Termini with 'kick back' yards: examples?

[Will Crompton]

This subject cropped up within a thread in the layout design section in the last few days and I think it is worth a thread of its own. Yards at termini (goods, parcels etc) accessed via a kick back are often seen on models and model plans. For example a number of CJ Freezer's modifications of his original Minories plan have a small parcels or good depot accessed via kick back. A built example I rather like is Walford Town (BRM June 2016). In the thread mentioned Pacific 231G gave Hollywell Town as an actual example.

 

https://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/155979-l-shaped-problem-track-plan-help/page/4/#comments

 

I found an example in Bacup on the disused stations website.

 

http://www.disused-stations.org.uk/b/bacup/index.shtml

 

The only other one I can think of is King's Cross stabling point of fond remembrance. So here's my question. Are there any other British examples?

[eastglosmog]

How about Coleford S&WJR https://maps.nls.uk/view/109726201 after the GWR branch from Redbrook closed in 1916?  Two kickbacks to get to Whitecliff Quarry.

[Nearholmer]

Littlehampton, which is a bit big by model railway BLT standards, had the classic ‘riverside wharf on a kickback’.

 

Dungeness a large ballast pit similarly.

 

There are many other examples where a specialist siding tailed back, but apart from Holywell Town, I’m struggling a bit for cases where the general goods yard was “in front of the fiddle yard”.

 

Carriage sidings are a different matter, several termini That served excursion-type traffic had them trailing back, Alexandra Palace and Henley on Thames, one of the Blackpools, and some horse racing places come to mind.

Edited July 11, 2020 by Nearholmer

[melmoth]

The Jubilee sidings at Weymouth were a kickback, but it also had a goods yard along side the station. Situation there complicated by the junctions for the Quay and Portland branches.

[F-UnitMad]

3 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

Carriage sidings are a different matter, several termini That served excursion-type traffic had them trailing back,

Kidderminster carraige shed on the Severn Valley Railway is like that now.

[Will Crompton]

4 hours ago, eastglosmog said:

How about Coleford S&WJR https://maps.nls.uk/view/109726201 after the GWR branch from Redbrook closed in 1916?  Two kickbacks to get to Whitecliff Quarry.

Many thanks for this link. That's the sort of track layout I could imagine getting a tut-tut from some if it appeared on an exhibition layout!

[Will Crompton]

4 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

Littlehampton, which is a bit big by model railway BLT standards, had the classic ‘riverside wharf on a kickback’.

 

Dungeness a large ballast pit similarly.

 

There are many other examples where a specialist siding tailed back, but apart from Holywell Town, I’m struggling a bit for cases where the general goods yard was “in front of the fiddle yard”.

 

Carriage sidings are a different matter, several termini That served excursion-type traffic had them trailing back, Alexandra Palace and Henley on Thames, one of the Blackpools, and some horse racing places come to mind.

Thanks for the info. Following up your mention of Littlehampton I found a map on the National Library of Scotland OS site.

 

https://maps.nls.uk/view/101435613

 

Funnily enough checking out the current layout of Littlehampton on Googlemaps there looks to be an EMU depot reached via a kick back - plus ca change!

Edited July 11, 2020 by Will Crompton
typo

[Fat Controller]

The two goods depots (Sundries and Full-Load) at Swansea High St both trailed off the line approaching Swansea High St from Llanelli. Any train entering them would have to stop at High St and set back into the yard, unless it had come up the branch from the docks.

[Nearholmer]

7 hours ago, Will Crompton said:

Funnily enough checking out the current layout of Littlehampton on Googlemaps there looks to be an EMU depot reached via a kick back - plus ca change!

 

I had a look at aerial photos on Britain from Above, and I think the car shed dates from when the line was electrified in the 1930s. There are some good shots showing the quay, and it is possible to see how it was changed cWW2, to get rid of old warehouses that I think might have dated from when the LBSCR ran steamers from there to France, simplify the track and replace a trio of little steam cranes with a big crane/derrick of some sort.

 

Isn't Mr & Mrs Gravett's 0 gauge layout Arun Quay partly inspired by this place?

[pH]

Wemyss Bay – here's a 1913 map:

 

https://maps.nls.uk/view/82900416

 

Aerial view (the extension on to the pier has been removed):

https://www.flickr.com/photos/60956647@N02/48367639537/

 

And some more detailed photos:

 

https://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/1039724

Track down from the main line on the right, track back to the goods yard on the left.

 

https://www.railscot.co.uk/img/13/356/

Line out on to the pier (not a great picture). Reversal here needed to access the goods yard.

 

https://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/1039692

The goods yard was behind where the photographer is standing.

[Three Cocks Junction]

Bexhill West.

 

You can see it on NLS Maps.

[Will Crompton]

12 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

 

I had a look at aerial photos on Britain from Above, and I think the car shed dates from when the line was electrified in the 1930s. There are some good shots showing the quay, and it is possible to see how it was changed cWW2, to get rid of old warehouses that I think might have dated from when the LBSCR ran steamers from there to France, simplify the track and replace a trio of little steam cranes with a big crane/derrick of some sort.

 

Isn't Mr & Mrs Gravett's 0 gauge layout Arun Quay partly inspired by this place?

Arun Quay, which I have only seen in pictures is a wonderful piece atmospheric modelling. Now you mention it I wonder if it is in part inspired by this location. Looking at the map it's almost as if the track layout was designed by a modeller, the quayside tracks look as if they are reached by lines passing between viewblocking buildings.

[Will Crompton]

Thanks everyone for the informative answers (Eastglosmog, Nearholmer, Melmoth, F-UnitMad, Fat Controller, pH, Three Cocks Junction).

 

It seems there are enough real examples to justify a small kick back yard if I ever 'do a Minories'. Mind you I haven't gotten around to finishing my first Inglenook yet so don't all hold your breath. It might just be a statistical fluke of the locations mentioned so far but I am struck that quite a few are coastal - Wemyss Bay, Bexhill West, Littlehampton, Swansea and Weymouth.

[D9020 Nimbus]

There's also Yealmpton, covered in GWRJ 9. That layout came about because it wasn't intended to be the terminus.

[Will Crompton]

18 hours ago, D9020 Nimbus said:

There's also Yealmpton, covered in GWRJ 9. That layout came about because it wasn't intended to be the terminus.

Thanks for adding this one. I just looked on the NLS website and found this map.

 

https://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/#zoom=17&lat=50.34671&lon=-3.99538&layers=168&b=1

 

Lots of inspiration here for those of a rural branch line persuasion. It also provides a 'prototype for everything' justification in that, as you say, the line was originally intended to continue, hence the kick back yard.

[whart57]

23 hours ago, Will Crompton said:

It might just be a statistical fluke of the locations mentioned so far but I am struck that quite a few are coastal - Wemyss Bay, Bexhill West, Littlehampton, Swansea and Weymouth.

 

That might be because an awkward layout on dry land could usually be mitigated by buying a bit of land. Not so easy when a river or the sea is the cause of the problem

[luckymucklebackit]

For many years the whole of Glasgow Works was accessed via a single kickback!  Looking back further, Dawsholm Shed was laid out in a very traditional kickback layout.  Fort WIlliam had a "semi-kickback" with some goods sidings only accessible by approaching the passenger station and reversing back, some loops were accessible from both directions 

 

Jim

[Fat Controller]

15 minutes ago, whart57 said:

 

That might be because an awkward layout on dry land could usually be mitigated by buying a bit of land. Not so easy when a river or the sea is the cause of the problem

In Swansea, the two Hafod Yards were next to a steeply-climbing line, on a ridge between the main Towy Valley and the bottom of Townhill, so there were severe space restrictions.

 

[The Johnster]

And Malefant, the carriage sidings, were/are kickback in form as well. 

[Fat Controller]

1 hour ago, The Johnster said:

And Malefant, the carriage sidings, were/are kickback in form as well. 

Indeed; using the carriage washer would involve propelling towards Landore, then drawing back down into the station, before setting back into the sidings to stable the train.

As an aside, I wonder who/what 'Maliphant' was named for? The only time I've encountered the name, apart from the sidings, was as the surname of someone my father car-shared with, who was from the Swansea area.

[MR Chuffer]

Ilkeston Gt Northern (Derbys) - see NLS map

[The Johnster]

35 minutes ago, Fat Controller said:

Indeed; using the carriage washer would involve propelling towards Landore, then drawing back down into the station, before setting back into the sidings to stable the train.

As an aside, I wonder who/what 'Maliphant' was named for? The only time I've encountered the name, apart from the sidings, was as the surname of someone my father car-shared with, who was from the Swansea area.

We have a Malefant (spelt like that ) Street in in Cathays, Cardiff.  Which throws no extra illumination on the subject, but I thought I’d relieve myself of the burden of this knowledge...

[The Johnster]

Googling Maliphant is interesting; it is apparently a ‘gentry’ name from pre-Norman times associated with Essex, but the origin of the word is apparently French, derived from ‘mal enfant’; naughty or sickly child.  But it’s modern occurrence as a family surname is concentrated in West Glamorgan and Southeastern Carms.   Perhaps the old nobility acquired land in the area.  
 

A similar situation applied to the Wyndham family, Normans who by marriage into Welsh families came into possession of land in the Bridgend area before the 1066 invasion, and whose roots are in Whyndmondham in Suffolk. They fought on the Saxon side at Hastings. 

[Harlequin]

@Rowsley17D of this parish (!) is using Buxton Midland station as inspiration for a layout. That station had a large engine shed and coal yard(?) kickback complex accessed from a really tiny headshunt alongside the train shed.

I'm not sure what the reasons were for such an apparently awkward arrangement.

 

Edited July 13, 2020 by Harlequin
kickback

[Fat Controller]

6 minutes ago, Harlequin said:

@Rowsley17D of this parish (!) is using Buxton Midland station as inspiration for a layout. That station had a large engine shed and coal yard(?) complex accessed from a really tiny headshunt alongside the train shed.

I'm not sure what the reasons were for such an apparently awkward arrangement.

 

To this day, the route from the L&NWR station on to the former Midland line to Miller's Dale, and to the former L&NWR line to Hindlow involve running round at the sidings at Buxton. Working from either location towards Stockport involves propelling from the sidings into Platform 2 at the former L&NWR station, then changing direction again through the crossover to pick up the Down Main. I recommend a look at the relevant Quail, accompanied by a strong cup of tea...