Propelling on Industrial NG Lines

[johnofwessex]

I have just got this months Railway Modeller with its rather nice feature on an industrial NG layout 'Ouse Washes'

 

The builder talks about locos pulling wagons in one direction & pushing them in the other.

 

I am looking at an industrial NG line coming into a small goods yard on the 'inspired by Midford' model I am planning.  The idea being a NG line coming up from the Fullers Earth works at Tucking Mill

 

As production was never that high and the line would have been uphill how appropriate would possibly only a single line coming into the good syard, no points/sidings just a stop block be?

[009 micro modeller]

I have a feeling it would depend on train length and the length of line over which the trains ran. Various photos of industrial narrow gauge show use of run-round loops, but others (particularly shorter or less permanent lines) do without. In model form I’m hoping I can get away without using loops on my modular quarry layout (a short 009 line with trains of three wagons), partly because even a small run-round takes up quite a lot of space. I’m pretty sure that Leighton Buzzard (for example) had run-round loops but smaller sites with the railway entirely within the quarry didn’t. This video (I absolutely love the roadside bit about a minute in) shows skips being propelled over what seems to be a relatively long distance.

[PaulRhB]

In industrial settings there’s no passenger carrying safety rules to worry about so yes propelling was common where it saved time or money. They would need to be able to see ahead though for safety of the workers, load and stock so trains would be relatively short. It’s not very efficient if you keep injuring the staff or damaging the goods because you can’t see an obstruction!

[Paul H Vigor]

Hauling and propelling was common practice on the ball clay narrow gauge at Norden (near Corfe Castle) in Dorset.

[Nile]

An example in the USA.

 

[Edge]

Visibility and gradient would have been the key points. For standard gauge industrials where an 0-4-0 or an 0-6-0 Tank engine was doing the work would probably have been restricted to perhaps four or five 16ton wagons are most.

 

For narrow gauge, I’d have thought that it would have been even more restricted - visibility was usually at a premium due to the nature of the lines, and the wagons would have been a lot less stable. Two or three skips or slate wagons I would have thought.

[PaulRhB]

8 hours ago, Edge said:

visibility was usually at a premium due to the nature of the lines, and the wagons would have been a lot less stable. Two or three skips or slate wagons I would have thought

It’s a mix of stock and the lines visibility and quality of track, I’d agree with skips on poor track like the video above. Bogie flats were used for some goods particularly in agricultural settings so they were more stable and I’ve seen a picture of 4-5 bogie wagons being pushed so running on flat fields with good visibility wasn’t uncommon.

 

 

[Jeremy Cumberland]

As a one-time driver on a narow-guage railway, I used to propel trains reasonably often. The wagons were generally well-maintained, the track was of an excellent standard and, being a "real" railway, we could rely on there not being people wondering about on the track, apart from those trained in looking and listening out for trains. As a result, we might on occasion propel reasonably long trains.

 

However, most industrial premises aren't like that at all. Non-railway workers typically wander about all over the place, visibility is often restricted by buildings and obstacles, the trackwork might be poor, and so might the wagons.

 

If you are planning a railway where propelling is a regular occurrence, I think you need to pay attention to lines of sight. Where it would be impossible for the driver to see if the line is clear, there would need to be some provision for safe walking routes, probably with fences to enforce them. This might not have been a legal requirement, but no manager would want their workers to be run over by a train because the driver could not see the workers were there, and the workers had no warning of the train's approach (propelled wagons can be very quiet). Apart from that, maintenance standards would probably have been adjusted to whatever the situation demanded, and if propelling 20 empty skips was the norm, then both the skips and the track would be maintained so that deralments did not happen too frequently. I might add, though, that propelling 20 empty skips sounds to me to be rather a precarious operation.

 

If the line is uphill, then the locomotive would almost cetainly be at the bottom end.

[009 micro modeller]

6 minutes ago, Jeremy C said:

As a one-time driver on a narow-guage railway, I used to propel trains reasonably often. The wagons were generally well-maintained, the track was of an excellent standard and, being a "real" railway, we could rely on there not being people wondering about on the track, apart from those trained in looking and listening out for trains. As a result, we might on occasion propel reasonably long trains.

 

However, most industrial premises aren't like that at all. Non-railway workers typically wander about all over the place, visibility is often restricted by buildings and obstacles, the trackwork might be poor, and so might the wagons.

 

If you are planning a railway where propelling is a regular occurrence, I think you need to pay attention to lines of sight. Where it would be impossible for the driver to see if the line is clear, there would need to be some provision for safe walking routes, probably with fences to enforce them. This might not have been a legal requirement, but no manager would want their workers to be run over by a train because the driver could not see the workers were there, and the workers had no warning of the train's approach (propelled wagons can be very quiet). Apart from that, maintenance standards would probably have been adjusted to whatever the situation demanded, and if propelling 20 empty skips was the norm, then both the skips and the track would be maintained so that deralments did not happen too frequently. I might add, though, that propelling 20 empty skips sounds to me to be rather a precarious operation.

 

If the line is uphill, then the locomotive would almost cetainly be at the bottom end.

 

The Cherry Orchard Lane video I linked to above features trains of 4 skips being propelled, including alongside and across minor public roads. However, I suspect they wouldn’t have been able to do this for longer trains. Was the line you drove on an industrial one?

[Jeremy Cumberland]

1 hour ago, 009 micro modeller said:

Was the line you drove on an industrial one?

No, so I had less worry about people being on the line when propelling round blind curves. Most of the public foot crossings had good visibility, and most of the road crossings were gated/signalled. If necessary, we would stop short and a second person would check that a crossing was clear before waving the train across - trains were usually double-manned anyway.

 

I was just trying to relate my own experience with industrial lines I had seen (I visited quite a few in the late 70s/early 80s, though almost all were standard gauge, with steam locomotives - hence my interest). I never actually came across propelling on industrial lines except in shunting, but there often seemed to be a lot more non-railway people about than is common on public railways, sometimes busily engaged in their own duties rather than paying attention to what trains were doing.

[decauville1126]

Most likely, if there were any gradients, the loco would be at the downhill end for braking purposes, but really anything goes!

 

Ploegsteert brickworks in Belgium - totally self-contained - had the loco in the middle of the rake to both reduce coupling strain and even out visibility for the driver.

 

Middlebrook Mushrooms had another strange way of working on their peat bog: the driver would set off with the train, then demount and enjoy a ciggy as he strolled through the woods with his dog as the train made a long loop at a sedate pace, before hopping back on a few hundred yards ahead of the loading point. This was on Lindow Moss where Lindow Man aka Pete Marsh was found. So a potential prototype for a driverless loco!

[009 micro modeller]

1 hour ago, decauville1126 said:

Middlebrook Mushrooms had another strange way of working on their peat bog: the driver would set off with the train, then demount and enjoy a ciggy as he strolled through the woods with his dog as the train made a long loop at a sedate pace, before hopping back on a few hundred yards ahead of the loading point. This was on Lindow Moss where Lindow Man aka Pete Marsh was found. So a potential prototype for a driverless loco!

 

This sounds very interesting - not necessarily very safe but still... 

I vaguely knew about that site (if it's the Wilmslow one) - based on the company name, did they exclusively/mainly extract peat for mushroom growing?

[decauville1126]

18 minutes ago, 009 micro modeller said:

 

This sounds very interesting - not necessarily very safe but still... 

I vaguely knew about that site (if it's the Wilmslow one) - based on the company name, did they exclusively/mainly extract peat for mushroom growing?

 

They also were known as Country Kitchen Foods, and Wilmslow Peat Farm. The remaining locos, wagons, and track were recently acquired and moved to the Moseley Railway Group at Apedale, nr Stoke, after lying unused for many years. 

 

They were very friendly towards enthusiasts and I even had the pleasure of meeting the foreman who was operating the elevator at the time an arm appeared .....

 

 

[Johann Marsbar]

This one was propelling its train in Bulgaria......

 

What was more interesting was that he set it in a slow speed, got out of the cab, made his way to the end of the train (whilst it was still moving, driverless...) and changed the points accordingly to set the route into the unloading shed !!

[Nearholmer]

I’ve seen all sorts of practices on INGR, including propelling downhill with the loco at the uphill end, and jumping out, rInning across the track in front of the now driverless train, changing the points, cross back and getting in the cab.

 

Economy of effort, even at the expense of personal safety, seemed to rule.

 

But, there was a care to derailments (although I’ve seen several) because They take ages to sort out and hold the job up.

 

No continuous brakes either, so runaway wagons not uncommon. On Some railways, especially in Germany, they Stick a tree branch in the last wagon, so that the driver can look back and see it waving to confirm that the rake hasn’t parted en-route.

 

 

Edited July 12, 2020 by Nearholmer

[steve W]

I had passing aquaintance with two 2ft lines in Cornwall, both propelled one way and pushed the other, as for stop blocks, maybe,  it was a long time ago.

Both South Crofty Mine surface tramway and Penlee Quarry line to Newlyn harbour operated this way, pulling loads and pushing empties. Both lines were reasonably level and, at least in later days, track was not exactly prisitine. Trains on the mine line were typically half a dozen skips, at Penlee 10 or eleven fairly big ones. Small and  forgiving coarse scale wheels and exceedingly short wheelbases go a long way to keeping everything on the rails, or grooves in the mud. Run round facilities in the case of the mine were not provided as far as I know. At Penlee, time was money when a ship needed to be loaded and this line was mostly double track, the entire train changing tracks at the harbour end for the return trip. Multiple trains were in use simultaneously on the line. Empty rakes arriving at the quarry would be disconnected and loaded using other locos, enabling a 'train' loco to pick up an already loaded rake and set off for the quay without delay.  As noted above , time is money; why have the expense of pointwork and the delay of running round when it's not required?

From a modellers perspective, as an adjunct to a standard gauge railway or other significant industrial modelling,  these tramways are great but, as an accurate model of a protoype, most would be very boring from the train operating perspective.