Prototype practice in Lampeter

[br2975]

Lampeter, 1970

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Photographer unknown.

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[Fat Controller]

17 hours ago, Nevermakeit said:

Thank you. Useful information about the use of the goods shed and spacing of sidings. I have seen photos of a wagon-based crane at the end of a siding at Lampeter - is that likely to have been based there for use in the yard, or was it just there on the occasion of the photo? Even when you have the evidence, it is difficult to make sense of it sometimes! 

According to the plan in R H Clark, Volume 1(?), there was a 6t crane on the outside of the outside siding (No. 5), so it looks as though the wagon-mounted crane might be for use elsewhere.

The difference between the number of sidings might be that one plan is a signalling diagram, which possibly wouldn't show every siding in the yard, as they wouldn't have been controlled by the 'box.

[The Stationmaster]

1 hour ago, Fat Controller said:

According to the plan in R H Clark, Volume 1(?), there was a 6t crane on the outside of the outside siding (No. 5), so it looks as though the wagon-mounted crane might be for use elsewhere.

The difference between the number of sidings might be that one plan is a signalling diagram, which possibly wouldn't show every siding in the yard, as they wouldn't have been controlled by the 'box.

According to the 'Official Handbook of Stations' (1935 edition) Lampeter had a 6 ton crane.  If a rail mounted crane shows up in pictures we first need a date to try to h get an idea of what it was doing there but it is in any event highly unlikely that it was there for freight traffic reasons - the (G)WR had plenty of road mobile cranes for that sort of thing and I am faiely sure that all the rail mounted cranes belonged to one of the engineering depts so would be used by them - not for traffic reasons.

 

This might be an opportune time to sort out and correct some of the utter nonsense previously posted in this thread about freight traffic - if anyone is interested in the real facts?   Lampeter is listed as handling all classes of freight and passenger traffic.  according the 1938 edition of the GWR's 'Towns and Villages' directory it still had a cartage service in that year so could still collect and deliver consignments over a specified area.  what that means is that it had not lost its own cartage as a result of any Zonal reorganisations most of which had taken place earlier in the 1930s. 

 

It is shown as handling all classes of freight traffic which effectively means anything that could be carried in or on a railway wagon.  freight traffic was divided into numerous 'classes' which reflected the nature of the goods and potential problems in handling them.  a simple way of looking at it is to think of a ton of feathers and a ton of roadstone - both weigh one ton but the volume they would take i up varies massively so a ton of feathers would take up much more space in a wagon, or wagons, that a ton of roadstone.  hence the tonnage rate for feathers would be much higher than the tonnage rate for roadstone.  Most wagon load rates were built around a charge per mile until around the 1950s/60s but what were called 'goods smalls'. consignments of less than 1 ton and often laded to a wagon with other consignments had seen some movement to what were called zonal rates by the 1930s.   Post 1948 zonal rates became almost universal for goods smalls with some traffic from large consignors being charged at wa hat was known as an 'Agreed Flat Rate'

 

In terms of freight charges and handling the railways were hobbled by two things - firstly they were a Common Carrier' - i.e. they had to convey almost every traffic which they were offered (unless they could refuse it on account of it being dangerous or it simply wouldn't fir within the loading gauge.  That stipulation had arisen in the 19th century as a legal way of protecting canals from railway competition but it hung on longer after the decline of the canals and wasn't rescinded until the 1961 Transport Act.   The other problem resulted from the 1921 Railway Act which created a body called the Railway Rates Tribunal which had the legal in certain circumstances to impose rates on the Railways.  The other part of the tribunal's role was even worse as it was empowered. to hear complaints  from anybody who questioned a particular rate the Railways were charging for any sort of freight traffic.  thus a competitor road haulier or canal company could go to the Tribunal and complain about a rate being charged by teh Railways for a particular traffic and the tribunal could force a reduction of the rate.  fortunately the Tribunal was abolished by the 1947 transport act but the newly established British Transport Commission still j had soem of the Tribunal's powers although effectively it meant it was arguing with itself.  the last of those powers were abolished by the 1961 Transport Act but whether they had actually been used in the preceding 14 years would seem unlikely.  The other imposition the 1921 Act imposed was that the Railways were required to publish their freight rates and classes for freight traffic - making it even easier for competitors to get at them via the Tribunal.

 

right that's background to how traffic was charged.  We then come to the basic sub-division and the important bit as far as a model is concerned.  -  mileage traffic as it was known and 'goods smalls'.  Most mileage traffic was handled in open sidings at smaller stations being transferred to or from road vehicles as a wagon was unloaded/loaded.   Sometimes traffic would be put to ground if there was aneed to quickly empty a wagon and many coal merchants also put their traffic to ground especially when trade was slack or they left it in wagons (see below).   Smalls traffic was dealt with through a shed, the goods shed, where it could be sorted under  cover waiting to be delivered or sorted to the correct outward wagon when it arrived by road.    The shed therefore need a platform - known as 'the deck' between the rail served side and the road side and possibly also witha secure storage area if traffic was warehoused.  In some case certain mileage traffics might be dealt with through the shed but mainly only if they were for warehousing or if it was a milti-consignee load - but that was unusual.   So Lampeter had a shed road - for wagons to be dealt with in the goods shed plus mileage sidings some of which might well have been kept for specific traffics - for example coal wiuld usually be dealt with in the same place and obviously stuff requiring cranage would need to be near the crane.

 

That's enough for now and more to add - if folk are not bored.

[Nevermakeit]

1 hour ago, The Stationmaster said:

According to the 'Official Handbook of Stations' (1935 edition) Lampeter had a 6 ton crane.  If a rail mounted crane shows up in pictures we first need a date to try to h get an idea of what it was doing there but it is in any event highly unlikely that it was there for freight traffic reasons - the (G)WR had plenty of road mobile cranes for that sort of thing and I am faiely sure that all the rail mounted cranes belonged to one of the engineering depts so would be used by them - not for traffic reasons.

 

This might be an opportune time to sort out and correct some of the utter nonsense previously posted in this thread about freight traffic - if anyone is interested in the real facts?   Lampeter is listed as handling all classes of freight and passenger traffic.  according the 1938 edition of the GWR's 'Towns and Villages' directory it still had a cartage service in that year so could still collect and deliver consignments over a specified area.  what that means is that it had not lost its own cartage as a result of any Zonal reorganisations most of which had taken place earlier in the 1930s. 

 

It is shown as handling all classes of freight traffic which effectively means anything that could be carried in or on a railway wagon.  freight traffic was divided into numerous 'classes' which reflected the nature of the goods and potential problems in handling them.  a simple way of looking at it is to think of a ton of feathers and a ton of roadstone - both weigh one ton but the volume they would take i up varies massively so a ton of feathers would take up much more space in a wagon, or wagons, that a ton of roadstone.  hence the tonnage rate for feathers would be much higher than the tonnage rate for roadstone.  Most wagon load rates were built around a charge per mile until around the 1950s/60s but what were called 'goods smalls'. consignments of less than 1 ton and often laded to a wagon with other consignments had seen some movement to what were called zonal rates by the 1930s.   Post 1948 zonal rates became almost universal for goods smalls with some traffic from large consignors being charged at wa hat was known as an 'Agreed Flat Rate'

 

In terms of freight charges and handling the railways were hobbled by two things - firstly they were a Common Carrier' - i.e. they had to convey almost every traffic which they were offered (unless they could refuse it on account of it being dangerous or it simply wouldn't fir within the loading gauge.  That stipulation had arisen in the 19th century as a legal way of protecting canals from railway competition but it hung on longer after the decline of the canals and wasn't rescinded until the 1961 Transport Act.   The other problem resulted from the 1921 Railway Act which created a body called the Railway Rates Tribunal which had the legal in certain circumstances to impose rates on the Railways.  The other part of the tribunal's role was even worse as it was empowered. to hear complaints  from anybody who questioned a particular rate the Railways were charging for any sort of freight traffic.  thus a competitor road haulier or canal company could go to the Tribunal and complain about a rate being charged by teh Railways for a particular traffic and the tribunal could force a reduction of the rate.  fortunately the Tribunal was abolished by the 1947 transport act but the newly established British Transport Commission still j had soem of the Tribunal's powers although effectively it meant it was arguing with itself.  the last of those powers were abolished by the 1961 Transport Act but whether they had actually been used in the preceding 14 years would seem unlikely.  The other imposition the 1921 Act imposed was that the Railways were required to publish their freight rates and classes for freight traffic - making it even easier for competitors to get at them via the Tribunal.

 

right that's background to how traffic was charged.  We then come to the basic sub-division and the important bit as far as a model is concerned.  -  mileage traffic as it was known and 'goods smalls'.  Most mileage traffic was handled in open sidings at smaller stations being transferred to or from road vehicles as a wagon was unloaded/loaded.   Sometimes traffic would be put to ground if there was aneed to quickly empty a wagon and many coal merchants also put their traffic to ground especially when trade was slack or they left it in wagons (see below).   Smalls traffic was dealt with through a shed, the goods shed, where it could be sorted under  cover waiting to be delivered or sorted to the correct outward wagon when it arrived by road.    The shed therefore need a platform - known as 'the deck' between the rail served side and the road side and possibly also witha secure storage area if traffic was warehoused.  In some case certain mileage traffics might be dealt with through the shed but mainly only if they were for warehousing or if it was a milti-consignee load - but that was unusual.   So Lampeter had a shed road - for wagons to be dealt with in the goods shed plus mileage sidings some of which might well have been kept for specific traffics - for example coal wiuld usually be dealt with in the same place and obviously stuff requiring cranage would need to be near the crane.

 

That's enough for now and more to add - if folk are not bored.

Happy to hear more! Would it be true to say that goods smalls would tend to be carried in vans and mileage traffic in open wagons, or would it depend on the load being carried? Thanks 

[The Stationmaster]

6 minutes ago, Nevermakeit said:

Happy to hear more! Would it be true to say that goods smalls would tend to be carried in vans and mileage traffic in open wagons, or would it depend on the load being carried? Thanks 

Yes, and no.  It depends to a large extent on period but also to some extent on the traffic.  So for example barrels of oil or acid in glass carboys would inevitably be in open wagons although sometimes they might be as a full load in the case of oil barrels but might go through teh shed to be sorted for delivery.  Over the years the use of vans increased but I think it is generally reasonable to say that from the early days f what were known as 'Station Trucks' there was alsways some smalls traffic which passed in vans.

 

Taking that firward it is probably helpful now to look at how traffic passed or was dealt with.  Firstly the term 'inwards' traffic meant stuff that arrived by rail while 'outwards' was stuff that came to teh station for fowarding by rail.  Freigfh traffic was also divided into another series of categories these being delivered, or collected, or collected and delivered (most smalls traffic tended to be collected and delivered).  There was then another series of categories which came under the same overall acronym of S-to-S where the s in either case stood for either station or siding.  For example coal coming from a colliery to a local station was 'siding - to -station'. Whereas a wagon loaded at another goods station coming to a goods station was 'station-to-station'.  And there would be a different set of rates (i.e. charges) for these different methods of transit.   Additionally some traffic would be categorised - either for collection, or for delivery, or for both as CBP which meant 'Carted By Public', i.e. the customer's road vehicle did the collection or delivery part of the job.  To correct something posted earlier there was no such thing as TBCF for freight traffic - TBCF (To Be Called For) only applied to parcels traffic.

 

If traffic arrived that was down to the customer to collect they would be advised when it was ready for collection and if it was - as was usually the case - wagonload traffic they would be allowed the day of advice plus one other day after which they would be charged what was known as demurrage on a daily nbasis for the wagon which could not be either reloaded or sent on empty elsewhere.  Demutrrage could only be charged on railway owned wagons so in the days of private owner wagons being used, particularly for coal the re railway could not charge demurrage if the wagon was not promptly cleared but instead they charged Siding Rent' which was in effect.a  fee for occupying a stretch of siding space.  Demurrage was not a very large amount and in post 1948 years one trick adiopted by many coal merchants was to buy fuel cheap at summer prices and hang on to it to retail to customers after the higher winter prices had come in.  In that case they could be paying a few months worth of demurrage but they still could make a profit on the deal because of their saving by buying at the summer price.

 

I expect the Middleton Press book for the route might gve some tonnage figures for various categories of traffic for sample years and it might also give a lead to some of the traffics handled at Lampeter although beinga largely agricultural area would give a strong hint about what could be seen at various times of year and how traffics changed over the years (as they did in agricultural areas due to such things as growth of sugar beet cultivation or the introduction and increased use of artificial fertilisers.   I would have thought dairying was the predominant agricultural activity but that is more of an ing formed guess rather than speaking from knowledge.

 

Prior to WWII there were two or three trip freights daily running bin each direction between Carmarthen and Aberystwyth and taking along time to do the trip, for example the 06.40 frm Caramarthen was booked to take 9 hours to get to Aberystwyth shunting at virtually all stations en-route.  The first Down freight of the day was the Caramarthen - Aberayron trip which spent over an hour at Lampeter - in part waiting to get ont the branch.  The long sidings now start to make a little sense because they would allow room to hold a train clear of the main running lines when passenger trains needed or cross or overtake a freight.

 

All the freight trips ran in the morning/early afternoon and thos pattern remained similar in 1949 although by then the first Carmarthen - Aberystwyth trip started later at 07.10 and got to Aberystwyth much earlier than its pre-war arrival  time.  But overall all the freight trips had a reasonable amount of time at Lampeter but whether or not they had any work to do is a different matter.  Basically a goods yard would normally have its inwards traffic set out in the morning and hopefully before that start of teh working day for the day time staff - but that didn't happen everywhere and some times inwards might not arrive until mid-morning thus delaying the time for unloading to start.   Similarly because the freight trips ran no later than early afternoon any work on loading finishing later in the day would mean the wagon would not be forwarded until the following day.

 

Normal practice with local trips (and in this case local meant almost 58 miles for a Carmarthen -Aberystwyth train) wre formed in what was called 'station order' - in other words the wagins were marshalled into the train according to their destination station and the sections for each station were arranged in the order that simplified shunting at the intermediate station where a train might only be allowed a few minutes to detach any traffic or to both detach and attach wagons.  In some cases a train might have to be reformed en-route in order t get stuff back into the correct order after wagons had been picked.  In addition traffic might even be sectionalised to allow quick shunting of particular wagons - shed traffic would generally be more urgent than most full loads/mileage traffic so wouldn't be mixed up with it.

 

Hope that takes you a few steps further?  unless you have more questions on freight I'll move on to Passenger rated traffic next.

[WillCav]

Please continue Stationmaster,

This is all really interesting and will hopefully allow many of us to do things properly on our layouts.

Thanks

Will

P.s. ever thought of writing a book?

Edited June 3, 2021 by WillCav
Adding ps

[Harlequin]

In addition to Mike's invaluable discourse on goods handling there is a useful series of books on the subject: Atkins' "GWR Goods Train Working" (Vols 1 & 2) and "GWR Goods Cartage" (Vols 1 & 2) all published by Crecy.

 

[ejstubbs]

On 02/06/2021 at 13:14, Harlequin said:

Notice that the 1948 NLS map doesn't seem to show the milk siding opposite the yard (as far as I can see, anyway).

 

Edit: Further, "A Historical Survey of Great Western Stations Vol. 1" shows that there were four sidings in the yard on the down side in 1913 and that the up siding was present at least from 1913 to c. 1958.

 

The NLS doesn't have any 25-inch OS maps of Lampeter, only 6-inch, and I never set much store in the accuracy of the track layouts at that scale.  Certainly none of the four editions that the NLS have online show the single siding on the up side of the loop.   However, old-maps.co.uk has two 25-inch maps of Lampeter: their copy of the 1905 25-inch map is a bit rough but the 1888-1889 one is not bad.  That clearly shows four sidings on the down side and on one the up, which would appear to match the information in Clark's book.

 

However however, there is a track plan for Lampeter in The Manchester and Milford Railway by J.S. Holden (Oakwood Press) which shows five sidings on the down side, and the one on the up side.  The additional siding on the down side runs parallel to the one which, on the 25-inch OS map, seems to run to an end loading dock.

 

Which author is correct - or whether changes might have taken place during the station's working life so that both could be correct, but at different dates - I don't know.  Holden's plan appears in chapter six of his book which is description of "a trip down the line" from Pencader to Aberystwyth.  Without giving a specific date, he opens the chapter with the phrase "A traveller of 100 years ago..."  Given that the book was first published in 1979 and revised in 2007, he could have been referring to 1879-ish (the line opened in 1867), or 1907-ish, if that was a detail that he bothered to revise for the second edition.  The description does state that "the subsequent site of Aberayron Junction" was passed about a mile north of Lampeter, but since the Lampeter, Aberayron & Newquay Light Railway (which never actually reached Newquay) didn't open until 1911, that doesn't really help to pin the intended date down.

 

On 02/06/2021 at 13:29, clachnaharry said:

The layout begs the question why did the goods yard have a direct connection to the single line, which requires a FPL when it looks like it could have had a trailing connection from the loop which would have considerably simplified the signalling and locking arrangements.

 

Holden's track plan shows access to the down side goods yard being a trailing connection from the down side of the loop.  The turnout into the yard is shown as being immediately before the turnout at the down end of the loop.  The 25-inch OS map appears to agree with this.  However, the view northwards at 11:25 in the video linked by the OP could be interpreted as showing that the SRS signal box diagram linked by The Stationmaster would be correct as of 1964 when the film was shot.

 

Unfortunately none of the photos of Lampeter in Holden's book are particularly helpful in resolving this apparent/possible discrepancy.  There is an aerial photo of Lampeter dated 1949 which shows part of the down side goods yard, and some wagons standing on what would appear to be the single siding on the up side.  Unfortunately the north end of the down side goods yard isn't very clear: squinting through a magnifying glass I can just about convince myself that there are double tracks roughly where the connection to the goods yard would be - in fact it seems to tally well with the OS map, including what looks like an unmetalled road crossing the two roads of the loop almost exactly where the connection to the down yard would come off the down side of the loop - but of course that last detail is obscured by a building of some kind!  Then again, I may be seeing detail that isn't really there...

 

Holden shows the loop starting at the 12¼ mile post and ending at the 12½ mile post (from Pencader Junction).  I'm just wondering whether the loop might have been shortened at some date, leaving the goods yard connection on the single track and thus facing for up trains.  Does the SRS signal box diagram have any indication of the length of the loop?  On the other hand, the only mention of changes to station layouts I've found in Holden's book is a mention of some crossing loops being extended at some point following the GWR's acquisition of the line in 1906.

 

It's all a bit confusing!

 

* Although I have rather more faith in the track layouts shown in 25-inch OS maps vs 6-inch, I don't consider that they can be taken as gospel.  If accuracy is important then they should always be checked against other sources if at all possible.

Edited June 9, 2021 by ejstubbs
Corrected error in OS map scale

[Harlequin]

44 minutes ago, ejstubbs said:

 

The NLS doesn't have any 2½-inch OS maps of Lampeter, only 6-inch, and I never set much store in the accuracy of the track layouts at that scale.  Certainly none of the four editions that the NLS have online show the single siding on the up side of the loop.   However, old-maps.co.uk has two 2½-inch maps of Lampeter: their copy of the 1905 2½-inch map is a bit rough but the 1888-1889 one is not bad.  That clearly shows four sidings on the down side and on one the up, which would appear to match the information in Clark's book.

 

However however, there is a track plan for Lampeter in The Manchester and Milford Railway by J.S. Holden (Oakwood Press) which shows five sidings on the down side, and the one on the up side.  The additional siding on the down side runs parallel to the one which, on the 2½-inch OS map, seems to run to an end loading dock.

 

Which author is correct - or whether changes might have taken place during the station's working life so that both could be correct, but at different dates - I don't know.  Holden's plan appears in chapter six of his book which is description of "a trip down the line" from Pencader to Aberystwyth.  Without giving a specific date, he opens the chapter with the phrase "A traveller of 100 years ago..."  Given that the book was first published in 1979 and revised in 2007, he could have been referring to 1879-ish (the line opened in 1867), or 1907-ish, if that was a detail that he bothered to revise for the second edition.  The description does state that "the subsequent site of Aberayron Junction" was passed about a mile north of Lampeter, but since the Lampeter, Aberayron & Newquay Light Railway (which never actually reached Newquay) didn't open until 1911, that doesn't really help to pin the intended date down.

 

 

Holden's track plan shows access to the down side goods yard being a trailing connection from the down side of the loop.  The turnout into the yard is shown as being immediately before the turnout at the down end of the loop.  The 2½-inch OS map appears to agree with this.  However, the view northwards at 11:25 in the video linked by the OP could be interpreted as showing that the SRS signal box diagram linked by The Stationmaster would be correct as of 1964 when the film was shot.

 

Unfortunately none of the photos of Lampeter in Holden's book are particularly helpful in resolving this apparent/possible discrepancy.  There is an aerial photo of Lampeter dated 1949 which shows part of the down side goods yard, and some wagons standing on what would appear to be the single siding on the up side.  Unfortunately the north end of the down side goods yard isn't very clear: squinting through a magnifying glass I can just about convince myself that there are double tracks roughly where the connection to the goods yard would be - in fact it seems to tally well with the OS map, including what looks like an unmetalled road crossing the two roads of the loop almost exactly where the connection to the down yard would come off the down side of the loop - but of course that last detail is obscured by a building of some kind!  Then again, I may be seeing detail that isn't really there...

 

Holden shows the loop starting at the 12¼ mile post and ending at the 12½ mile post (from Pencader Junction).  I'm just wondering whether the loop might have been shortened at some date, leaving the goods yard connection on the single track and thus facing for up trains.  Does the SRS signal box diagram have any indication of the length of the loop?  On the other hand, the only mention of changes to station layouts I've found in Holden's book is a mention of some crossing loops being extended at some point following the GWR's acquisition of the line in 1906.

 

It's all a bit confusing!

 

* Although I have rather more faith in the track layouts shown in 2½-inch OS maps vs 6-inch, I don't consider that they can be taken as gospel.  If accuracy is important then they should always be checked against other sources if at all possible.

I can clear one thing up: Clark does in fact show 5 sidings in the yard in 1913. I’m afraid I miscounted.

 

[Nevermakeit]

1 hour ago, ejstubbs said:

 

The NLS doesn't have any 2½-inch OS maps of Lampeter, only 6-inch, and I never set much store in the accuracy of the track layouts at that scale.  Certainly none of the four editions that the NLS have online show the single siding on the up side of the loop.   However, old-maps.co.uk has two 2½-inch maps of Lampeter: their copy of the 1905 2½-inch map is a bit rough but the 1888-1889 one is not bad.  That clearly shows four sidings on the down side and on one the up, which would appear to match the information in Clark's book.

 

However however, there is a track plan for Lampeter in The Manchester and Milford Railway by J.S. Holden (Oakwood Press) which shows five sidings on the down side, and the one on the up side.  The additional siding on the down side runs parallel to the one which, on the 2½-inch OS map, seems to run to an end loading dock.

 

Which author is correct - or whether changes might have taken place during the station's working life so that both could be correct, but at different dates - I don't know.  Holden's plan appears in chapter six of his book which is description of "a trip down the line" from Pencader to Aberystwyth.  Without giving a specific date, he opens the chapter with the phrase "A traveller of 100 years ago..."  Given that the book was first published in 1979 and revised in 2007, he could have been referring to 1879-ish (the line opened in 1867), or 1907-ish, if that was a detail that he bothered to revise for the second edition.  The description does state that "the subsequent site of Aberayron Junction" was passed about a mile north of Lampeter, but since the Lampeter, Aberayron & Newquay Light Railway (which never actually reached Newquay) didn't open until 1911, that doesn't really help to pin the intended date down.

 

 

Holden's track plan shows access to the down side goods yard being a trailing connection from the down side of the loop.  The turnout into the yard is shown as being immediately before the turnout at the down end of the loop.  The 2½-inch OS map appears to agree with this.  However, the view northwards at 11:25 in the video linked by the OP could be interpreted as showing that the SRS signal box diagram linked by The Stationmaster would be correct as of 1964 when the film was shot.

 

Unfortunately none of the photos of Lampeter in Holden's book are particularly helpful in resolving this apparent/possible discrepancy.  There is an aerial photo of Lampeter dated 1949 which shows part of the down side goods yard, and some wagons standing on what would appear to be the single siding on the up side.  Unfortunately the north end of the down side goods yard isn't very clear: squinting through a magnifying glass I can just about convince myself that there are double tracks roughly where the connection to the goods yard would be - in fact it seems to tally well with the OS map, including what looks like an unmetalled road crossing the two roads of the loop almost exactly where the connection to the down yard would come off the down side of the loop - but of course that last detail is obscured by a building of some kind!  Then again, I may be seeing detail that isn't really there...

 

Holden shows the loop starting at the 12¼ mile post and ending at the 12½ mile post (from Pencader Junction).  I'm just wondering whether the loop might have been shortened at some date, leaving the goods yard connection on the single track and thus facing for up trains.  Does the SRS signal box diagram have any indication of the length of the loop?  On the other hand, the only mention of changes to station layouts I've found in Holden's book is a mention of some crossing loops being extended at some point following the GWR's acquisition of the line in 1906.

 

It's all a bit confusing!

 

* Although I have rather more faith in the track layouts shown in 2½-inch OS maps vs 6-inch, I don't consider that they can be taken as gospel.  If accuracy is important then they should always be checked against other sources if at all possible.

Would any changes to the layout have needed some sort of planning permission? 

[Wheatley]

13 hours ago, Nevermakeit said:

Thank you - very informative. Are they available in model form? Thanks 

 

Wills do a set of generic point rodding which includes an FPL and cover. 

 

https://peco-uk.com/products/oo-ho-point-rodding

[Nevermakeit]

2 hours ago, The Stationmaster said:

Yes, and no.  It depends to a large extent on period but also to some extent on the traffic.  So for example barrels of oil or acid in glass carboys would inevitably be in open wagons although sometimes they might be as a full load in the case of oil barrels but might go through teh shed to be sorted for delivery.  Over the years the use of vans increased but I think it is generally reasonable to say that from the early days f what were known as 'Station Trucks' there was alsways some smalls traffic which passed in vans.

 

Taking that firward it is probably helpful now to look at how traffic passed or was dealt with.  Firstly the term 'inwards' traffic meant stuff that arrived by rail while 'outwards' was stuff that came to teh station for fowarding by rail.  Freigfh traffic was also divided into another series of categories these being delivered, or collected, or collected and delivered (most smalls traffic tended to be collected and delivered).  There was then another series of categories which came under the same overall acronym of S-to-S where the s in either case stood for either station or siding.  For example coal coming from a colliery to a local station was 'siding - to -station'. Whereas a wagon loaded at another goods station coming to a goods station was 'station-to-station'.  And there would be a different set of rates (i.e. charges) for these different methods of transit.   Additionally some traffic would be categorised - either for collection, or for delivery, or for both as CBP which meant 'Carted By Public', i.e. the customer's road vehicle did the collection or delivery part of the job.  To correct something posted earlier there was no such thing as TBCF for freight traffic - TBCF (To Be Called For) only applied to parcels traffic.

 

If traffic arrived that was down to the customer to collect they would be advised when it was ready for collection and if it was - as was usually the case - wagonload traffic they would be allowed the day of advice plus one other day after which they would be charged what was known as demurrage on a daily nbasis for the wagon which could not be either reloaded or sent on empty elsewhere.  Demutrrage could only be charged on railway owned wagons so in the days of private owner wagons being used, particularly for coal the re railway could not charge demurrage if the wagon was not promptly cleared but instead they charged Siding Rent' which was in effect.a  fee for occupying a stretch of siding space.  Demurrage was not a very large amount and in post 1948 years one trick adiopted by many coal merchants was to buy fuel cheap at summer prices and hang on to it to retail to customers after the higher winter prices had come in.  In that case they could be paying a few months worth of demurrage but they still could make a profit on the deal because of their saving by buying at the summer price.

 

I expect the Middleton Press book for the route might gve some tonnage figures for various categories of traffic for sample years and it might also give a lead to some of the traffics handled at Lampeter although beinga largely agricultural area would give a strong hint about what could be seen at various times of year and how traffics changed over the years (as they did in agricultural areas due to such things as growth of sugar beet cultivation or the introduction and increased use of artificial fertilisers.   I would have thought dairying was the predominant agricultural activity but that is more of an ing formed guess rather than speaking from knowledge.

 

Prior to WWII there were two or three trip freights daily running bin each direction between Carmarthen and Aberystwyth and taking along time to do the trip, for example the 06.40 frm Caramarthen was booked to take 9 hours to get to Aberystwyth shunting at virtually all stations en-route.  The first Down freight of the day was the Caramarthen - Aberayron trip which spent over an hour at Lampeter - in part waiting to get ont the branch.  The long sidings now start to make a little sense because they would allow room to hold a train clear of the main running lines when passenger trains needed or cross or overtake a freight.

 

All the freight trips ran in the morning/early afternoon and thos pattern remained similar in 1949 although by then the first Carmarthen - Aberystwyth trip started later at 07.10 and got to Aberystwyth much earlier than its pre-war arrival  time.  But overall all the freight trips had a reasonable amount of time at Lampeter but whether or not they had any work to do is a different matter.  Basically a goods yard would normally have its inwards traffic set out in the morning and hopefully before that start of teh working day for the day time staff - but that didn't happen everywhere and some times inwards might not arrive until mid-morning thus delaying the time for unloading to start.   Similarly because the freight trips ran no later than early afternoon any work on loading finishing later in the day would mean the wagon would not be forwarded until the following day.

 

Normal practice with local trips (and in this case local meant almost 58 miles for a Carmarthen -Aberystwyth train) wre formed in what was called 'station order' - in other words the wagins were marshalled into the train according to their destination station and the sections for each station were arranged in the order that simplified shunting at the intermediate station where a train might only be allowed a few minutes to detach any traffic or to both detach and attach wagons.  In some cases a train might have to be reformed en-route in order t get stuff back into the correct order after wagons had been picked.  In addition traffic might even be sectionalised to allow quick shunting of particular wagons - shed traffic would generally be more urgent than most full loads/mileage traffic so wouldn't be mixed up with it.

 

Hope that takes you a few steps further?  unless you have more questions on freight I'll move on to Passenger rated traffic next.

This is fascinating stuff, but a bit daunting trying to piece it all together to produce a realistic schedule! I assume that any particular train in the timetable could be a different number of vehicles every day? And that it wouldn't really be possible to recreate an actual historical train, and the movements it made in the yard (apart possibly from photos, but it is difficult to see a whole train in many of those) 

[Harlequin]

3 hours ago, Nevermakeit said:

This is fascinating stuff, but a bit daunting trying to piece it all together to produce a realistic schedule! I assume that any particular train in the timetable could be a different number of vehicles every day? And that it wouldn't really be possible to recreate an actual historical train, and the movements it made in the yard (apart possibly from photos, but it is difficult to see a whole train in many of those) 

 

It's unlikely you'd ever be able to recreate actual train movements down to the individual wagon but you should be able to piece together a normal timetable and combine that with Mike's description of how a station was operated to create a schedule for a model. To make operations purposeful but also varied and interesting you can introduce some random elements to the basic system to simulate the complications of everyday life. For instance one of the coal merchants operating out of the yard might be unable to unload his wagons for a few days because his horse has gone lame or his lorry has broken down. This can be done in way that is not just at your whim and is also not complete chaos by using a stack of cards which you shuffle and draw from - or an equivalent computer program.

 

Remember that many movements took place that were not on the normal WTT - some passing through but some stopping. Seasonal passenger traffic, seasonal produce movements, specials for markets and fairs, day trips, complete farms being moved, light engine movements, engineering trains, wagons becoming "crippled" and having to be removed from a train, etc., etc...

 

What era are you thinking about?

 

[Harlequin]

I found this lovely photo of the Aberayron junction. (It's not directly related to your question but Lampeter station is only a mile away...)

https://www.peoplescollection.wales/items/440102

 

Milk tankers (and a siphon or a passenger brake van?) coming from the creamery at Felinfach on the Aberayron branch, possibly to be shunted into the up siding at Lampeter for pickup by a longer distance milk train?

 

Edited June 3, 2021 by Harlequin

[ejstubbs]

12 hours ago, Harlequin said:

I can clear one thing up: Clark does in fact show 5 sidings in the yard in 1913.

 

Does Clark show the connection to the yard coming off the loop, or the single line beyond?

 

I'm also a bit puzzled by the farm/quarry road that crosses the tracks at the north end of the station site.  There's no level crossing marked on the OS maps, although there do appear to be lines across the road in roughly the right place which could indicate gates (though the one on the up side seems to be a good 100 yards or more from the railway boundary).  It's quite clear in the aerial photo that the road crosses the tracks on the level.  And yet the SRS signal box diagram doesn't show a level crossing of any kind.  Is that normal?

 

Looking at Lampeter station site on the NLS georeferenced view, and checking with Google Streetview, it looks like the goods shed still exists, within what is now the Pont Steffan Business Park.

Edited June 4, 2021 by ejstubbs

[Harlequin]

On 04/06/2021 at 06:53, ejstubbs said:

 

Does Clark show the connection to the yard coming off the loop, or the single line beyond?

 

I'm also a bit puzzled by the farm/quarry road that crosses the tracks at the north end of the station site.  There's no level crossing marked on the OS maps, although there do appear to be lines across the road in roughly the right place which could indicate gates (though the one on the up side seems to be a good 100 yards or more from the railway boundary).  It's quite clear in the aerial photo that the road crosses the tracks on the level.  And yet the SRS signal box diagram doesn't show a level crossing of any kind.  Is that normal?

 

Looking at Lampeter station site on the NLS georeferenced view, and checking with Google Streetview, it looks like the goods shed still exists, within what is now the Pont Steffan Business Park.

 

He shows the yard coming off the main line, as discussed. There is a road crossing the yard throat and the main line loop but I guess it's some form of occupation crossing. I think I can post this extract on the justification of fair usage and research purposes without breaking copyright:

Detail from "An Illustrated History of Selected Great Western Stations, Layouts and Illustrations. Volume 1" by R. H. Clark, published by Oxford Publishing Co.

 

Apologies for the image quality.

 

Edited April 11, 2022 by Harlequin

[Nevermakeit]

9 hours ago, Harlequin said:

I found this lovely photo of the Aberayron junction. (It's not directly related to your question but Lampeter station is only a mile away...)

https://www.peoplescollection.wales/items/440102

 

Milk tankers (and a siphon or a passenger brake van?) coming from the creamery at Felinfach on the Aberayron branch, possibly to be shunted into the up siding at Lampeter for pickup by a longer distance milk train?

 

That is great - thanks.  Is the back of the train one long vehicle or three short ones?

[Nevermakeit]

9 hours ago, Harlequin said:

 

What era are you thinking about?

 

That is a further difficulty!  I would ideally like private owner wagons, but I haven't been able to find many photographs of Lampeter in that era, and I am not sure whether that timescale fits in with the Aberayron branch, which would provide extra traffic.  Most of the photos I have seen are late 50s or early 60s, but I don't have a timetable for that period.  I would need to rely heavily on readily available models, as I am not terribly practical at building stuff, so all in all, it is a bit of a puzzle!

[ejstubbs]

On 04/06/2021 at 07:58, Harlequin said:

There is a road crossing the yard throat and the main line loop but I guess it's some form of occupation crossing.

 

Thanks, that shows the gates on the road very clearly, including the fact that the one on the up side is a fair distance from what I would assume to be the line of the boundary of the railway - unless those three or four buildings were actually on railway property?  It still seems a little odd that the crossing doesn't appear on the signal box diagram, especially since the 'box was at the other end of the station platform from the crossing.  As far as I can tell the road only ever went to a farm and a quarry (the quarry being now defunct).

 

On the same fair use principle that you cite, here is a screenshot of Lampeter station as it appears on the 1889 25-inch OS map:

 

 

It's clear that they thought that the yard connection was from the down side of the crossing loop.  Perhaps Holden was incorrectly influenced by that in preparing the track plan in his book?

 

Edited June 9, 2021 by ejstubbs
Corrected OS map scale

[Fat Controller]

1 hour ago, Nevermakeit said:

That is great - thanks.  Is the back of the train one long vehicle or three short ones?

It's a bogie Full Brake, at the end of a milk train. 

[Harlequin]

11 minutes ago, ejstubbs said:

 

Thanks, that shows the gates on the road very clearly, including the fact that the one on the up side is a fair distance from what I would assume to be the line of the boundary of the railway - unless those three or four buildings were actually on railway property?  It still seems a little odd that the crossing doesn't appear on the signal box diagram, especially since the 'box was at the other end of the station platform from the crossing.  As far as I can tell the road only ever went to a farm and a quarry (the quarry being now defunct).

 

On the same fair use principle that you cite, here is a screenshot of Lampeter station as it appears on the 1889 2½-inch OS map:

 

 

It's clear that they thought that the yard connection was from the down side of the crossing loop.  Perhaps Holden was incorrectly influenced by that in preparing the track plan in his book?

 

 

Clark seems to be suggesting that the buildings are on railway property because he only draws details within the railway fence line, the ticked line along the bottom. Further along, also inside the fence line, is the "Loco Dept Water Tank".

 

He shows the signal box at the North end of the Up platform, so by his scale it's 173 yards way from the road crossing with only the up siding running between, not the platform.

 

[The Stationmaster]

17 hours ago, Nevermakeit said:

Would any changes to the layout have needed some sort of planning permission? 

No - purely a matter for the railway. (Which in fact didn't even need Planning Permission for operational buildings which it erected on its own land.)

17 hours ago, Nevermakeit said:

This is fascinating stuff, but a bit daunting trying to piece it all together to produce a realistic schedule! I assume that any particular train in the timetable could be a different number of vehicles every day? And that it wouldn't really be possible to recreate an actual historical train, and the movements it made in the yard (apart possibly from photos, but it is difficult to see a whole train in many of those) 

The timetable bit is easy  (well fairly easy ) and I can add some words explaining how that sort of thing worked building from the useful comments added by 'Harlequin'.  i'll turn to that once I've disposed of Passenger Rated traffic which was obviously important in this area in one particular respect (milk).

 

Now a couple of other items -

 

1.  There seems to be no evidence thus far for the presence of a (statutory) level crossing in the vicinity of the yard (or station) but there is evidence of what would appear to have been either an occupation or accommodation crossing - and as such of course it would not appear on a signal box diagram (Note *).  The only way of definitely answering  that would be with photos , even latter day photos, assuming it still existed although that seems likely as what appears to be the lane which used it is still there.  The goods shed still appears to exist.

BTW on looking more closely at the photo posted by BR2975 I can make out ae crossing in the background although it seems fairly close to the end of the Up  Siding

 

2.  There is increasing evidence - witness the OS map - to support my earlier suspicion that the layout underwent considerable rationalisation at some stage.  The signalling was clearly centralised onto a newly built GWR signal box at the north end of the Up platform as that does not appear in photos from the turn of the century and for some years thereafter.  The only questions are what was there previously (I suspect two signal boxes as well as what amounted to double line between them) and whether or not all the changes took place at once or whether there was further rationalisation of the new layout prior to the major changes in the 1960s?

 

Note * - In my experience (unfortunately) GWR/WR records in respect of occupation and accommodation crossings were 'patchy' to say the very least.  In fact such was the state, or not, of such records, that in preparation for the arrival of HSTs and major line speed increases the only way that full detail of them could be established between Paddington (actually Didcot) and Bristol was by  someone walking through the entire length of that railway to see what was actually there whether in use or not.  fortunately he did the job in what turned out to be a reasonable summer.  

 

On my patches in the West Country in the 1970s the only way I could trace all of them was by asking local PerWay staff what was where and by checking it on OS maps - there was no written or listed WR information at all except in respect of the handful of crossings which had telephones.  By contrast for the 60 mile stretch of the ex SR Salisbury - Exeter line that was on my patch I was easily able to get hold of a complete list of every such crossing - over 80 of them, whether they had 'phones or not.

 

 

Edited June 4, 2021 by The Stationmaster

[Harlequin]

Some further googling (when I should really be working) found this:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/31890193@N08/14243894766/

 

Too many interesting things in this photo to list (!) but you can see the goods connection separate from the loop, you can see the road crossing and notice that the Down Advanced Starter signal is on the opposite side from normal, presumably because there's not enough clearance for it on the yard side. Clark's map shows it to be in advance of (beyond) the road crossing so it's not doing anything to protect the crossing.

 

Edited June 4, 2021 by Harlequin

[Wheatley]

2 hours ago, The Stationmaster said:

Note * - In my experience (unfortunately) GWR/WR records in respect of occupation and accommodation crossings were 'patchy' to say the very least.  In fact such was the state, or not, of such records, that in preparation for the arrival of HSTs and major line speed increases the only way that full detail of them could be established between Paddington (actually Didcot) and Bristol was by  someone walking through the entire length of that railway to see what was actually there whether in use or not.  fortunately he did the job in what turned out to be a reasonable summer.  

 

On my patches in the West Country in the 1970s the only way I could trace all of them was by asking local PerWay staff what was where and by checking it on OS maps - there was no written or listed WR information at all except in respect of the handful of crossings which had telephones.  By contrast for the 60 mile stretch of the ex SR Salisbury - Exeter line that was on my patch I was easily able to get hold of a complete list of every such crossing - over 80 of them, whether they had 'phones or not.

 

 

After the Rossington accident on the ECML where a family was killed on a footpath crossing,  it became clear during the subsequent inquiry that the ER knew where most of it's user-worked crossings were.  

 

One of the best jobs in my railway career was in late 1990, I was given a van, a camera, a trundle wheel, and 500 rolls of film, and told to walk from Skegness to Gainsborough Trent Junction via almost everywhere in between. Station Manager Boston immediately swapped my shiny new hire van for his clapped out Bedford HA boneshaker, which suited my borrowed P.Way assistant fine because it was so grotty it was less obvious that we'd been carrying dead pheasants and rabbits in the back of it.  

 

Quite apart from the railway interest it was the build-up to Gulf War 1, and, in East Lincs at least, a lot of the low flying restrictions had been taken off. The problem with trying to photograph a Tornado literally hedge hopping across Lincolnshire is that it's gone before you realise it's coming.  

 

Some time later as an Ops Supervisor rather than a seconded signalman, I spent a long time on the phone to Level Crossings at York trying to convince them that Switchers (farm) Crossing wasn't actually where they thought it was. There were three crossings in the space of a mile or so - Shutts No1, Shutts No2 and Switchers, all named after their farms and one of them abandoned. Problem was that at some point the farms had been amalgamated, and the land was now all farmed from Switchers. What we were all calling Switchers (because it was now the only crossing used by Switchers Farm) was actually Shutts No2, the real Switchers being the 'sleeping dog' (not officially closed - that would involve buying out the rights - just the gates nailed shut and the boards lifted).  You can imagine the fun trying to explain that Switchers is actually Shutts, because Switchers is shut.  And could they put a telephone on it please because the sightline was 75 yards (at 60mph) and the farmer was using a stump phone. It was given to him by the local PWay after they needed 2 distant lookouts to do a job once, in the middle of which the farmer turned up and trundled across with a trailer load of hay bales.   

Edited June 4, 2021 by Wheatley

[Nevermakeit]

5 hours ago, Harlequin said:

Some further googling (when I should really be working) found this:

 

 

https://www.flickr.com/photos/31890193@N08/14243894766/

 

Too many interesting things in this photo to list (!) but you can see the goods connection separate from the loop, you can see the road crossing and notice that the Down Advanced Starter signal is on the opposite side from normal, presumably because there's not enough clearance for it on the yard side. Clark's map shows it to be in advance of (beyond) the road crossing so it's not doing anything to protect the crossing.

 

OK - so that answers the question about the date of the crane - 1963 (at least).  Would the hoppers with the crane suggest a ballast train?

Edited June 4, 2021 by Nevermakeit
Managed to put my comment in the quote!