Station Approach - Thoughts on Some Options

[Flying Pig]

1 hour ago, scottystitch said:

 

 

It's an interesting idea, I'm just not sure I can fit it in, without it looking like I've tried to fit it in...........

 

You could probably manage one additional siding off the headshunt without cramping the scene too badly.

[scottystitch]

16 hours ago, Flying Pig said:

 

You could probably manage one additional siding off the headshunt without cramping the scene too badly.

 

Version 10

[imt]

That looks good.  It does presuppose that all Motorail and Parcels services use P5/6 for assembly/disassembly, since the headshunt is inaccssessible from P1-4 without a dosy-do through P5/6; and hence that (off scene?) to the left there would be a run-round crossover to match the one at the RH end of P5/6 . As has been said the flying (you should have seen it!) 08 would do the shunting of the NPCCS around, you still need the loco off the front of the incoming trains from the left to P6.  Personally I'd have the Motorail at P9/10 and at a slight angle to the rest - out of the way and easier to get the public to bring their cars in/out.

 

Motorail (as I think you know) consisted of 2 parts only brought together before departure - the 2nd class sleepers with some ordinary stock/brakes and the motorail car c arrying stock (which ranged from CCTs to special MK1 GUVs depending on the era). My family used them regularly and I don't ever remember open stock of any kind for the cars.  So shunting motorail was a case of pulling off the car carriersamd sticking them where they could be unloaded and (after a dozing pause for the passengers)  moving the stock to sidings for cleaning etc.  They tended to be long trains so no bay would be big enough.  I don't remember sleepers being shunted into a bay, but that is a way to keep the through lines clear, and allow time for passengers to leave - usually about half an hour IIRC.

 

Given that this whole design is a mash up rather than attempt to model Perth, I think it's very good and will allow a lot of interesting movements.  Wish I had space for something similar!

[Flying Pig]

Plain sidings would probably be better than the two additional platforms, both from a visual and an operational point of view (more shunting).  I don't think you have to have dedicated parcels platforms as it would be quite normal to handle mail and parcels in any platform.

 

[Zomboid]

Could you believably lose platforms 8 & 9, but keep the tracks as centre roads between 7 & 10?

[imt]

You need to decide how you want to use your platforms and what traffic you would like to represent.  As an ex-GPO man I am a bit of a nerd about Mail and Parcels trains - you might not be, and I was a regular Motorail user. 

 

Motorail doesn't need platforms (just end loading as I remember it anyway), but they do need straight drive though - so the sidings must be straight for the length of the car carriers.  I have seen photos of side loading  but IIRC the Scottish (Perth, Inverness) were always drive on.  In the early days BR staff drove them on, but gradually (with better stock) the customer drove their own car on.

 

Parcels do need platforms, especially at a sorting centre like Perth.  Trains from Aberdeen and beyond were on one set of platforms, Inverness and beyond on another.  It was a busy station, there wasn't time to leave Parcels trains (as opposed to the odd van in a stopping train) on a platform for any length of time.  Much of the traffic was pre sorted into vans for example Edinburgh (stations to London), Fife and Glasow (West Coast, Wales, SE).  Trains were broken up and reformed for these destinations. Even post BRUTE era (where it was easy to move pre sorted cages) trains were still reformed.

 

I am not sure what else you might use sidings for?  Obviously invent an industry, but in a station?

[scottystitch]

Thank you for everyone's thoughts.

 

Yes this needs more thought with regards parcels. 

 

With respect to Motorail, the real Perth trains, certainly in my period employed a nominal rake of 6 Newton Chambers TCVs. I do not recall seeing CCTs used on the Perth-Holloway train, but it may be possible. Regardless of period all Perth Motorail was end loading. The Motorail loading was adjacent Perth carriage sidings, and despite being end loading, the two sidings employed did have a platform between them. This was more by accident than by design, since one of the sidings was originally a loop off the main line.  Each of the two Motorail sidings on the plan can comfortably fit 6 TCVs or 6 Carflats (I'm not sure when open Carflats began to be employed on the Perth trains but they definitely did, and certainly by 1980), so it's no hardship and probably better to lose one of them.  Interestingly, Sutton Coldfield's Motorail siding was on a reverse curve, so dead straight for loading was not essential.

 

As IMT says, the sleeper would arrive, timetabled for a 30 minute or so dwell, in which the car carriers are removed and shunted to the siding; passengers are awoken from their slumber and turfed out. The Passenger section would then depart ECS for the carriage sidings. The Motorail stock would stay in its siding all day following un-loading, in preparation for re-loading for the night's departure.

 

Regarding parcels/newspapers, etc. I had considered a low relief parcels mail/parcels building facing into the layout, on Platform 10. I could lose Platform 8 and 9 which would leave one siding for loading/unloading (Platform 10) and the other, adjacent siding for stock storage/stabling.

 

I had always assumed that parcels traffic was very much like the sleeper/motorail. Early morning arrivals and evening departures, but are we suggesting that that wasn't the case?

 

Whilst Perth Caledonian will be reasonably busy with through traffic on platforms 1, 2, 5, 6 and back and forth traffic on platforms 3 and 4, the motorail and parcels sidings wouldn't be used for anything else, so it seems reasonable that these trains could dwell for quite a while in that case?

Edited December 15, 2019 by scottystitch

[scottystitch]

Version 11.......

 

Two Parcels platforms - Lorries arriving directly onto platform 8/9 for loading/unloading. Platform 7 sees little use, perhaps a throwback to a time before services were cut, but still serviceable and available for trains/stabling.

 

Motorail on it's own with no platform, end loading.

[Zomboid]

How about a greater demarcation by having the platform 8 line coming out of the platform 9 one? Would lose the ability to run from there directly onto the main line, but would keep any shunting away from tracks which might see passenger trains.

Or if you don't fancy rationalising, have it from both.

[scottystitch]

19 hours ago, Zomboid said:

How about a greater demarcation by having the platform 8 line coming out of the platform 9 one? Would lose the ability to run from there directly onto the main line, but would keep any shunting away from tracks which might see passenger trains.

Or if you don't fancy rationalising, have it from both.

Version 12 does as you suggest, but also includes a trailing crossover from the headshunt to allow direct departures in the UP direction from 8 & 9.

Edited December 20, 2019 by scottystitch

[scottystitch]

And Version 12 in its entirety (Each grid is 1 foot):

 

 

[Zomboid]

A bit of an "Up Relief" connected like that - which is a presently feature of both Perth and Stirling.

[F2Andy]

I appreciate this is beyond the original remit of the question, but if it was me, I would flip the station end-to-end (and adjust point work accordingly), so it becomes a junction for the low level station (?), with that line diverging in an extended scenic section up the left side - as far as the grey bit that I assume is a lifting section. Slightly adjust the storage sidings to give the branch room to descend around the outside, only going under the board once it has gone most of the way across the top (should be easier to access).

[scottystitch]

18 hours ago, F2Andy said:

I appreciate this is beyond the original remit of the question, but if it was me, I would flip the station end-to-end (and adjust point work accordingly), so it becomes a junction for the low level station (?), with that line diverging in an extended scenic section up the left side - as far as the grey bit that I assume is a lifting section. Slightly adjust the storage sidings to give the branch room to descend around the outside, only going under the board once it has gone most of the way across the top (should be easier to access).

Andy,

 

Thanks for the interest and your thoughts.

 

There are a number of reasons for not doing as you suggest (it's a cement terminal, by the way, on the lower level.)

 

Firstly the gradient from the cement terminal up to the storage yard needs to be no more than 1 in 100, to ensure confidence in lifting circa 18-21 cement wagons, with a  variety of motive power. In N gauge, inclined haulage can be an issue, but everything I envisage using on the cement will manage this load on 1 in 100.  You are correct in saying the grey area is a removable section across a doorway and for alignment accuracy, I have specified that this be on the level, and so to accommodate all of this, it suits me better to have the descent begin abreast the tunnel mouth position.

 

Secondly, the curves at each end of the station must be hidden, due to the fact I refuse to have non-scale curves visible.  In any case, whilst the station may be fictional, it's location is not and immediately north (down end of the station- left hand side on the plan) of the overbridge there is 3/4 mile of dead straight track in the open.  Add to this the fact that the point work on the left hand wall is far from prototypical and it becomes too complicated to try and do plausibly.

 

Best

 

Scott

 

 

 

 

[DCB]

Just wondering how trains or ECS gets to platforms 8 and 9.  Seems to me like a Carlisle Citadel solution would work better, as in double track with facing and trailing crossovers on a viaduct.

[scottystitch]

1 hour ago, DavidCBroad said:

Just wondering how trains or ECS gets to platforms 8 and 9.  Seems to me like a Carlisle Citadel solution would work better, as in double track with facing and trailing crossovers on a viaduct.

 

8 and 9 are exclusively for the use of parcels, newspapers, goods, horses, etc. and so they are shunted using the head shunt, along with the Motorail siding.

[DCB]

19 hours ago, scottystitch said:

 

8 and 9 are exclusively for the use of parcels, newspapers, goods, horses, etc. and so they are shunted using the head shunt, along with the Motorail siding.

That's what I thought but the headshunt is far too short to take the Car Sleeper and can only be accessed from P3.  The pilot would have to drag it way into the tunnel or take two bites at shifting the train, blocking the main line for an appreciable time, maybe 15 minutes. The "headshunt" is OK as a pilot road but I think more work needs doing on exactly how trains are to get to various places, and where the necessary pilot locos are to lurk and indeed where the incoming locos go after trains terminate, or as at the real Perth, change engines.   The earlier plans looks better to me except there is a lack of loco facilities by which I mean some where for the pilots to stand and for train  for locos to wait rather than shed facilities.  Somewhere to turn locos would also be useful so pilots can take stock to the FY and come back the same way round. 

I think I would put a pair f trailing crossovers at the left hand end of the through platforms, and one at the right hand end of the lower one so incoming locals going right to left can terminate in the main platforms off peak and the train loco dispose of the stock to the bays without needing a pilot.

I like the concept as it avoids the pitfall of many layouts where certain trains only ever go round clockwise and other only anticlockwise, OK fr loaded and empty coal but less so for expresses,   My unfinished abandoned loft layout went a stage further so every hidden siding road could feed trains clockwise or anticlockwise around the layout

 

[scottystitch]

57 minutes ago, DavidCBroad said:

That's what I thought but the headshunt is far too short to take the Car Sleeper and can only be accessed from P3.  The pilot would have to drag it way into the tunnel or take two bites at shifting the train, blocking the main line for an appreciable time, maybe 15 minutes. The "headshunt" is OK as a pilot road but I think more work needs doing on exactly how trains are to get to various places, and where the necessary pilot locos are to lurk and indeed where the incoming locos go after trains terminate, or as at the real Perth, change engines.   

 

I think I would put a pair f trailing crossovers at the left hand end of the through platforms, and one at the right hand end of the lower one so incoming locals going right to left can terminate in the main platforms off peak and the train loco dispose of the stock to the bays without needing a pilot.

 

 

 

Thanks for the considerations David.

 

The head shunt doesn't need to accommodate the full sleeper train, only the car carrying portion.  On Perth trains, from photographs and from official carriage formation documents, the Holloway train was  6 TCVs, or 6 car flats plus six carriages (BSK, and 5 SLS).   The head shunt is therefore long enough for the car carrying portion and a shunting locomotive.  The head shunt also serves platforms 8 an 9, which handle parcel, newspaper and mail, as well as horse traffic.

 

The sleeper from Holloway arrives at Platform 5 (for clarification, the platforms have been re-numbered from the earlier plans, 1 at the bottom to 9 at the top, in sequence - See version 11, on my post dated 19th December). 

 

The car carriers are removed and shunted into the Motorail siding. 

 

30-40 minutes after arrival and after the passengers have de-trained, the carriage portion is removed North (continues to the left) ostensibly to the carriage sidings, hauled by the train engine. 

 

For the return service later in the day, the carriages are returned behind a train engine and backed onto the car carriers which have in the meantime been shunted into platform 6.

 

Any shunting or pilot engines are stabled in the very bottom of the plan, just before the mouth, or in one of platforms 3, 4 or 7. I accept it can't access every platform without a reversal, but almost no trains terminate at this station, other than DMUs, and therefore it's need is limited.   Other than Edinburgh DMU services and a chartered Blue Pullman, the London Holloway train is the only one that terminates here.  Some trains will change engines here, and one train splits in one direction and re-assembles in the other once a day (the West Coast Postal from/to Aberdeen).

 

In respect of your crossover suggestion, I have imagined that these are beyond the over bridge to the left of the station and therefore off scene.   You will see a couple of diagonal lines pointing at  what look like diamond crossings. The left most one is  double slip, the right most a single slip, between the bottom two tracks.

 

It might help to think of Perth Caledonian as one of two main line stations in Perth, with a central station further on up the line to the left. Perth Caledonian's relationship to Perth Central is similar to that between Haymarket and Waverley in Edinburgh.

 

Perth Shed is located between Perth Caledonian and Perth Central and, like the real thing, is substantial. I will be using cassettes to turn locomotives - these can be seen on the left wall, just below the grey section.  There are also loco cassette points in the storage yards.

 

Best

 

Scott

[Satan's Goldfish]

It looks similar to a through station plan that has been in my head for a while, especially as you're treating p1/2 as up/down main. May I suggest you look and see if you can get the track connections for bay platforms 3/4 to also be able to access the headshunt? The version in my head has carriage sidings where you just have the headshunt, but as you have more 'bays' at the top of your plan then it may be useful to be able to shunt from the middle bays to the top sidings without blocking the mainline for stock storage out of peak times.

 

Great plan though btw.