Newton Stewart on the Port Road

[danstercivicman]

11 hours ago, Bochi said:

 

Hi Stephen -

 

I could do that. It has its attractions! It is a good thought. On the other hand the Port Road was a hilly railway and the descent from Newton Stewart towards Palnure was 1 in 90: the railway descended 100ft just to the River Cree. On the Stranraer side it was more or less level at first but soon rose at 1 in 86, while the Whithorn branch descended at a vertiginous 1 in 70 at one point. So I thought the gradients would reflect that, although to strict scale, of course these gradients are negligible that close to the station. If the rise and fall are equalised and there's a 3" clearance, I calculated the gradients at 1 in 56 on the model. But doubtless it will be a bit different in reality.

 

One other factor is that I'm persuaded to put loco turntables at the end of each group of sidings. These will just be centre-pivot sector plates. I'll post the new plan shortly which includes extra sidings so as not to lose staging when the loco runs back from the turntable to head its train again.

 

 

I’d def go easy on the gradients- can you fit the storage areas within each other?  Gradients cause no end of issues and even a slight one can wash out most model locos.. 

[Bochi]

1 hour ago, danstercivicman said:

 

Use code 75 if you can. I regret not doing so...

 

For running or appearance? 

[Bochi]

7 hours ago, danstercivicman said:

 

I’d def go easy on the gradients- can you fit the storage areas within each other?  Gradients cause no end of issues and even a slight one can wash out most model locos.. 

 

Certainly they can all go on the level. I started with Rice's "Binegar" plan regarding the fiddleyards which has gradients - and needs them because it is all about double-heading on the S&DJR but it is easy to just shorten the sidings. Level, the sidings are still 9ft long (11ft for the longest) which is more than enough, since the platforms are about 7ft. 

 

I guess I should take the advice. Gradients would be fun but most of the work is non-scenic so it's a lot of effort for the scenic effect. Better to suggest rugged landscape with the scenery dropping away or rising where there is space, perhaps - the river Cree on the east side, the area in the NW of the layout, and of course with the backscene.

 

Edited April 12, 2020 by Bochi

[danstercivicman]

4 hours ago, Bochi said:

 

For running or appearance? 

 

Appearance.  I am a big fan of code 100 but code 75 just has the edge look wise I think.  I do like code 100 as it’s robust. 

[danstercivicman]

3 hours ago, Bochi said:

 

Certainly they can all go on the level. I started with Rice's "Binegar" plan regarding the fiddleyards which has gradients - and needs them because it is all about double-heading on the S&DRJ but it is easy to just shorten the sidings. Level, the sidings are still 9ft long (11ft for the longest) which is more than enough, since the platforms are about 7ft. 

 

I guess I should take the advice. Gradients would be fun but most of the work is non-scenic so it's a lot of effort for the scenic effect. Better to suggest rugged landscape with the scenery dropping away or rising where there is space, perhaps - the river Cree on the east side, the area in the NW of the layout, and of course with the backscene.

 

 

That sounds like a good plan.  Gradients are just a nightmare.  

 

Put it like this- even With extra weight and the coach weights removed my Bachmann Jubilees (a type you will need on the Port Road) gets 6/7 coaches max...  The Hornby 5MT gets six and a van.  That’s just with my U curve which is draggy.  Put a gradient in and they will struggle.  I think with the space you have you will enjoy the running more without gradients:) 

[Wheatley]

I have 1 in 60 gradients spiralling down to my fiddle yard, including 3rd radius 90 degree corners. A Hornby Clan will just manage 10 Mk1s up it without slipping but only by using the very strong ceramic magnets in DCC Concepts' 'Powerbase' system and a length of steel wire up the four foot. Given the choice I wouldn't have them. 

[stivesnick]

On 28/03/2020 at 12:32, SHerr said:

Should be interesting - I also looked at doing this a few years back but as a ‘what if Beeching didn’t happen’ set in the mid 80s, but couldn’t really get it to work in the space I had available at the time.
 

Good luck with the project.

 

Like the idea for this this layout and the station is a good one to model with good operational interest. The idea of the a 1980s what if layout also has appeal. Enclosed some basic mark ups of the track plan to show a reduced layout suitable for the 1980s.

 

In Option A - A single platform remains - so two passenger trains can not pass - this could have happened if the cost of repairs to the island platform building or to provide disabled access became too expensive. The branch remains as a freight only line, the goods still has a few sidings perhaps for stone or grain traffic. The engine shed has become a CE siding. 

 

In Option B - the island platform remains, perhaps with a new footbridge /lifts but the track through the main platform and goods loop are removed as a cost saving. Otherwise as option A. 

 

In both options the main passenger service is by sprinter DMUs but with 1 or 2 through London trains still running. Speedlink freight but intermodal, and block trains to reflect individual taste. 

 

Hope this is useful to someone 

 

Nick 

1980s Port Road.pdf

[Bochi]

I have spent most of the past week doing overdue annual accounts for an organisation for which I'm treasurer. It seems the tax year doesn't go on lockdown even if everybody else does.

 

But I got into the shed and fixed up the three main fiddleyard baseboards with their legs and levellers. I used three coach bolts to hold them together which I think gives a lot more stability than two, and since I have no intention of removing them they should do the job. When I am absolutely sure the yard is as I want it, I'll probably screw a ply or MDF fascia right across the joins. 

 

 

 

 

[Bochi]

Just because it was a lovely day, here's Newton Stewart's home from the outside.

 

 

 

 

[saxokid]

3 minutes ago, Bochi said:

Just because it was a lovely day, here's Newton Stewart's home from the outside.

 

 

 

 

Looks well hidden away there...

[26power]

15 hours ago, stivesnick said:

 

Like the idea for this this layout and the station is a good one to model with good operational interest. The idea of the a 1980s what if layout also has appeal. Enclosed some basic mark ups of the track plan to show a reduced layout suitable for the 1980s.

 

In Option A - A single platform remains - so two passenger trains can not pass - this could have happened if the cost of repairs to the island platform building or to provide disabled access became too expensive. The branch remains as a freight only line, the goods still has a few sidings perhaps for stone or grain traffic. The engine shed has become a CE siding. 

 

In Option B - the island platform remains, perhaps with a new footbridge /lifts but the track through the main platform and goods loop are removed as a cost saving. Otherwise as option A. 

 

In both options the main passenger service is by sprinter DMUs but with 1 or 2 through London trains still running. Speedlink freight but intermodal, and block trains to reflect individual taste. 

 

Hope this is useful to someone 

 

Nick 

1980s Port Road.pdf 138.71 kB · 17 downloads

Lockerbie railway station (also in Dumfries and Galloway) did not get disabled access to its southbound platform until February 2008, according to a picture caption on RailScot,  Therefore not sure such provision would have been being considered at NS in the 1980s, in this "what if" scenario.  This page: https://www.railscot.co.uk/locations/L/Lockerbie/4.html#pagination

 

BTW, that page has an interesting graph showing the considerable increase in passengers at Lockerbie in the last 20 or so years!

[26power]

Hello.

 

Do you have a search set up on ebay for photographs of Newton Stewart?  Seems quite a good source of occasional "new" pictures.  You can generally download and save the images although obviously they will all generally have, quite rightly, some form of copyright marking on them.  These two ended recently and are different views to the normal ones (hope the links work):

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/35mm-Railway-Negative-Loco-View-Newton-Stewart-23-6-1962-2-/362966382416?nma=true&si=AwT3fCCO%2FKd9HgWEVICO3AgwIg0%3D&orig_cvip=true&nordt=true&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2557

and

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/35mm-Railway-Negative-Loco-View-Newton-Stewart-23-6-1962-/164155064917?nma=true&si=AwT3fCCO%2FKd9HgWEVICO3AgwIg0%3D&orig_cvip=true&nordt=true&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2557

 

Well, I though they were different, but a similar view to the above, and same date and train, but in colour:

I assume you have already found that collection, given the earlier link to the 8F and cattle wagons picture.  One image there shows the connection to a short siding, Carty's siding, between Newton Stewart and the Cree viaduct.  Is there scope to include that?  Although I doubt it generated much traffic - rails look very rusty in the picture.

 

Regards your plan, I wonder if all the goods yard sidings are rather crammed in to one corner?  Assuming one of the attractions of the station is freight operations then you might need to consider access for uncoupling etc.

 

NLS maps mentioned above.  I assume you are aware you can view them as an overlay with, say, aerial photography, see:

https://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/#zoom=18&lat=54.95404&lon=-4.49089&layers=168&b=1

 

From that it looks like the goods shed still exists, or it was quite recently.  Found it on Google StreetView, although that image is from 2009, see:

https://www.instantstreetview.com/@54.95396,-4.48875,278.19h,-4.85p,1z

You can also see the road overbridge at the west end of the station and part of the the abutment of the underbridge at the east end.

 

Really should have explored these remains on the ground at some point in my time in D&G!  Perhaps when we are able to safely go out again.

 

Hope some of this helps!

 

 

[Wheatley]

There is also an "Old Pictures" group on Facebook which has a "Railway in Galloway" album. There are loads of useful pictures in there, although I suspect they are playing a bit fast and loose with copyright on some of them. 

Edited April 14, 2020 by Wheatley

[Bochi]

11 hours ago, 26power said:

 

Do you have a search set up on ebay for photographs of Newton Stewart?  Seems quite a good source of occasional "new" pictures....

I haven't bought/downloaded any photographs from eBay yet but I should set up a search, indeed. It does have a steady stream of pictures. Thanks for the tips!

Quote

Regards your plan, I wonder if all the goods yard sidings are rather crammed in to one corner?  Assuming one of the attractions of the station is freight operations then you might need to consider access for uncoupling etc.

 

It is an issue. The yard at Newton Stewart was relatively compact with seven short sidings rather than a few long ones and my plan compresses it in reasonable proportion to the overall compression The shed area sprawled rather more than the goods yard! The long siding on the west side was also part of the goods yard arrangement.

 

Access is tight, to be sure. I am quite tall and have tried to ensure I can at least in theory stretch to reach all tracks but that's not the same as performing delicate operations. However, my eyesight is not brilliant and a shunter's pole with three link couplings would be out of the question anyway. Shunting will, of necessity, have to involve an automatic coupling system of some sort. Kadee? Dinghams? Haven't decided - I have never used remote coupling/uncoupling before. Another adventure!

 

 

Edited April 14, 2020 by Bochi

[26power]

4 hours ago, Wheatley said:

There is also an "Old Pictures" group on Facebook which has a "Railway in Galloway" album. There are loads of useful pictures in there, although I suspect they are playing a bit fast and loose with copyright on some of them. 

Had forgotten that resource.

 

Copyright seems an alien concept to some, unfortunately.

[26power]

2 hours ago, Bochi said:

I haven't bought/downloaded any photographs from eBay yet but I should set up a search, indeed. It does have a steady stream of pictures. Thanks for the tips!

It is an issue. The yard at Newton Stewart was relatively compact with seven short sidings rather than a few long ones and my plan compresses it in reasonable proportion to the overall compression The shed area sprawled rather more than the goods yard! The long siding on the west side was also part of the goods yard arrangement.

 

Access is tight, to be sure. I am quite tall and have tried to ensure I can at least in theory stretch to reach all tracks but that's not the same as performing delicate operations. However, my eyesight is not brilliant and a shunter's pole with three link couplings would be out of the question anyway. Shunting will, of necessity, have to involve an automatic coupling system of some sort. Kadee? Dinghams? Haven't decided - I have never used remote coupling/uncoupling before. Another adventure!

 

 

I assume the goods yard is in a corner of the railway shed?  If so is there scope to have access to the outside side of the station boards, perhaps by shortening/removing the “straights” you have on short sides of layout?

 

Or, I wonder if there is scope to further compress the engine shed area?  Either reduce length of sidings or maybe their number, after all I would imagine far less operational interest/activity there than in the goods yard area.  If you keep the baseboard area as your plan then reducing the engine shed area, or reducing the straight after it, would maybe allow you to stretch the west end of the station around the top left corner of the layout, thus allowing the goods yard area to be a bit longer.
 

With regards to automatic uncoupling, it might be worth some experiments before you commit to baseboards, track layout etc. that you later find are inaccessible or at least awkward to access, to the extent you don’t.

 

Just some thoughts.  Feel free to ignore!

[Bochi]

8 hours ago, 26power said:

I assume the goods yard is in a corner of the railway shed?  If so is there scope to have access to the outside side of the station boards, perhaps by shortening/removing the “straights” you have on short sides of layout?

 

Or, I wonder if there is scope to further compress the engine shed area?  Either reduce length of sidings or maybe their number, after all I would imagine far less operational interest/activity there than in the goods yard area.  If you keep the baseboard area as your plan then reducing the engine shed area, or reducing the straight after it, would maybe allow you to stretch the west end of the station around the top left corner of the layout, thus allowing the goods yard area to be a bit longer.
 

With regards to automatic uncoupling, it might be worth some experiments before you commit to baseboards, track layout etc. that you later find are inaccessible or at least awkward to access, to the extent you don’t.

 

Just some thoughts.  Feel free to ignore!

 

Thanks for the thoughts!

 

The issue with shortening the straights is that the left hand side, just south of the engine shed, is where the door is and a lift out sections. There's a further 44 inches beyond. So the end of the shed section and the beginning of the lift out piece is about six inches beyond the end of the station, give or take. There is a natural scenic break in the prototype: two road bridges cross the main line and the Whithorn branch.

 

On the engine shed, I've already lost one siding - the one built in 1931 to provide extra goods capacity. The other sidings are, from inside to out, a two road engine shed, one road passing through, the coaling road, and a 50ft turntable (extended to 52.5ft). The shed housed ex-CR 0-6-0 and ex-GSWR 4-4-0 locos in the 1930s, says Swan, and later, a Jumbo and 2P 4-4-0s in the 1950s when it was a sub-shed for Stranraer. I've had difficulty shortening it because of my 30" ruling radius and the need to get the turntable in there.

 

Nevertheless I was surprised to discover that removing a massive 3" from each side means the goods yard can be moved a good 12 inches west from the corner (and if the sidings were cut shorter than in the following plan, you could make an access hatch there).

[Bochi]

Here's a new plan based on shortening the sides by a small amount and taking advantage of the extra space to bring the goods yard back. I don't know whether it is an improvement or not. I think it might be a little bit easier to reach the sidings - and especially the pointwork - but not a lot.

 

Something which would make a considerable difference to the engine shed arrangement is if the two back-to-back points - one leading to the branch and shed, the other to double slip and main platform - could be a double slip instead. But the geometry just doesn't work because one side needs to be straight right across. This more than anything would bring the Whithorn branch several inches away from the main line and thus provide more room to adjust the shed.

 

 

[Bochi]

8 hours ago, 26power said:

Either reduce length of sidings or maybe their number, after all I would imagine far less operational interest/activity there than in the goods yard area.

 

Well. Yes and no. The yard was cramped by most standards and so shunting was quite a puzzle especially on market days when it was crammed with livestock vans, milk and meat vans and other goods. (One reason to keep the sidings fairly short on the model is so that with a more limited stock than the LMS had at its disposal, it can still be made to look crowded and tricky to shunt). So yes, that's an important aspect.

 

But the branch is not without interest. The Whithorn trains would come into the north island platform, then the loco ran around. But it would also use the shed for coal and water, and to turn: by the 1930s it was usually a Jumbo. You don't see many tanks on the Port Road. There was also a through coach to and from Edinburgh for the branch: a number of bigwigs had holiday homes in Whithorn! There's a fairly even distribution of operational interest in Newton Stewart - right down to the horse box (later parcels?) siding in the little bay. 

 

The other thing about creating an operating space on the far side of the station boards is that I want to keep space in the centre of the room for workshop equipment and other activities. At least, I don't want to surrender it without a fight! But you've got me thinking, for sure.

[Bochi]

Some questions for the experts -

 

Where were the trap points, if any, at Newton Stewart? I can see a trap on the east "headshunt" siding, but not one in the throat of the goods yard. There seems to be something at the east end of the goods loop but I haven't seen a clear photograph.
 

Also, what did they use for ballast? Most of the colour photographs show a mixture of brown and grey chippings, mostly brown, of what I'd call a medium size but fairly regular. But they are from the 1960s. The whole line was reballasted in the late 1920s/early 1930s after an accident on the Cree viaduct. In any case the station photographs show the tracks riding quite high on the ballast with the sleepers standing proud. 

[Wheatley]

The goods yard throat is trapped under the St Couans Rd bridge, its just off the right hand side of the pic at the bottom of p157 in Swan.  The long west siding is also trapped, visible (just) on p160. Both the goods loop behind the platform and the branch platform itself were trapped at the east end despite the platform line being a passenger line. The horse dock  on the down side was trapped by its own headshunt. 

I cant work out to paste links on a phone but look in the trackplans on Signalbox.org, the 1955 plans for both boxes are on there, the track layout didnt change much in that respect. 

Ballast appears to have been stone on the main lines by 1935 with ash or something similarly fine in the yard. 

 

 

[Bochi]

23 hours ago, Wheatley said:

The goods yard throat is trapped under the St Couans Rd bridge, its just off the right hand side of the pic at the bottom of p157 in Swan.  The long west siding is also trapped, visible (just) on p160. Both the goods loop behind the platform and the branch platform itself were trapped at the east end despite the platform line being a passenger line. The horse dock  on the down side was trapped by its own headshunt. 

I cant work out to paste links on a phone but look in the trackplans on Signalbox.org, the 1955 plans for both boxes are on there, the track layout didnt change much in that respect. 

Ballast appears to have been stone on the main lines by 1935 with ash or something similarly fine in the yard. 

 

 

 

Thanks again. About time I checked out the signal diagrams properly!

 

I shall have to work out where to put the yard trap since I've compressed to make the double slip precisely at that point. It could just go under the footbridge I suppose. There needs to be one, anyway.

 

I imagine the branch platform had non-passenger stock left there from time to time from the branch train, if only temporarily. This photograph shows it crammed with vans:
 

 

 

Edited April 23, 2020 by Bochi

[Bochi]

It's been a few weeks since I reported progress. During that time I've wrestled with DCC, not having used it before, and blown some old loco motors I was hoping to use. Old motors can be replaced, though, I hope.

Also I've been focussed more on the workshop side, with a bench, some tools and sharpening gear and so on. I built a 4ft diameter test track for DC testing and I've laid cork for the fiddleyards and cut out on of the turntables with a router. So next up is to mount the turntable so it's level and moves smoothly. I may finally get to connect some cable at the weekend, but don't hold your breath!

I am doing the fiddleyards first because I'm out of practise and they are more straightforward than the scenic area. Also I mean to use them for testing Sprat and Winkle couplings. As 26Power advises above, best to make sure I get on with them before committing to the arrangements on the scenic side. 

I also have to commit to point control. I'm inclined towards MegaPoints and their servo motor systems. It doesn't look as if the slow motor companies are going to have stock any time soon although I bet one could rig something up with those tiny Chinese geared motors.

[26power]

Colour picture of the west end of Newton Stewart, including signalbox, on ebay at present:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/363017280519?ul_noapp=true

 

Hope of some interest.

 

Have also posted this on the other Newton Stewart layout thread (I assume there are only two!)

 

[Bochi]

On 10/06/2020 at 22:16, 26power said:

Colour picture of the west end of Newton Stewart, including signalbox, on ebay at present:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/363017280519?ul_noapp=true

 

Hope of some interest.

 

Have also posted this on the other Newton Stewart layout thread (I assume there are only two!)

 

 

Thanks! Nice to see it in colour. I spy some proud kilt-wearing enthusiasts standing on the signal platform!