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I think that Crimson Rambler is the chap to consult on the FPL/double slip question. Maybe a PM to him would help?

 

Quite agree with Jamie's post above though.

 

Dave

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3 hours ago, eldavo said:

I have a 3D printed representation of an eFPL based on the drawings from the patent.

 

20210501_181537.jpg

 

That's a beauty. It'll be a shame to cover it up with the protective boarding!

 

3 hours ago, eldavo said:

Thanks for the response with regards to FPLs.  Here is a rough track plan of what I am building:

 

trackplan mk7.jpg

 

 

As you can see it's a terminus so facing points are unavoidable, even for the Midland!  I can see how economical FPLs can be fitted to the 3-way in the approach and also the point at the top of the plan on the exit from the shortest platform.  The issue is the double slip to the left of the signalbox where 3 legs of the complex need to be protected by FPLs.  I can't see quite how an eFPL can be used in this situation.  

 

Here's my interpretation of the track plan, purely from a pointwork perspective:

1911182115_TerminusFPLs.jpg.3eaf7de80e4576f0d7f1e54f052eacbf.jpg

I count seven FPLs needed. I've assumed that all three roads under the roof are to passenger platforms. If the bottom one is just a carriage siding, then the bottom two FPLs are not required. 

 

I'm afraid I do think that the arrangement whereby there is facing access to all five dead-end roads is unlikely. Buxton Midland was a similar sized station with the facilities you have included - a read of @Rowsley17D's topic will, I think, help clarify:

 

Buxton did have a couple of double slips, one of which wasn't really, being actually part of a scissors crossover - that's the one in the photo I mentioned above, MRSC Item 60301. I haven't seen a signalling diagram but I think there are only four facing points for passenger trains, so only four FPLs, two of which can be seen in that photo, on the facing crossing:

191723509_BuxtonFPLs.jpg.33cb9eb895afb1779171b20046aee4d9.jpg

Note how the goods yard is only accessed by trailing connections to the up line, arranged so as to be further out than the facing crossing, so an arriving train crossing to the top platform does not "see" them.

 

Edited by Compound2632
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Eldavo

I like your rendition of Messrs Langley and Price's Economical Point Lock - are you going to add the lifting bar?

 

Hopefully this photo may be of interest - it's of I believe Nottingham but that could be wrong, taken around 1900. The single slip in the foreground is fitted with a lock while its lifting bar has been placed outside the rail. The Midland did this quite often in this situation - whereas the lifting bar for the point has been placed in the more common location within the four foot.

 

1461280345_LockedSlip.jpg.8e93299735795b0a2b653a49ed021c55.jpg

 

If I may make an observation regarding the track plan, three throws were not normally used on main lines, indeed they were I believe banned by the BOT from passenger lines. I suggest it would be better, if space permits, to substitute a double turnout aka interlaced turnout.

 

Crimson Rambler

 

Edited by Crimson Rambler
To add photo!
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12 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

I'm quite doubtful of the second carriage but on balance of probability I think it must be a D506 lavatory composite, ten of which were built in 1897, for London-Manchester and London-Bradford trains, rather than one of the three D484 lavatory thirds built for the Bristol-Bradford sets of 1896, which were the only other non-brake non-restaurant  60 ft carriages. 

 

Looking again and blowing the photo up, I'm now more convinced of this identification - the luggage compartment end is leading:

 

773848319_Unstone60ftcomposite.jpg.29542f3d11e79a3cbfa417839d0a6eaa.jpg

 

Lug / T / T / F / F / F / Lav / T / T.

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A couple of corrections if I may to yesterday's offering. Along with omitting the photo I lost the 'n' from Mr Prince's name and called the poor chap 'Price'. The absence of a photo was sufficiently large an omission for me to notice, the n was not.

 

I can confirm the single slip was extracted from a photograph of Sheffield and was taken before 1906. A similar arrangement may be seen elsewhere - Leicester being another instance with published pictures.

 

Today's piccy is an extract from a published print of a '2183' class 4-4-0 No. 2193 taken outside St Pancras between say 1895 and the first year or two of the twentieth century. Please excuse the poorer reproduction my copy of the original photo is too big for my scanner! Hopefully it will still serve the purpose.

 

Featured are a pair of 12ft loose heel switches laid to form a tandem turnout. Both lifting bars are outside - for the further point I think that is because of the close proximity of the check rail for the diamond crossing in the foreground. At this date I believe the Midland had not yet introduced check rail chairs modified to receive an inside lifting bar.

 

1374527699_LockedTandem.jpg.51ca03e4d39a937673dd490e99dcdb28.jpg

 

In the case of the nearer point it is the presence of the preceeding switch that has dictated the use of an outside lifting bar. What is interesting in this instance is quite how it was secured. Normally the bracket is in two halves which are bolted together at the foot of the rail and just under its head as may be seen in advance of the heel chairs. However for the three brackets positioned between the slide chairs the bottom bolts have been omitted.

What I don't know is whether there was a special inside bracket used in such cases or if they just relied on the top bolt and/or a modified pivot - any observations gratefully received.

 

 

Crimson Rambler

 

 

 

 

 

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More pictures of the fleet. Location likely to be Gloucester, Nailsworth?

The shed formanIMG_1197.JPG.9b0417ca36aa35ec51f3358512e2a7b4.JPGIMG_1195.JPG.6ac20b591b682c6171537c6eb4fa9dc5.JPGIMG_1192.JPG.1d283e334f585d37952945972eea6841.JPGIMG_1191.JPG.60c5ed5f202f8e7440b855e9cbdfc4cf.JPGMore pictures of the Fleet. The shed foreman is going to get a blast after the next visit from T' old Bug***s. over the state of the engines end of Great War or not!!

1364 and 202 are converted Bachman (EM Gauge), 306 and 3130 are London Road Kits. 306 can now pull a load thanks to sorting the weight distribution and installing a modified Flexichas. The black 0-6-0T is a Craftsman Kit from way back and my first attempt at Kit building in etched Brass.

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The picture of the 11ft - 4ins and 14ft - 4ins switches that Technohand has posted represent an earlier design than the 12 foot outside key design  illustrated at St Pancras and also in the view of Sheffield.

 

I believe they together with a third length - 17ft - 4ins from memory - were the final inside key point design the Midland used before it adopted outside keying in 1884.

 

 

Crimson Rambler

 

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3 hours ago, Crimson Rambler said:

I believe they together with a third length - 17ft - 4ins from memory - were the final inside key point design the Midland used before it adopted outside keying in 1884.

Talking of which, the GWR also tried out inside keying (it was still in use at New Radnor at nationalisation!), but soon changed to outside keying. It seems that a lot of this was sold off, and the Northampton and Banbury Junction Railway and the Furness amongst others used it.

Were there any more companies who did the same?

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To add to Regularity's observation regarding the Great Western and the Furness using inside keys, I know the Great Northern, North Eastern, South Eastern and the Manchester Sheffield and Lincolnshire railways also used inside key chairs before later changing, like the Midland, to outside keys. I'm sure there will have been other companies who adopted the practice as inside keying versus outside keying was a 'hot topic' amongst permanent way engineers for much of the nineteenth century - old photos especially of sidings can be revealing. Incidentally the Furness may well have been the last to make the change not doing so until 1896.

 

 

Crimson Rambler

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What was the perceived advantage of inside keyed track? Was it simply ergonomic - that the ganger could walk in the four-foot checking the keys on both rails, doing his length of double line in one out-and-back trip - hopefully walking down the up and up the down? Outside keyed track must have been safer, since the ganger would be either in the cess or the six-foot.

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Thanks all for your posts.  Some interesting stuff and pictures.  Here is an updated track diagram that shows a bit more clearly what I am up to.  The top 3 lines on the left of the diagram are platforms and I have indicated with yellow circles where I think the 6 FPLs should be.

 

1089388961_BuxtonMk10FPL.jpg.d8d65d51b36935b976f52d5b3a1d5857.jpg

 

What appears to be a symmetrical 3-way in the diagram has actually been built as a tandem and is the only way I can fit in what's needed.  I'm still left with a bit of a question, on a double slip would there be an FPL locking all 4 switches at each end of the complex i.e. just two locks for the whole slip, or would it need more?  The pictures of single slips show that the mechanism fits but still leaves the question open.

 

As to modelling the lifting bars, now I've looked more at all this I'll have to model them.  When I didn't really know what they did it didn't worry me but now I do...

 

I may have at least one of the eFPLs having some maintenance so I can leave the covers off.  ;-)

 

Cheers

Dave

 

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Sorry chaps didn't notice inside keys.

This is more up to date being the key plan for points and crossings.

Usual thing about private and research use only without Study Centre permission

Regards

Tony

 

199072480_KeyPlanPointsandCrossings.jpg

Edited by technohand
wrong picture
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If we look at the key plan Technohand has kindly provided of the 85lbs outside key trackwork introduced by the Engineer Alfred Langley we can see that the first pair of timbers laid at the toe of each set of points have two possible positions (and dimensions) depending on whether the point is to be an 'ordinary point' or a facing one laid in the main line. In contrast the three-throw has no provision for facing point locks.

 

 

Crimson Rambler

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7 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

What was the perceived advantage of inside keyed track? Was it simply ergonomic - that the ganger could walk in the four-foot checking the keys on both rails, doing his length of double line in one out-and-back trip - hopefully walking down the up and up the down?

Yes.

Also, gauge was maintained more rigidly.

And that was a problem: where outside keys were fitted, they added to the smoothness of the ride. Also, various parts of turnouts could only have outside keys, so I suspect that in the end, it became a lot simpler to just have all of them on the outside.

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5 minutes ago, Regularity said:

Also, gauge was maintained more rigidly.

And that was a problem: where outside keys were fitted, they added to the smoothness of the ride.

 

Rigidity not necessarily a good thing, as Brunel's baulk road and Stephenson's stone blocks demonstrated.

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Just now, Compound2632 said:

 

Rigidity not necessarily a good thing, as Brunel's baulk road and Stephenson's stone blocks demonstrated.

It would have been no more rigid than flat bottom track, and quite unlike baulk road or stone blocks.

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As Compound2632 has deduced with inside keying a ganger could observe both rails in one walk in the four foot - facing oncoming trains.

 

Initially engineers were very concerned about outside keys falling out and the rails subsequently spreading. Inside keying ensured that the outward sideways thrust generated by the coning of the wheels would always be resisted directly by the chair jaw whether the key was present or not.

 

However, it was found that inside keying tended to promote noisier running whereas the wood of an outside key provided a degree of noise discontinuity and  resilience. This resilience reduced the incidences of jaws fracturing. 

 

Once the size of the key jaw was no longer being constrained by the need for the wheel flange to pass over it meant both jaws could be made more solid, larger and longer - most useful with larger locomotives hauling heavier faster trains.

 

 

Crimson Rambler

 

 

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Inside-keyed track in the flesh, at King's Heath, date not known (to me) but no later than 1890s, I should think*:

 

image.png.c36c37ea6dadc5b961fbf48a06726900.png

 

[NRM DY 4064, released under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0) licence by the National Railway Museum.] Adjacent in the Derby photograph register are photos of the bridge that replaced the one seen here

 

*EDIT Mike Musson's caption on Warwickshire Railways says c. 1884, with the photo of the replacement bridge as 1886.

 

Edited by Compound2632
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Going off track, I was musing on Outstation Shops, which were under discussion recently - here or in my wagon-building topic? These were workshops at numerous Midland engine sheds that were capable of carrying out heavy repairs, including taking an engine's boiler out of the frames. These were built with the square sheds of the 1870s-90s, viz: Manchester (Belle Vue), Bristol, Carlisle, Child's Hill (aka Cricklewood), Gloucester, Kentish Town, Leeds, Leicester (shop built as an addition to the existing roundhouse), Nottingham, Peterborough, Saltley, Sheffield, and Wellingborough. 

 

These shops were arranged as a long building with a row of transverse bays, accessed via turntables outside the building, or in one or two cases, a traverser. The bays were, generally, long enough to accommodate a 6-wheeled engine with the standard 8'0" + 8'6" wheelbase, though those at Kentish Town, Holbeck, and possibly Saltley and Sheffield could, I think, take an 8-wheeler and maybe even a 4-6-0, as they remained open longest into LMS days.

 

Now, I've been reading up on the Great Northern Railway, which never had anything larger than a 4-4-0 right down to the end of steam, on account of the limited length of the erecting shop at its Dundalk works. That's set me wondering if the capacity of the outstation shops was a contributory factor in the Midland's rejection of larger locomotives in the 20th century, from Johnson's 0-8-0s on. Such engines could not be overhauled at most of the outstation shops, unless these were rebuilt at great expense, so would increase the pressure on Derby works. In LMS days, with Stamp's focus on efficiency, along with improved materials resulting in higher mileages between overhauls, the balance changed.

 

Ref: C. Hawkins & G. Reeve, LMS Engine Sheds Vol. 2 (Wild Swan, 1981).

Edited by Compound2632
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Stephen - I think this is an interesting idea. Somewhere I have a photograph of a 4-4-0 on I think the traverser at Kentish Town - it would interesting to see how much space there is available for 'engine growth'. Tried to find it just now but it is proving elusive.

 

 

Crimson Rambler

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My understanding is that the outstations, and not just the MR ones, required a lot of investment because their equipment was obsolete,  so the LMS completely changed how it managed the repairs process based on North American practice.

This resulted in major workshops handling most repairs (and all significant ones) with the district shed doing minor stuff and the lesser sheds just doing servicing. Each district had a number, 1 to whatever, with the major shed being A and all other sheds in the district following on alphabetically eg 9A, 9B etc.

It's all in Hawkins and Reeve.

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The last two subjects discussed, Midland engine size and locomotive repair systems, are both quite complex and ones about which I have written at some length in various books and magazines. Without taking a great many pages of this forum, the main reasons for the Midland's so-called 'small engine policy' were weakness of short-span girder bridges, relatively short lie-by sidings, the 1906 traffic control system, and the capital cost of large locomotives that may spend a significant proportion of their time working below capacity versus smaller engines that could be worked in pairs when required. The latter reflected the relative cost of machinery compared with wages. There are, of course, many and varied arguments for and against the Midland's way of working that could, and indeed have, filled many volumes but whatever a present day enthusiast's opinions, the important thing is that the Midland board chose, in the light of the evidence presented to it, the path that we all know. That it was a reasonable way of doing business is shown by the fact that the proportion of its income absorbed in running costs was the best of all the major British railway companies in the years leading up to the Great War with the exception of one year (1911 from memory) when the L&SWR was slightly better. The fact that the great insanity of 1914 - 1918 then skewed the factors involved could not have been foreseen in the early years of the 20th century.

 

As far as the adoption by the LMS of the progressive repair system whereby locomotives were serviced according to pre-planned criteria, unless unforeseen failures occurred, was something that could only be implemented by centralising repairs, with the exception of minor tasks, at main works due to the capacity and equipment state required. Thus it wasn't simply the cost of modernising outstations that was problematic but the fact that in order to effect the progressive system, which as stated in a previous post hereowed much to American practice, the capacity of those sites was insufficient. The reason for the change from the somewhat ad hoc systems that had prevailed pre- grouping was the high percentage of locomotives that were out of traffic at any one time but rather than being attended to and put back into traffic quickly, spent an inordinate amount of time parked in works sidings waiting for attention.

 

As I stated at the beginning, both of these subjects are complex and what I have just written is very sketchy but I hope puts a few things in perspective.

 

Dave

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1 hour ago, Dave Hunt said:

That it was a reasonable way of doing business is shown by the fact that the proportion of its income absorbed in running costs was the best of all the major British railway companies in the years leading up to the Great War with the exception of one year (1911 from memory) when the L&SWR was slightly better. The fact that the great insanity of 1914 - 1918 then skewed the factors involved could not have been foreseen in the early years of the 20th century.

In a nutshell, I think therein lies the problem that bedevilled the LMS at first.

It was the right way to do things at the time, for the Midland Railway. Possibly for many others - the LNWR had no compunction about “piloting” in the late 19th and early 20th century, until it decided that the cost of new engines was worth the expenditure on larger ones.

But after WW1, it was arguably not the best way to do it even for the Midland, let alone the larger system. Unfortunately, senior posts were occupied by people who had come through that system, and were unlikely to have been old enough to have been involved in the decisions of the mid-Edwardian era, so thought the only way they knew was the best way.

Circa 1900-1905, Midland engines were by no means small, though.

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