Looking for an example - Station ends perpendicualr to a river

[Marcus-Jay]

All,

I'm looking to extend an existing layout. The station does the job required and I don't want to make any major modifications to it. However, I'd like to add a freight terminal by extending some existing sidings. These sidings I'd like to separate, from the station, by a river.

So my question is; Is there a real-world example of a railway station/platform terminating very close to a river, or at a higher level to a drop. Lymington Pier is close, but the water is to the side rather than head-on. My envisaged geography would be more like the end of Cricklewood yard.

My quick sketch modification of a google map view shows the idea I have. Yes, I know what happened with the escaping 31s here!

The platform road end is indicated. The buffers need to be very close to the end and the track will end roughly where the overhead mast is on the siding end. In terms of physical layout size, the end of the platform ramp to the end of the track is approximately 100-120mm.
The freight lines will continue on a separate bridge, a little further back than the MML is in the pic. The river will be where the north circular would be, so a short distance away and well below track level.

Naturally, rule #1 can apply if need be. However, it would be nice to know an example existed in the real world somewhere! It need not necessarily be a river. It could be a high-level station with a bay ending next to a sheer drop sort of thing.

Thoughts, please?

[LMS2968]

Probably a bit bigger than you're thinking of, but Birkenhead Woodside.

[Marcus-Jay]

6 minutes ago, LMS2968 said:

Probably a bit bigger than you're thinking of, but Birkenhead Woodside.

Could be, but not quite as "close to the edge" as I'm looking for.

[BR traction instructor]

Llangollen platform runs above and adjacent to the River Dee. Kyle of Lochalsh, Fort William, Lymington should be worth checking.

 

Most of the harbour/dock branches will have buffer stops in proximity to the waters edge/drop into sea or river. Coal staithes where boats were loaded would be a good example e.g. on the River Tyne.

 

BeRTIe

Edited January 8, 2022 by BR traction instructor

[Fenman]

Portsmouth Harbour?

 

Paul

[DY444]

Tilbury Riverside

[guzzler17]

How about

 

Angerstein Wharf

Hayle Wharf

Queenborough Pier

Marchwood

 

[phil_sutters]

What is now Newhaven Harbour station used to have lines that terminated along the quayside in front of the London and Paris Hotel, as well as those on the through line to Seaford and the lines that ran into, what was until recently, Newhaven Marine. Just south of Harbour station the lines cross the Tidemills Creek. The names of those two stations have changed over the years. Now the third station, further north, Newhaven Town, is actually the alighting point for the current ferry terminal. The line through the Marine station has become the access to a sea-dredged aggregates depot. If the branch to Seaford terminated at harbour station, this could look like your scenario. If you are modelling today's scene, you might want to change the location off third-rail electrification - 313s, with 377s on Brighton and Hove match days, and 66s on the aggregates may be a bit limiting!

Edited January 8, 2022 by phil_sutters

[Nearholmer]

Ryde Pier, although I’d agree with Fenman that Portsmouth Harbour sounds closer to specification.

 

Gravesend West.

 

For goods only, Rye Harbour.

 

Just a little bit back from the river, but still “up on a lump” was the old North Greenwich station of the Millwall Extension Railway, which morphed into the old Island Gardens on the DLR.

 

Croxley Green and Mill Hill East also have that “ending high up” look about them.

 

There must be oodles of others, and it certainly isn’t an implausible idea for a layout.

Edited January 8, 2022 by Nearholmer

[rodent279]

Long closed, and probably not quite what you were thinking of, but New Holland Pier?

It still exists, but not as a station, it's been repurposed as a bulk freight terminal, with a conveyor belt running along the pier instead of a railway.

[Kris]

Totnes Riverside on the South Devon Railway does just this, You also have the main line next to the SDR line, and the main line continues over the river. The other end of the line  at Buckfastleigh also has the Dart at the far end of the station, the line here however once went on further. 

 

https://www.google.com/maps/@50.4388308,-3.6868126,501m/data=!3m1!1e3

 

https://www.google.com/maps/@50.4837167,-3.7686543,736m/data=!3m1!1e3

[iands]

The original Selby station of 1834 did, with the added bonus that the lines extended on to a Wharf for easier loading/unloading of goods on to ships. 

[Andy Kirkham]

The original Oxford station at Grandpont, although it closed in 1872,

[Gordon A]

Kingswear, change for Dartmouth.

 

Edited January 8, 2022 by Gordon A

[rodent279]

Cannon Street, Blackfriars? Yeah, I know, that's cheating really!

[Aire Head]

Grassington and Threshfield ended almost perpendicular to the River Wharfe.

 

The original intention of the Railway was to be extended up the valley eventually reaching Hawes and was part of the Midlands plans to build a lone heading towards Scotland before they decided to build the S&C.

[Hal Nail]

Newquay originally had the station at one level with a line descending to the harbour.

 

It's going to be relatively rare to have a perpendicular join because typically speaking, the land rises up either side of water and in avoiding hills, lines usually run along along contours rather than across them.

[Michael Hodgson]

4 hours ago, Marcus-Jay said:

All,

I'm looking to extend an existing layout. The station does the job required and I don't want to make any major modifications to it. However, I'd like to add a freight terminal by extending some existing sidings. These sidings I'd like to separate, from the station, by a river.

So my question is; Is there a real-world example of a railway station/platform terminating very close to a river, or at a higher level to a drop. Lymington Pier is close, but the water is to the side rather than head-on. My envisaged geography would be more like the end of Cricklewood yard.

My quick sketch modification of a google map view shows the idea I have. Yes, I know what happened with the escaping 31s here!

The platform road end is indicated. The buffers need to be very close to the end and the track will end roughly where the overhead mast is on the siding end. In terms of physical layout size, the end of the platform ramp to the end of the track is approximately 100-120mm.
The freight lines will continue on a separate bridge, a little further back than the MML is in the pic. The river will be where the north circular would be, so a short distance away and well below track level.

Naturally, rule #1 can apply if need be. However, it would be nice to know an example existed in the real world somewhere! It need not necessarily be a river. It could be a high-level station with a bay ending next to a sheer drop sort of thing.

Thoughts, please?

 

4 hours ago, Marcus-Jay said:

The freight lines will continue on a separate bridge, a little further back than the MML is in the pic. The river will be where the north circular would be, so a short distance away and well below track level.

 

 

 

 

 

If you want to model that location I would suggest it would be an ideal place for a pair of 31s with mazak rot.

 

If it's any help, your image is not entirely implausible,  I remember going to Park Royal one day following heavy rain several years ago, and the North Circular Road underpass below Abbey Road (north of the Hanger Lane Gyratory) was closed because of flash flooding - I think the depth was reported as 13 feet or the height of a double decker bus.

[RichardT]

As the original question was about a river, not a harbour, how about Alston (Cumbria) - the river Nent wraps around the end of the terminus and then joins the River South Tyne which runs alongside the station and the branch, both at a lower level than the station. Sidings to serve the town gasworks used to branch off from the station goods yard, run under the approach road (which also crosses the Nent) and into the gasworks site alongside the Nent. Branch didn’t close until 1976 (now preserved of course) so a little alternative history….

 

RT

Edited January 8, 2022 by RichardT
Clarify a couple of things.

[Paul H Vigor]

6 hours ago, Marcus-Jay said:

All,

I'm looking to extend an existing layout. The station does the job required and I don't want to make any major modifications to it. However, I'd like to add a freight terminal by extending some existing sidings. These sidings I'd like to separate, from the station, by a river.

So my question is; Is there a real-world example of a railway station/platform terminating very close to a river, or at a higher level to a drop. Lymington Pier is close, but the water is to the side rather than head-on. My envisaged geography would be more like the end of Cricklewood yard.

My quick sketch modification of a google map view shows the idea I have. Yes, I know what happened with the escaping 31s here!

The platform road end is indicated. The buffers need to be very close to the end and the track will end roughly where the overhead mast is on the siding end. In terms of physical layout size, the end of the platform ramp to the end of the track is approximately 100-120mm.
The freight lines will continue on a separate bridge, a little further back than the MML is in the pic. The river will be where the north circular would be, so a short distance away and well below track level.

Naturally, rule #1 can apply if need be. However, it would be nice to know an example existed in the real world somewhere! It need not necessarily be a river. It could be a high-level station with a bay ending next to a sheer drop sort of thing.

Thoughts, please?

Carmarthen Station terminates just short of the River Towy - a consequence of the demolition of the former railway bridge over the river.

[Andy Kirkham]

Venice.

[Rivercider]

The former layout above and alongside the River Avon in Bristol was the reverse of what you are looking for.

The Midland Railway branch to Avonside Wharf terminated right at the river edge (there was a dock set into the river wall where barges could moor alongside the sidings). The adjacent GWR Temple Meads station was carried over the river at a higher level alongside it,

 

https://maps.nls.uk/view/109729987

National Library of Scotland map dated 1902

 

cheers

Edited January 8, 2022 by Rivercider
Link to map on NLS website.

[Marcus-Jay]

Thank you all for the pointers and replies. I followed up on Mr Ratty's direction to New Holland Pier.
As you can see from the snip from the Disused Stations website the former station seems to do what I was after. After reading the replies, perhaps the question could have been could a passenger line terminate close to the edge of the water where an over run would end up with the train in the drink.

 

Further searching led me to this. Which is the kind of buffer stops.... then drop situation.

 

Again, thank you all for the pointers, now I can say it's occurs in real life, so modelling it is fine.

[iands]

"..... could a passenger line terminate close to the edge of the water where an over run would end up with the train in the drink."

 

Again, the potential for this could have happened at the original station at Selby.

[The Stationmaster]

Lymington is another example although a car ferry loading ramp now intervenes between the end of the railway and the water.