Headshunt shorter than sidings

[Chris Dark]

Hi All,

 

Whist planning my layout i typically spend hours trawling through map websites for inspiration, whilst i know these maps are not completely accurate or scaled one thing that seems common are headhsunts which are shorter than the sidings they serve, i have attached a plan of Bishop's Nympton from 1903 which clearly indicates the headhsunt for the 2 sidings is significantly shorter, as already said i appreciate this isn't fully to scale but there is more than enough difference to suggest my observation is correct.

 

I guess my questions is why would this be the case, is this due to available land? operation? On the face of it the shorter sidings limits the number of wagons that can be shunted and would likely take longer. Rightly or wrongly, when planing my layout i try to make my headshunt longer than the sidings to allow full flexibility.

 

I would appreciate any thoughts on this.

 

Many Thanks

 

[Happy Hippo]

The way such a station would be shunted would be for the goods train to stand in the platform and only those wagons that needed to be dropped off would be put into the sidings.

 

No doubt the head shunt was deemed long enough to cater for the envisaged traffic otherwise it would be longer.  

 

The goods yard was obviously designed by a railway modeller, as two sidings trailing off the main would probably make shunting the sidings a lot easier, especially if you had to pick out a couple of wagons from the middle of the train.

 

In later years the siding not serving the goods shed was removed, which is a statement about the decline in goods traffic.

Edited September 1, 2020 by Happy Hippo

[Zomboid]

The yard would probably have been shunted by horse or pinch bar, which would have been one at a time, so a long headshunt wouldn't have offered a great benefit.

[Jeremy Cumberland]

5 hours ago, Chris Dark said:

I guess my questions is why would this be the case, is this due to available land?

Geography, perhaps. I cannot imagine anyone choosing to build a two-track embankment if they could avoid it. However, I agree that this headshunt does look particularly short.

[Kris]

Interesting location of the cattle pens. Not where I would expect to see them given the extra shunting required to get the wagons to/from them. 

[Wheatley]

The loop was extended westwards in 1902 according to Wikipedia, if the 1903 map actually shows the 1903 layout then the short headshunt may have been a compromise to add the additional running line whilst avoiding additional earthworks. The loop itself was added on arches alongside the original embankment rather than a widened embankment so there may have been local landowner issues. I suspect the odd layout and the need for a headshunt at all is a result of the piecemeal addition and later extension of the loop.

 

A long headshunt is often something of a modellerism though, you only need one if you expect to handle long trains regularly. For dropping off a couple of wagons from a stopping goods marshall them at the front and leave the rest of the train on the running line as Happy Hippo suggests. 

Edited September 1, 2020 by Wheatley

[The Stationmaster]

Seems my post of yesterday has vanished (or didn't arrive) for some reason; here it is.

 

One look at the map explains why the headshunt was so short - the railway was on embankment and that wasn't wide enough for more than one line beyond the end of the headshunt.  So clearly the expected level of traffic wasn't considered enough to justify spending money on extra earthworks for a longer headshunt.  

 

From then on the job was relatively simple -  if traffic was busy, i.e. there were more wagons than the headshunt could hold, then the job would have to be done in a couple of bites.  As all the goods services booked to work there were allowed 10 minutes 1911 - when traffic would probably have been at its height over the whole life of the station - I doubt it was a particularly busy place except at seasonal peaks (if there were any).

 

'Wheatley's point about modellers being into long headshunts is very well observed.  In this layout of course a headshunt was essential but generally they were not provided as widely as modellers seem to think they were nor we they really necessary wayside stations.  So trains did their shunting from the running line and of course whenever possible vehicles were marshalled in station order for detachment in order to save time. 

 

Generally freights were booked a relatively short time to shunt at a wayside station unless there was something special such as an awkward layout with sidings off several connections or there was an unusual traffic need.  Added to that of course was the generally infrequent  pattern of train services on many routes plus if there was a need to get a freight out of the way it would be shunted into a refuge sidings (called a 'layby' by some Companies) which was completely separate from a goods yard - in wartime years, in particular, some refuge sidings were subsequently converted to become loops.

[DCB]

The head shunt shorter than the sidings only really becomes an issue when you compress the track plan to make a model,  A headshunt holding a dozen wagons will probably be entirely adequate even if the theoretical capacity of the sidings may be three times that, however a four wagon headshunt  with  twelve wagon siding capacity is a real pain if you want to deliver and remove six wagons.    

Some prototype track layouts just don't work when compressed.

[kevinlms]

3 hours ago, DavidCBroad said:

The head shunt shorter than the sidings only really becomes an issue when you compress the track plan to make a model,  A headshunt holding a dozen wagons will probably be entirely adequate even if the theoretical capacity of the sidings may be three times that, however a four wagon headshunt  with  twelve wagon siding capacity is a real pain if you want to deliver and remove six wagons.    

Some prototype track layouts just don't work when compressed.

You always have to be careful with compression. Freezer was always careful on his track plans to clarify, that those with a centre operating well, wouldn't work with TT or N Gauge!

[roythebus]

Another thing modellers tend to forget is that wagons weren't shunted just for the fun of it. they were usually shunted to the correct place for loading or unloading and left there until ready for collection in the future. A wagon wouldn't just be moved from one road to another for the sake of it.

 

Besides, a short headshunt makes the operator think a bit more about how he (or she) is going to go about getting the train marshalled correctly.

[MarauderLLC]

Biy late on this one but camberley station in Surrey had a very short head shunt and once had a nasty accident when the engine came off the end down the embankment and onto park street

[Rivercider]

As I understand it on the North Devon line the small marshalling yard at Yeoford

was used to sort traffic for North Devon, Bude, Padstow etc, and sort wagons into station order.

This would reduce the amount of shunting required at intermediate stations like Bishop's Nympton,

 

cheers

[KeithMacdonald]

One of the features of the NLS version of these old OS maps is the visible grid, distance and ruler.

https://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/#zoom=18&lat=51.02517&lon=-3.73127&layers=168&b=1

 

Which makes it fairly easy to get it into AnyRail at the correct scale. After that, we can measure the scale distance of that infamously short headshunt, which comes out at 60cm in OO gauge flextrack. Long enough for (say) a GWR 0-6-0 Pannier, two cattle wagons and two milk wagons? The siding into the Goods Shed is 120cm long.

 

 

 

Edited April 23, 2021 by KeithMacdonald
typo.

[KeithMacdonald]

On 23/04/2021 at 19:03, Rivercider said:

As I understand it on the North Devon line the small marshalling yard at Yeoford

was used to sort traffic for North Devon, Bude, Padstow etc, and sort wagons into station order.

 

That's good to know. I'd wondered why Yeoford had so many sidings. :-)

 

[Rivercider]

35 minutes ago, KeithMacdonald said:

 

That's good to know. I'd wondered why Yeoford had so many sidings. :-)

 

 

I believe a lot of freight was sent 'rough' marshalled west from Exmouth Junction to Yeoford. In WWII more sidings were laid at Yeoford, another three I think.

It was quite a busy place at one time, there was also transhipment of parcels between the Plymouth and Barnstaple route, there was even a refreshment room presumably used by passengers changing trains,

 

cheers 

[caradoc]

On 01/09/2020 at 13:12, Happy Hippo said:

The goods yard was obviously designed by a railway modeller, as two sidings trailing off the main would probably make shunting the sidings a lot easier, especially if you had to pick out a couple of wagons from the middle of the train.

 

Interesting too that the headshunt is accessed by a facing point from a passenger line; I would have thought that was fairly unusual ? 

 

[DLT]

Just a quick clarification, the original question was about Bishops Nympton & Molland station, on the GW Taunton to Barnstaple line, and not Kings Nympton on the SR Exeter to Barnstaple route. 

  The point remains though, that vehicles for intermediate stations would be marshalled in the correct order, to simplify shunting en route.

 

[Rivercider]

22 minutes ago, DLT said:

Just a quick clarification, the original question was about Bishops Nympton & Molland station, on the GW Taunton to Barnstaple line, and not Kings Nympton on the SR Exeter to Barnstaple route. 

  The point remains though, that vehicles for intermediate stations would be marshalled in the correct order, to simplify shunting en route.

 

Oops, schoolboy error there by me!

 

I see though from the Middleton Press book about Taunton to Barnstaple that it seems to be a feature of the line that several stations seemed to have sidings served by relatively short head shunts at various times: Milverton, Morebath, East Anstey and South Molton were all a little similar,

 

cheers   

[Titanius Anglesmith]

15 hours ago, caradoc said:

 

Interesting too that the headshunt is accessed by a facing point from a passenger line; I would have thought that was fairly unusual ? 

 

 

Completely different region, but Laindon on the LT&SR had facing access to the headshunt added in the 1930s. Prior to that the only access was a trailing point in the conventional fashion. Laindon was (still is) on a busy commuter route, so the facing point was probably added to enable goods trains to clear the main line more quickly. 

 

The LT&SR actually had a number of other sidings with facing access for various reasons. 

Edited April 29, 2021 by Titanius Anglesmith

[kevinlms]

On 24/04/2021 at 06:06, KeithMacdonald said:

One of the features of the NLS version of these old OS maps is the visible grid, distance and ruler.

https://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/#zoom=18&lat=51.02517&lon=-3.73127&layers=168&b=1

 

Which makes it fairly easy to get it into AnyRail at the correct scale. After that, we can measure the scale distance of that infamously short headshunt, which comes out at 60cm in OO gauge flextrack. Long enough for (say) a GWR 0-6-0 Pannier, two cattle wagons and two milk wagons? The siding into the Goods Shed is 120cm long.

 

 

 

It looks like the layout of the station has caused the short headshunt.

At the RHS the presence of the bridge stops the platform from easily being extended that way.

It looks like the platform has been extended at the LHS for longer trains? This has caused all the yard points to be moved to the left, which eventually affects the length due to the problems at the end of the headshunt, caused by the embankment.

This has already been pointed out by The Stationmaster.

 

As for the facing points into the yard. It was preferred to not to do so, but as long as facing point locks were provided, it was allowable in certain circumstances.

Putting the yard points off the other track of the pair, followed by a diamond/single slip, may have caused the points, to go even further left, and potentially shortening the headshunt further.

 

It all looks like the problem was caused by a pioneering railway company, not providing sufficient space in the first place!

[DCB]

East Anstey and South Molton the stations each side of Bishops Nympton also had this arrangement of a short headshunt accessed from a running  line by a facing point.  This is shown on the 1874 maps and presumably worked.  It's handy if the passenger can't stop as they can set the road for the yard rather than have it hit something coming the other way head on.   It couldn't have been much of an issue,  but it does allow shnting to take place with a train approaching which would not be possible if it was a trailing conncetion and needed the main line as a shunting neck.  I'm guessing the section woud be occupied for 6 to 10 minutes as a train approached.

[The Stationmaster]

2 hours ago, DavidCBroad said:

East Anstey and South Molton the stations each side of Bishops Nympton also had this arrangement of a short headshunt accessed from a running  line by a facing point.  This is shown on the 1874 maps and presumably worked.  It's handy if the passenger can't stop as they can set the road for the yard rather than have it hit something coming the other way head on.   It couldn't have been much of an issue,  but it does allow shnting to take place with a train approaching which would not be possible if it was a trailing conncetion and needed the main line as a shunting neck.  I'm guessing the section woud be occupied for 6 to 10 minutes as a train approached.

Actually that was not the case as all three places had a trap point situated in advance of the connection to the siding and the trap was protected by the Section Signal.  Thus the facing connection towards the spur would have to stand at normal, and be bolted by the FPL,  both in order for a train to be accepted - from the signal box in rear - towards that line and in order to clear the Home Signal.   And if there was something approaching on the single line from the opposite direction the trap would be standing normal (i.e. set to derail)  in order to avoid delaying an approaching train at the Home signal

 

In any event (unless, unusually, Regulation 5 was authorised) shunting could only take place if the entire train being shunted could be shut in the sidings, irrespective of the way they were laid out, before another train could be accepted towards the line on which that train had been standing before before shunting clear of that running line.

[Chris Dark]

Hi All,

 

Thanks for the replies, I have just seen the latest comments.

 

The talk regarding short headhunts due to sorted trains makes perfect sense.

 

The point regarding headshunts not being widely provided I don't necessarily agree with from my experience (typically involves reviewing historic maps). The vast majority of wayside stations, typically on single line branches have a similar arrangement of headshunt accessed via facing points with sidings accessed reversely from the headshunt, as per the station map in my first post.

 

[The Stationmaster]

1 hour ago, Chris Dark said:

 

The point regarding headshunts not being widely provided I don't necessarily agree with from my experience (typically involves reviewing historic maps). The vast majority of wayside stations, typically on single line branches have a similar arrangement of headshunt accessed via facing points with sidings accessed reversely from the headshunt, as per the station map in my first post.

 

Where as a matter on interest?  

 

Certainly not in the West of England because while there werea number of locations on single lines accessed in that manner it definitely wasn't a majority going from signal box diagrams.  And, as ever, I would be very careful regarding the accuracy of things like OS maps - generally available signal box diagrams are going to be far more accurate.  And of course the ultimate in some places was that while a connection might have been facing it could only be shunted by a train making a reversing movement (e.g Thorverton after the trainling connection was replaced by a facing connection in 1933). 

[Chris Dark]

29 minutes ago, The Stationmaster said:

Where as a matter on interest?  

 

Certainly not in the West of England because while there werea number of locations on single lines accessed in that manner it definitely wasn't a majority going from signal box diagrams.  And, as ever, I would be very careful regarding the accuracy of things like OS maps - generally available signal box diagrams are going to be far more accurate.  And of course the ultimate in some places was that while a connection might have been facing it could only be shunted by a train making a reversing movement (e.g Thorverton after the trainling connection was replaced by a facing connection in 1933). 

Sorry, my comment was referring more about the provision of a headshunt rather than whether it was accessed via a trailing / facing connection.

 

St Kews Highway and Port Isaac Road being two that spring to mind.