Examples of small, cramped goods yards

[puffernutter]

Trying to design a bitsa layout isn't as easy as it looks - Mikkel has kindly assented to a duplicate of his spectacular 'The Bay' layout, but I would like to try some of my own before submitting to that easy-out.

 

What I'm looking for, is somewhere to shuttle short passenger trains into and out of (where space precludes a fiddle yard at both ends), but I would also like to be able to represent freight workings. So many small terminii are small only in the number of tracks rather than the length and arrangement, carelessly fanning out into a 90 degree wedge with the station on one axis and the goods tracks on the other.

 

Are there any examples of smaller, cramped goods yards? Anything I've managed to dig up in urban areas is either overly grandiose (see: Bishopsgate) or has next to no information available (see: Cannon St. Goods), and anything further afield tends to be huge befitting a terminus of importance, or attached to a stop-along-the-way.

 

I figure a bay platform and goods yard composite would make an interesting layout and check the boxes, but finding actual examples of it is pretty difficult!

 

Please help!

[shortliner]

There is/was a small triangular layout on the exhibition circuit that was viewed from the base - It featured the end of a platform on one side, and had a fuel point towards the front. It might be possible to convert the fuel point into a cramped goods yard. Posibly called Victoria Street???

There was another that appeared in SMT years back by Malcolm Carlssen called MicrO Yard with a warehouse and a small yard - the "passenger" was a workmens coach that arrived at a small platform - the layout was in O gauge and was 4' long + another 4' for an add on fiddle yard. All track was hand laid

[backwaterscotland]

Are you thinking of Villier Street? It appeared in Rail Express Issue 96 and Modern Railway Modelling Summer 2005.

 

Andy B)

 

There is/was a small triangular layout on the exhibition circuit that was viewed from the base - It featured the end of a platform on one side, and had a fuel point towards the front. It might be possible to convert the fuel point into a cramped goods yard. Posibly called Victoria Street???

[shortliner]

You are absolutely right - strangely enough I have just opened Nigel Adams new book (More Layouts for Limited Spaces) that arrived this morning, and there on page 37 is the trackplan - I was just coming back to correct my post - but you beat me to it!!

[Guest jim s-w]

H Puffernutter

 

You are describing Birmingham Moor Street - the only thing is the goods yard is under the station.

 

HTH

 

Jim

[alastairq]

The Midland Rly's coal depot at High Street, Kensington, has always struck me as an ideal limited space project.....and is easily parcelled-up into smaller sections....

maybe not ideal for this thread, however...?

[Del]

Wantage Upper Yard?

http://www.carendt.us/microplans/pages/real/standard/index.html - bottom of this page

http://www.carendt.us/scrapbook/page48/index.html - about 2/3 the way down this one

[puffernutter]

Midland at Kensington sound fascinating but I can't see any info on it at all - are there any pics languishing online that I haven't been able to locate?

 

Thanks all for the input.

[puffernutter]

Midland at Kensington sound fascinating but I can't see any info on it at all - are there any pics languishing online that I haven't been able to locate?

 

Thanks all for the input.

[DonB]

There was a fairly "tight" goods yard at Willington (Derbyshire) often refered to as Willington Warf as it sat alongside the canal. IIRC only 4 sidings. Slightly unusual in that it had a short siding often used for the unloading of the travelling trunks of the boys arriving to board at the nearby Repton School. I have no knowledge of the vehicles used to carry the trunks, but in the "good old days" it would have been a hive of activity at the begining and end of each school term.

As far as I know, the yard did not have a Goods Shed. Photos of the yard appear to be scarce.

I have tucked away, somewhere, a copy of an old (1920's?) large scale OS map of the yard and junction from the Derby/B'ham main line.

The yard area is now partly a car park, and partly a grassed landscaped area adjacent to the canal.

Despite its small size, a 2mm scale model, un-compressed, would need a board about 9 or 10 feet long!

[Fat Controller]

There was a small depot, dedicated to express freight traffic from the Continent, at Ewer St, Southwark. This is where the lines towards Cannon St and Charing Cross diverge, north-west of London Bridge station. It has been featured in the modelling press in the past- possibly in Model Railways.

The same site also housed minimal coaling and watering facilities for steam locos arriving at the two ex-SE&CR terminii- there was no need for a turntable because of the triangle that is still extant nearby.

[DavidH]

Not quite true - Ewer Street is between London Bridge and Charing Cross and was where the connection up to the Holborn viaduct line diverged. It did have a turntable. See An Historical Survey of Southern Sheds for a trackplan and a photo. It closed in 1961.

[shortliner]

I was going to suggest Scotland Street Yard, But I don't believe it had immediate acces to platforms and passenger traffic

[Penlan]

From Reality - then Holywell Town, 2 sidings plus part of the loop to the station, the station and points to the sidings can be off scene, there's a convenient overbridge.

[Fat Controller]

Not quite true - Ewer Street is between London Bridge and Charing Cross and was where the connection up to the Holborn viaduct line diverged. It did have a turntable. See An Historical Survey of Southern Sheds for a trackplan and a photo. It closed in 1961.

I stand (more correctly, sit) corrected... It was certainly one of the most constrained sites I've seen though.

[hmrspaul]

There has been an article in either BRILL or Bylines about a small goods station in central Edinburgh.

 

This is a link to Edinburgh Scotland Street Goods - (Google this and you get a lot of apparenty useful hits)

 

http://www.subbrit.org.uk/sb-sites/sites/s/scotland_street_tunnel/index.shtml some recent photos here http://www.railbrit.co.uk/location.php?loc=Edinburgh%20Leith%20and%20Newhaven%20Railway

 

Could be of interest

 

Paul Bartlett

[The Stationmaster]

Midland at Kensington sound fascinating but I can't see any info on it at all - are there any pics languishing online that I haven't been able to locate?

 

Thanks all for the input.

 

From what could be seen of it from passing UndergrounD trains it looked reasonably spacious although I don't know what the 'neck' end of it was like and whether or not it was 'hemmed in'.

[DavidB-AU]

I was going to suggest Scotland Street Yard, But I don't believe it had immediate acces to platforms and passenger traffic

It closed to passenger traffic in 1925 but goods continued until 1967. One of the platforms were still there to the end so you could imagine passenger trains still operated. In fact the platform was exactly the length of a 158.

 

 

Edit: Looks like both former passenger platforms were there to the end, although the one on the eastern side had gained a caravan and some chickens.

 

Cheers

David

[alastairq]

Midland at Kensington sound fascinating but I can't see any info on it at all - are there any pics languishing online that I haven't been able to locate?

 

Very full article on the above yard, and others in London, can be found in ''Midland Record'', No.29.

 

This is a Wild Swan-published periodical edited by Bob Essery......priced around £11.95 or so. [it is the last-but-one issue]

 

briefly, High Street Kensington Coal depot was a longish, narrow yard.

 

Access was by a single line rising from the Met Rly main line by a steepish incline....this in effect forming a switchback style layout.

The tailtrack of the switchback, from whence the yard was accessed, was of limited length......it is stated that trains were no more than 17 vehicles long, including two brake vans.

 

from the tail track, access to the yard, found the train in the general goods section....building materials being, apparently, a major source of traffic. This consisted of a couple of [long] sidings, and a shorter one.

[no obvious signs of a run-round loop....??]

In the opposite direction, trailing off a long siding, a series of compact turnouts created a fan of sidings which was the coal depot...a fan of 9 or 10, very short sidings.

 

The coal sidings [and some drops] were all under cover, under a series of semi-circular trainshed roofs.

 

Another 4 or so coal drops, under the same roof, were accessed by a traverser, of all things....under the canopy.

 

The whole yard seems to be, form the maps, the same length as the exposed section of the Met Rly at Kensington High St station.

 

Whilst any railway installation must be, by it's nature, of goodly proportions, the above yard does seem quite constrained, in that it had to fit within existing building and street layouts...in the middle of London.

 

The existence of the the short but steep gradient up to the yard..[or...down to the 'main line']...means this yard could be modelled as a stand-alone design, with access to storage/fiddle sidings being off stage, underneath...perhaps with the rising approach track at the rear, so trains disappear off the back [and eventually end up underneath the yard]...the yard being 'viewed' from the Wright's Lane side [is it still there?].... the coal yard and drops would be to the right, the general goods sidings centre and left...stables in front.

 

Equally, the yard could be again sub-divided if only a small space were available.........

 

From the article, in BR days steam power would likely be a 3F tank [Jinty?]....the yard closed in 1963.

[54Strat]

From Reality - then Holywell Town, 2 sidings plus part of the loop to the station, the station and points to the sidings can be off scene, there's a convenient overbridge.

 

Found this...

 

http://www.penmorfa.com/rdmrc/holywell%20town.html

 

hth

 

Paul

[The Stationmaster]

 

briefly, High Street Kensington Coal depot was a longish, narrow yard.

 

From the article, in BR days steam power would likely be a 3F tank [Jinty?]....the yard closed in 1963.

 

 

The only loco I ever saw there was indeed a Jinty (but I only once saw a loco in there, presumably it was usually serviced outside the main running hours for the District Line service but, as elsewhere, it wasn't unusual to see steam hauled freights on Saturdays on some parts of the Circle/District Lines). It might have survived long enough to have seen diesel working as a lot of the LM cross-London trips were handed over to diesels in the very early 1960s.

 

Jowetts atlas shows the connection with the District at High St Kensington and a zig-zag into the yard from that end; part of the yard was clearly visible alongside, and a bit higher than, the curve between High St Kensington and Earls Court. By c.1960 part of the coal yard was definitely in the open so presumably the original roofing had deteriorated beyond economic repair.

[Penlan]

Found this...

 

From the Rhyl & District Model Railway Club's web site referred to by 54Strat

 

This is the whole of what I was thinking of :-

 

 

It certainly looks a lot 'cleaner' than my model of Holywell Town did.

 

All my data, photo's original LNWR/LMS drawings etc., of the Holywell branch are now with the Welsh Railways Research Circle.

[2mmMark]

Holywell Town was well written up in British Railway Journal, Issue No. 40 (Wild Swan).

 

Because of the gradient up from Holywell Junction, trains were always propelled uphill in to the station. This, combined with the very short headshunt for the yard, would make shunting a bit more unusual.

 

Mark.

[CullingworthGNR]

Bradford Adolphus St?

 

Link to Disused Stations Site

[PhilH]

Southampton terminus had a nice cramped goods yard to one side - can be seen on this site , click on the second thumbnail. It was taken, I think, after an air raid.