Faringdon Branch

[KeithMacdonald]

Having reached Highworth (on the Highworth Branch), and sitting idly by (waiting for a slow train back to Swindon), @CME and Bottlewasher  and I were wondering what might-have-been if the line had ever gone beyond Highworth. One option was to go north to Lechlade, another option was to go east to join the Faringdon Branch.

 

The Faringdon Branch itself was only three miles long, from the town of the same name, to Uffington Junction where it joined the Paddington-Swindon mainline.

 

 

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On 1 June 1864, Faringdon found itself with a railway station (photo 1919) at the end of a branch line off the main London to Bristol route of the Great Western Railway (GWR). To be more accurate it was actually a group of prominent local men and their supporters who, acting on their own initiative, built their own 3½ mile railway extension. The Faringdon Railway Company as it was called was forced to sell to the GWR in 1881 at a price of £9,250.

Ref: http://www.fdahs.org.uk/railway/

 

 

What sort of traffic did it have (you might ask)?

 

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Within 5 years of it opening, between 150 and 180 churns of milk and 200 tons of aggregate a week left the station to join the main line at Uffington. From the time of the closure of the Faringdon spur to passenger traffic in 1951 until the final closure of all traffic in 1963, Faringdon was used as a central distribution point for goods for the area – Wantage, Lambourne, Lechlade, Cirencester, Fairford, etc. The goods were brought to Faringdon Station by train and then distributed by horse-drawn cart and later by lorry. The station was surrounded by cattle pens, which were filled up on market day, the first Thursday every month, to await collection by cattle trucks. Other large regular items were the delivery of coal for the gas works in Canada Lane and tarmac and stone for the roads around the district.

 

Sounds like a lovely mix of all sorts of things for modelling.

 

 

 

[KeithMacdonald]

Shall we start at Faringdon Station?

 

 

Lots of nice items here for modelling.

• Water tank
• Cattle pens
• Goods shed
• Main station with station building
• Coal stathes?
• Engine shed

Anyone spot anything else?

[KeithMacdonald]

Looking at the kind of passenger trains that are show here ...

http://www.faringdon.org/railway-station.html

... it looks very much like the "0-6-0 plus two surburban coaches" that the Highworth branch used.

 

Would the two branches have been more viable if they had joined and become one "Faringdon and Highworth Branch"? They could have shared the same timetable and the same trains. With more opportunity for through-services and more freight.

 

 

[CME and Bottlewasher]

Well done Keith - another interesting railway and topic.

 

I know very little about the Faringdon Branch, other than the things that I outlined on the Highworth Branch thread.

 

I have fond memories of standing in the old station yard at the nearby Shrivenham station (by then just a platform with a prefab warehouse atop) and watching protype HSTs then in service HST's fly by - very exciting for a young boy. We later took my friend's son to the same spot for a similar experience when he was very young too - a good lad who's just turned 18 now (how time flies! Eeekkkk!).

 

If time and energy permits I must dig out old books and notes, the joining up of Highworth, Faringdon, Lechlade/Fairford - even Cirencester and Tetbury branches etc would have, I suspect, been, a worthwhile exercise at one time. And iirc, several ancient schemes were mooted.

Edited May 29, 2021 by CME and Bottlewasher

[KeithMacdonald]

At the other end of the branch: Uffington Junction.

 

By my reckoning, counting the gird squares, it was around 2,000 yards from east to west. About a mile and a quarter long, or about 40 feet of OO gauge track.

 

Western half:

 

 

Eastern half:

 

 

[KeithMacdonald]

Looking at the central section in more detail ...

 

 

... one can see the island/up platform with a footbridge to the down platform on the mainline.

 

But something seems strange to me. It looks like any train arriving from Faringdon would sit straddling the points for the run-around loop. Or perhaps it would pull forward and then reverse into the loop?

 

 

[F2Andy]

That is a nice station... But  think that should be a diamond crossing east of the station from the down line to the siding north east, rather than a cross-over and points into the siding.

 

That does not help your loop at all, which does seem odd, and very small compared to the one at the other end of the line.

[KeithMacdonald]

@F2Andy - Thanks for the feedback

 

Now with diamond crossings east of the station. It certainly does help smooth it out.

 

 

Also, using (cough) modellers license, I've rearranged the track in the station, and made the loop longer. I will blame it on the OS map.

 

 

The distance between the points on the branch-side of platform would now be about three feet. Enough room now for the prototypical Pannier and two-coach B-set?

 

 

 

 

[Vulcanspotter]

By the old Uffington Station  you can still find parts of the old trackbed on which interesting railway artifacts can be found such as this old signal and farmers bridge.

[2E Sub Shed]

On 30/05/2021 at 10:48, KeithMacdonald said:

But something seems strange to me. It looks like any train arriving from Faringdon would sit straddling the points for the run-around loop. Or perhaps it would pull forward and then reverse into the loop?

 

 

In Adrian Vaughan's "The Faringdon Branch & Uffington Station", it includes a drawing of the station layout, in which the right hand point of the run round loop is shown further to right (i.e. towards London), than the OS map extract included.

 

There is also a description (on page 85) of the signalman's actions when a locomotive was running round a train (shown in one pictures as a 2-coach train), which does not mention the action of pulling forward or reversing the train.  However the description of the operation identifies that it required 21 lever movements to achieve this.

[KeithMacdonald]

Thanks to Michael Clemens' Railways and the collection of WTTs

http://www.michaelclemensrailways.co.uk/?atk=619

 

From the BRISTOL AREA FROM SEP 1949 D.pdf, page 275

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Single line worked by train staff, and only one engine in steam at a time (or two or more coupled)

 

More Mixed or Milk than Passenger services?

 

[Karhedron]

On 29/05/2021 at 15:51, KeithMacdonald said:

Shall we start at Faringdon Station?

 

 

Lots of nice items here for modelling.

• Water tank
• Cattle pens
• Goods shed
• Main station with station building
• Coal stathes?
• Engine shed

Anyone spot anything else?

 

In 1935 the engine shed was bought by Express Dairy and converted for dispatching milk tanks. Prior to that date the milk went out in churns.

 

By the 1950s, there was also a large timber yard and sawmill on the west side of the line, by the station throat. I don't know if the timber was dispatched by rail though.