bretheren were still forking out the sleepers, drawing in the first spoil train as far as I could and starting to dig with the big machine before all the sleepers were out. When my colleague turned up in the morning expecting to unload the ballast he found me looking rather pleased with myself and putting the rails back on the already reinstalled sleepers.

 

However even with this start he had a problem with the insulating nylons that go between the clips and the rail foot and over ran the possession. As for myself I got a telling off from the small plant supervisor as in all the excitement and rushing around in the dark I had run the big machine over one of his lighting generators, and when they came to collect it on Monday morning they found it squashed flat in the ballast.