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Wentworth Junction


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5 hours ago, Bri.dolan said:

I don’t unfortunately my uncle very rarely dated owt 

all the pictures he took are from 70’s onwards 

Ive only ever seen pictures of it with a disk I will ask around and see if I can find out when it was changed 

what’s the date of the picture you have with the two miniature arms ?

 Here’s another one of my late uncle’s pictures from the 70’s 

 

regards 

 

Brian 

IMG_4039.jpeg

Does anyone know what the light grey wagons are?

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3 minutes ago, John76 said:

Does anyone know what the light grey wagons are?

I think they’re cement wagons but mabe wrong 

here’s another picture of them 

this time at wombwell main junction sidings just down the line 

Again one of my late uncles photos 

 

Regards 

 

Brian 

IMG_4046.jpeg

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1 hour ago, Michael Edge said:

Have a look at the track plan, you can’t get to the down main from the branch, at least not with a signalled move. This was the normal operation, we do it on the model if the pit trip loads to more than 14 wagons or if the Garratt is the banker.

Maybe they only propelled out onto the Down Main if there was traffic due on the up main or as in the case of the collision they had some empties for the colliery?

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2 minutes ago, Bri.dolan said:

I think they’re cement wagons but mabe wrong 

here’s another picture of them 

this time at wombwell main junction sidings just down the line 

Again one of my late uncles photos 

 

Regards 

 

Brian 

IMG_4046.jpeg

Just trying to get my bearings. is this train heading up the bank?

Great photo btw. More of these please.

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3 minutes ago, John76 said:

Just trying to get my bearings. is this train heading up the bank?

Great photo btw. More of these please.

Yes it’s heading up the bank with wombwell main junction and aldham estate in the distance 


I’ll see if I can find some that have relevance to mikes thread 

I don’t want to drag it off the topic of wentworth junction 

 

Regards 

 

Brian 

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45 minutes ago, John76 said:

Maybe they only propelled out onto the Down Main if there was traffic due on the up main or as in the case of the collision they had some empties for the colliery?

The empties arrived first and were swapped for the fulls. They couldn't be propelled on to the main, the locos were all at the wrong end.

 

35 minutes ago, Bri.dolan said:

Yes it’s heading up the bank with wombwell main junction and aldham estate in the distance 


I’ll see if I can find some that have relevance to mikes thread 

I don’t want to drag it off the topic of wentworth junction 

 

Regards 

 

Brian 

Don't worry about relevance, I'm happy to see any stuff about this line. 

Closure date for Strafford crossing box is very useful but what I would really like is a photo of it.

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39 minutes ago, Michael Edge said:

The empties arrived first and were swapped for the fulls. They couldn't be propelled on to the main, the locos were all at the wrong end.

 

Don't worry about relevance, I'm happy to see any stuff about this line. 

Closure date for Strafford crossing box is very useful but what I would really like is a photo of it.

I’ve never seen a picture of the signalbox either unfortunately 

don’t think I know anyone that has, it’s an enigma of a signalbox lol

if I ever drop on one I’ll be sure to let you know 


Regards 

 

Brian 

 

 

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3 hours ago, Michael Edge said:

The empties arrived first and were swapped for the fulls. They couldn't be propelled on to the main, the locos were all at the wrong end.

 

Don't worry about relevance, I'm happy to see any stuff about this line. 

Closure date for Strafford crossing box is very useful but what I would really like is a photo of it.

Alan Whitehouse describes the maneuver in one of his books, I have it in my head , that fulls were pulled by the bankers on to the down main (ie up the bank) and then the train engines attached to the rear that became the front on the down main. But could easily be wrong. Will check the book.

 

I posted a picture of the cement tanks and asked for tops code in the woodhead thread as they look very much like the castle ones (Accurascale are producing at the moment?)  , but they predated the castle ones . The shot I posted shows them with 76003 VO so must also have a guards van on the back. 

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That's how Alan describes it but it's clearly not what was going on in the photo. The accident report makes interesting reading:

BRER_WentworthJunction1971.pdf

In this case the 30 wagon MGR train was drawn out on to the down main which was permissive block from Kendall Green but as I pointed out earlier there were no signals for this move (no backing disc by the signal box). The driver of the down train was held at least partly to blame, reading between the lines the suspicion was that he was going a lot faster than he said he was but the interesting bit is that he thought the train off the pit was on the up line - perhaps that's where it usually was? Wentworth Junction was a rather remote place and I'm sure rules were bent/ignored fairly regularly.

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2 hours ago, Michael Edge said:

Wentworth Junction was a rather remote place and I'm sure rules were bent/ignored fairly regularly followed sometimes. 

Fixed that for you. I used to work with some of the signalmen who had worked the branch ten years before my time :-)

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On 13/02/2024 at 18:18, Michael Edge said:

All the signals are now working and interlocked with points and link switches.

IMG_2489.jpg.145e9176aa8b6fb991a74df2cc61bd9a.jpg

S1 69901 runs from the down main to the loop, when points are set this way the ground signal comes off, if the points (and points 17 further on) are set to the running line the main arm will come off.

IMG_2488.jpg.30ee7aa0d3f1217c7b25e575bf1d3673.jpg

Moving on 69901 is heading for the ashpit siding so the lower of the two miniature arms comes off, the top one is for the pit branch.

IMG_2491.jpg.7d0933971b6c915fee24825f40451f61.jpg

The much criticised Eckon signal turned out not to have a working yellow aspect so it was junked and replaced with this Berko one which looks much more correct.

IMG_2490.jpg.1f2be7e449bad5ba9844a07d048d2bcb.jpg

This distant signal is worked by a microswitch on the servo of the up home, when that is cleared the signal goes green. Home and starter signals can only be cleared when the links to the fiddle yard are on so the driver there will know whether to drive through or not.

After much deliberation and argument Strafford crossing is going to be built more or less identical to Kendall Green with a small cabin and single gates.

Interlocking that actually helps non-expert operators, rather than baffles and frustrates them to the point of causing breakdown of operations?  Not something that lies within my (limited) experience. Very impressive if it achieves that goal, but I certainly wouldn't fancy buying all the necessary gadgets and wiring it all up, on top of building/detailing the whole layout.

 

 

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It wasn't too expensive but we now have another problem with the signals. All worked fine on test and installation but I gradually noticed that they occasionally malfunctioned, stopping working at all, losing the setting and fluttering at times. The first was fixed by the time honoured method of switching off and switching on again - rather than pulling a plug out I put a push to break switch in side of the baseboard to reset everything. The second and third appear to be linked as I realised that only certain locos were causing the problem, fitting suppressors to the motors mostly cured this but D11 and D13 motors still do it. With no rogue locos running the signals seem to have kept their setting. More curiously only some of the signals show this fluttering, about half of them never do it and one in particular (up Strafford Crossing) does it most - however some locos (bankers) don't normally ever pass this signal.

The interlocking works well but the design of the Dingo Simplex boards hasn't made it any easier because they have an internal common connection between the power supply and the control circuit. I needed to use either of these to interlock the switching and would have preferred them to be completely separate. One samll snag from the operator point of view is that if the power supply has been used to interlock the signal lever has to be put back before the points or section switch is put back - otherwise there's no power to return the signal arm.

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4 hours ago, Michael Edge said:

It wasn't too expensive but we now have another problem with the signals. All worked fine on test and installation but I gradually noticed that they occasionally malfunctioned, stopping working at all, losing the setting and fluttering at times. The first was fixed by the time honoured method of switching off and switching on again - rather than pulling a plug out I put a push to break switch in side of the baseboard to reset everything. The second and third appear to be linked as I realised that only certain locos were causing the problem, fitting suppressors to the motors mostly cured this but D11 and D13 motors still do it. With no rogue locos running the signals seem to have kept their setting. More curiously only some of the signals show this fluttering, about half of them never do it and one in particular (up Strafford Crossing) does it most - however some locos (bankers) don't normally ever pass this signal.

The interlocking works well but the design of the Dingo Simplex boards hasn't made it any easier because they have an internal common connection between the power supply and the control circuit. I needed to use either of these to interlock the switching and would have preferred them to be completely separate. One samll snag from the operator point of view is that if the power supply has been used to interlock the signal lever has to be put back before the points or section switch is put back - otherwise there's no power to return the signal arm.

Mike,

What suppression did you fit? I have similar loco induced problems, some of which I cured with cable shielding but would like to fix at source. The servo controllers are MERG and loco controllers are Pentrollers. All my locos are Mashima cans, except for one Portescap and one Sagami can. The Mashima 12xx have open brush gear which may be a factor. 

 

Jol

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I scrounged some from old mechanisms and bought some Hornby ones. We have a great variety of motors in the loco stock, very few rtr ones (these gave no trouble) but anything from ancient K's (again no trouble!) to modern coreless and Portescaps. What sort of shielding did you try?

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I used shielded cables from the switch connections to the servo controllers and twisted pairs for the power feed wires. These were for signal servos.The MERG controllers on the earlier baseboards are about 12 years old. 

 

On the new boards I have used servos for the points in the new storage sidings, with the latest MERG Servo4 and Servo1R units. Two of the latter at the furthest distance from the control panel are the most affected by twitching and movement to the end of the servo throw when running a loco along the sidings. So far I haven't made any changes to the normal wiring but may have to get some more shielded cable if I can't find another solution.

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4 hours ago, St Enodoc said:

That sounds like a possible cause.

Yep.. sounds like they are missing a pull down capacitor on the power supply side. Because bits all linked internally to comm9n m8ght be we could try a pull down.. Will have a think about it. (The original MERG drivers didn't have these..  it was always fitted to the electronics I built in my first post grad job.

Using shielded cable will help a bit ..

 

Baz

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