Loco facilities in the age of steam

[ejstubbs]

This thread revived a question which has been at the back of my mind for some time, arising from my utter ignorance of practices in the days of steam.  The question being: how were facilities for steam locomotives usually provided at, for the sake of argument, a small BLT?  By small let's say maximum of two platforms and a goods yard.  I'm not thinking so much about what would have been provided - the basics seem pretty obvious: water and coal - and maybe ash disposal?  I'm thinking more about how they would have been arranged.  There's the typical/cliched CJ Freezer loco spur with all three, often plus an engine shed (though I believe that would have been less common IRL), such as in these examples:

 

 

 

 

 

but even that sparks some questions.  For example: casual inspection indicates that not all engines are arranged the same way when it comes to watering and coaling.  Were the coal and the water crane just plonked down more-or-less adjacent to each other, and if they turned out not to be conveniently located for a given engine to be dealt with in one go then it was just tough - you either moved the loco, or humped the coal by hand?  Or is there some kind of general rule about roughly where they should be in relation to each other - and/or in relation to the rest of the facilities in the station area?

[Nick Holliday]

I think there are a number of factors to consider.

One is that, on many branches, one loco, or one class, would provide the service, and would operate always facing the same direction. There are many tales of locos facing the wrong way after overhaul at the works, and having to be sent back to be turned the right way round. This would mean that the facilities could be provided to suit that type of loco.

Secondly, the real thing had much more space than a CJF layout, so there would usually be plenty of leeway for placing the loco in the optimum position relative to the facilities.

Thirdly, a BLT would usually be operated as one engine in steam, so positioning a loco in the most convenient place would obstruct any other operations. 

Fourthly, there would be plenty of time between trains for the crew to carry out refuelling, even by hand.

Fifthly, on many branches the facilities at the terminus were more of a back up to those at the junction, hence the lack of engine shed. Hence they were there mainly for emergencies, and any slight inconvenience wouldn't be a problem.

[SR71]

I think that in a lot of instances a single shed for one engine is more of a rarity for very isolated branches. Given branches connected to areas of higher traffic branch line engines would be kept at a larger MPD's and travel out for the first service of the day. Certainly this is the impression I got from reading locomans books given that an engine shed needs fitters, fire lighters, cleaners, boiler smiths, etc, it wouldn't be economical to have them service one loco.

 

What people often mistake for an engine shed, like in the back left of your photo is the goods shed. Nearly every station had one of these. Many are still there as quickfits etc.

 

Most stations had watering facilities and in service ashing out would be done anywhere the loco would stand for a while away from the running line and the platform.

[Steamport Southport]

Labour was cheap. If you look at photographs of small stations in Edwardian times there is usually about twenty staff in the photo.

 

 

But if you look at books on places like Ashburton then you had about four or five enginemen to cover all shifts. All maintenance work would be done by the main shed (usually only a few miles away, most branch lines were short). Locomotives tended to be kept in steam for up to three or four weeks,  No need for firelighters, boilersmiths, fitters, etc. If something went wrong with the engine they would telegraph the main shed and ask for another one.

 

Menial work such as coaling or cleaning would probably be done by a lad on his first steps on the ladder.

 

 

 

The GWR often had a shed at a branch line terminal whilst others didn't. Some like the Midland preferred them at the other end near the mainline. Keighley for example was the shed for the K&WVR rather than Oxenhope.

 

Looking at GWR BLT trackplans small turntables were common until later on (post WW1?). Moretonhampstead for example. 

 

https://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/120942-moretonhampstead-goods-yard-access/

 

If you want to know about branch lines then get this. Should be available from libraries. I'm mentioning GWR BLTs as the Freezer plans are based on GWR practice.

 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Great-Western-Branch-Line-Termini/dp/0860933695

 

 

Jason

[The Johnster]

The provision of a loco shed at a branch terminus depended on how the timetable was intended to operate, so that if one required the first train of the day to start from the terminus, loco facilities were needed, but if the first train of the day originated at the junction, perhaps bringing the newspapers and mail from a connecting overnight main line service, then there was no need for facilities at the terminus.  Water would probably be provided, but no coaling or ash disposal, or even a loco siding.

 

Clarence Road, a commuter branch terminus in Cardiff's docklands and admittedly only a mile or so from Cardiff General, didn't even have a water column.

[DCB]

The changes in enginemen's working hours and to a lesser extent the introduction of Sunday services influenced where branch locos were stabled. Initially one set of men and one engine could reasonably be expected to cover the branch services with Sunday being shed day.  Shorter working hours meant two sets of men were needed but not for full shifts so working the loco in from a big shed and changing crews during the day with another service was more effective, not least because the loco could be coaled at a coaler and not by the fire man shovelling coal uphill to the bunker from a wagon or trackside platform.  

[Kris]

Kingsbridge station is a good example where the shed cool and water are all on the same line.

[SR71]

Interesting reading. I guess like most things different eras/companies would have had their own predisposition, like the midland and their small engine policy etc. 

 

My reading would have been biased to ex LMS BR which probably fits in with the above. GWR I have no idea on... Other than I like the coal tank.

[ejstubbs]

17 hours ago, SR71 said:

 

What people often mistake for an engine shed, like in the back left of your photo is the goods shed.

 

That photo is of Canons Cross, the Minories-based project layout that Market Deeping MRC built for BRM's 'starting out' series of articles in 2010.  The building on the back left is indeed the goods shed.  I was more interested in the scene on the right, with the water crane, coaling stage and what looks like a load of ash just dumped on the track.  Would that be reasonably prototypical, or would it be more usual for rather more sophisticated ash disposal facilities e.g. a pit to be provided on a spur which existed specifically for loco stabling?

 

The Iain Rice drawing (a kind of mash-up between Caterham and Minories, AIUI) does show a loco spur with coal, water and ash disposal.

 

As for sheds: I only mentioned those in passing, really, to acknowledge small engine sheds at BLTs seem to be more prevalent on layouts than in reality.  One could also get in to a debate about whether a "small BLT" is a small terminus station on a branch line, or a terminus station on a small branch line*.  The difference might be a deciding factor in whether or not a shed was provided (per The Johnster's comment about Clarence Road, for example).  Nonetheless, ruminating on the issue last night and this morning I came up with a fair number of branch termini which definitely had an engine shed at one time or another:

• Tetbury
• Ashburton
• Fairford
• Moretonhampstead (already mentioned)
• Cardigan
• Newcastle Emlyn
• Easingwold
• Rothbury - which had the engine shed accessed off the turntable, something which I've seen described on here as a no-no
• Penicuik - a single track branch with a single platform (with the loco release originally via the turntable, as at Rothbury, according to the OS), but directly serving some sizeable industrial concerns immediately adjacent to the station
• Killin - the shed here was actually at Loch Tay station, about a mile beyond Killin itself.  The line to Loch Tay was retained after the passenger steamer services on the loch ceased in 1939, partly in order to retain access to the shed there.
• Dalmally - the shed was built during Dalmally's time as the temporary terminus of the Callander to Oban line, but was retained when the line was completed just a few years later.
• Lauder
• Ballachulish
• Peebles (Caledonian) - arguably this wasn't really a terminus because of the chord linking it (rather awkwardly) with the NBR station on the other side of the Tweed.  However, no scheduled passenger services ever used that link.  (Somewhat ironically, in the current context at least, it seems to have been most frequently used for access from the NBR line to the turntable at the Caley station, when the NBR shed closed in 1955.)
• Langholm
• North Berwick - an obvious candidate for the reasonably-sized terminus of small (i.e. short) branch line.  The building concerned is not marked as an engine shed on the OS Map but it's at the opposite side and the opposite end of the station site from the goods yard.

I've no doubt that further research would unearth many more examples.

 

EDIT: Kingsbridge, noted above by Kris, is another good example, with all facilities within not very many yards of track:

 

 

EDIT 2: We can add Gullane to the list, especially since it appears to have been the almost-a-cliche loco shed on the spur off the engine release crossover.  And Dolphinton (NBR) - again, not a full terminus since the NBR had an end-on junction with (again) the Caley just to the west of the NBR station but (again) no through services ever used it.  According to Railscot the NBR Dolphinton shed still stands.  I probably ought to go and have a gander some day soon.

 

* and even about what actually constitutes a branch line - but let's not go there.

**  or almost definitely - OS maps can't be 100% relied upon but if there's both a goods shed and an engine shed or "engine house" marked as such then it seems a fair bet

Edited March 20, 2019 by ejstubbs

[pH]

... and add Portpatrick and Lyme Regis.

 

I suppose the Mallaig Extension of the West Highland and the Dingwall-Kyle line wouldn't be classed as 'branch lines'?

Edited March 20, 2019 by pH

[Andy W]

Then there are Swanage (still there and still in use), and Ilfracombe, But it is arguable whether Ilfracombe is actually a branch line terminus or the very end of a secondary main line.

Throughout the 1930s the LMS had a policy of making economies by closing small sheds (including ones at through stations!) and transferring their work to larger ones if this could be done without incurring excessive empty mileage. Of course this wasn't always possible. You could also look at the number of branch line termini that actually existed for each (pre-grouping) company, and how many of them had passenger services into the BR steam era. As soon as all you had was goods traffic, the cost saving of running services from the main-line end became irresistible.

[The Johnster]

There is the historical factor as well, in that many branch lines began life as independent companies floated by local interests and capital, with prospecti promising all sorts of benefits once the village was connected to the outside world and trade could be stimulated.  None of them generated the traffic or prosperity hoped for, and were absorbed by whatever main line company they connected with at the junction before they ever turned a wheel in anger and as soon as the investors realised what they'd let themselves in for, but were built with a shed at the terminus to house the company's loco.  The big company allocated a loco to it to work the first train of the day, sometimes the entire timetable, and employed a local crew and fitter to look after it, saving on light engine mileage.

 

Light engine or empty stock mileage is A Bad Thing, as not only is it wasteful of fuel, water, and paths on busy main lines, but also eats into the productivity of the crew's working day and limits the time they can spend doing productive work without having to be paid overtime.  It is the inevitable result of centralising facilities and closing smaller local sheds, though, and the railway employs bean counters to ascertain which is the more efficient and productive way of operating.  

 

In my area, South Wales, branch lines rarely had engine sheds at their termini, indeed there were few termini in the conventional sense of the track terminating in a set of buffers with a wall or fence behind them.  Almost everywhere, the line continued past the passenger station to a colliery at the end of the valley.  Tondu shed, north of Bridgend, was built by the GW to provide locos for no less than 5 branch lines, Porthcawl, Abergwynfi, Nantymoel, Ogmore Vale, and Gilfach Goch, none of which had any more than watering facilities for locos, and Abergwynfi, the longest, didn't even have those.  My layout, Cwmdimabath, postulates a 6th branch, but I have provided water.  Abergwynfi's 1960 WTT shows a 23.55 auto arrival from Bridgend for the late night revellers which departs 6 minutes later (in practice a lot quicker than that as everybody wanted to get home to bed) at 00.01 the following morning as ecs for Tondu.  There is nary a spare path to be had on any of these branches during the day, and things are not as bucolic as the traditional image of a branch line...

Edited March 21, 2019 by The Johnster

[ejstubbs]

On 20/03/2019 at 21:30, pH said:

I suppose the Mallaig Extension of the West Highland and the Dingwall-Kyle line wouldn't be classed as 'branch lines'?

 

On 21/03/2019 at 09:10, Andy W said:

Then there are Swanage (still there and still in use), and Ilfracombe, But it is arguable whether Ilfracombe is actually a branch line terminus or the very end of a secondary main line.

 

I did say let's not go there!  A potentially interesting debate but for another time & place.

 

Thanks to all who offered thoughts & suggestions.  Putting aside the question of engine sheds at small termini (which I really only mentioned in passing, but which seemed to stimulate most discussion - myself included) it does seem that the best way to describe how coaling, watering and ash disposal facilities were organised in such locations would be: "reasonably mutually adjacent, but not necessarily so as to be guaranteed to be as convenient as possible for those carrying out the work - and always subject to other constraints e.g. available space".