Would standard gauge sidings always have buffer stops ?

[Stubby47]

I have three sidings at a remote, rural backwater location. As the track level is slightly cut into the surrounding hill, each of the sidings has a grass bank at the end.

Would there be a need for buffer stops, or would a pole for a lamp be enough, or given that total darkness shunting was probably not undertaken, would there be a need for anything at all ?

 

 

Thanks in advance.

Stu

[Mike Storey]

What period are you modelling?

[brianusa]

I shall be interested in the responses as over here such a siding would maybe have a sleeper chained to the end of track or a pile of ballast, if there were any on a siding like this.

 

Brian.

[big jim]

I shall be interested in the responses as over here such a siding would maybe have a sleeper chained to the end of track or a pile of ballast, if there were any on a siding like this.

 

Brian.

 

as happens nowdays too in the uk, this is the old line into shelton steel works in stoke with nothing but a sleeper chained to it, wouldnt fancy a rough shunt up there!

 

[Stubby47]

Ah, should have mentioned the era.

 

Anything from the grouping to the end of blue diesels. Roughly.

[Mike Storey]

Ah, should have mentioned the era.

 

Anything from the grouping to the end of blue diesels. Roughly.

 

Ok! That is a pretty big span, so Rule 1 applies. Have them or have them not - there will be examples as already shown of having no buffer stops. In reality, for a permanent provision, stops would have normally been provided to prevent/reduce damage to stock or locos in the event of a hard shunt, brake failure or other error. Digging a wagon or loco out of an earth bank, which will have partially collapsed on top of it with the impact, may or may not have been worth making the investment. As late as the 1980's, I recall a siding at Queenborough (Kent) which had been the goods shed siding, just having a wooden beam (but at buffer height) attached to the end wall. This was a well used siding at the time, mainly for cripples or excess stock, but no-one considered it worthwhile to install any kind of shock absorbing stops. If anything hit it at some speed, there would have been severe consequences both to the vehicle and to the building just beyond the stops. But it never happened. The siding is now disconnected, but as Sheerness Steel is re-opening, I can see it coming back into use.

[Stubby47]

Mike,

Thanks for your reply.

I'm torn between having them, so it looks 'proper' and not, so it looks more run down & neglected.

I do like Rule 1 though, very handy.

[David Bigcheeseplant]

No bufferstop or sleeper at the end of this engine shed line at Aylesbury. Just a wooden building which I don't think would stop a wagon let alone a loco!

[Ian Smeeton]

One sleeper, or a pile?

 

Mossend Yard in the late 70's, early 80's had a number of dead end sidings, which, if they did still have intact buffer stops, were buried under a large pile of concrete sleepers.

 

Some had additional adornments in the shape of a 16t Mineral or a vanfit/vanwide, and in at least 1 case, one of each.

 

Sadly, only one of my very poor photos has survived, and I Cannot find it on-line.

 

I am sure that I have scanned it. I will have to do it again.

 

Found it: see here: http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/68948-new-4mm-bufferstops-new/page-12

 

Regards

 

Ian

[TheSignalEngineer]

No bufferstop or sleeper at the end of this engine shed line at Aylesbury. Just a wooden building which I don't think would stop a wagon let alone a loco!

If you look closely there are wheelstops on the end of the rail. These were common inside sheds, seen here at Rugby, but no so much outside. http://www.warwickshirerailways.com/lms/lnwrrm970.htm

 

This road at Saltley had a stop block but also some tell=tale brickwork on the wall beyond it http://www.warwickshirerailways.com/lms/mrsalt1258.htm

[Stubby47]

Interestingly, I do have some of Dave Frank's GWR buffers, which I ought to add - my initial query was would the authorities have bothered if there was an earth bank at the end anyway.

[Ken.W]

The stabling roads at the west end of Gateshead depot hadn't any form of stops (diesel days, 'late 70s onwards) and it was downhill on these sidings.

 

I remember on one occasion, during MP12 training, we started up the 47 we were on, it gave a shrug as it started to crank the engine over...

and the 40 it was stood 'on top' of promptly rolled gently off the end of the road

[TheSignalEngineer]

The stabling roads at the west end of Gateshead depot hadn't any form of stops (diesel days, 'late 70s onwards) and it was downhill on these sidings.

 

I remember on one occasion, during MP12 training, we started up the 47 we were on, it gave a shrug as it started to crank the engine over...

and the 40 it was stood 'on top' of promptly rolled gently off the end of the road

40s were prone to sneek off of their own accord, so much so that they were supposed to be scotched when left unattended.

[Orange Cat]

There was a canal interchange basin in the West Midlands (I can't recall which one from memory) where the buffer stops were repeatedly knocked into the cut, often along with the wagons that had sent them there. The decision was taken to dispense with buffer stops altogether. The result was that shunting was then carried out with a lot more care and circumspection and wagons no longer ended up in the water.

[Trog]

There was a trap road at Watford at the south end of the Engineers Sidings that ended with rails turned up by 90 degrees in an curve of a similar radius to a wagon wheel.

 

There is also another variation on the sleeper on the rails type stop, where instead of using chain you get two fishplates one under the rail and one over the sleepers and clamp them together with long S&C bolts one set for each rail.

[Swindon 123]

March loco depot had some substantial wheel stops on its stabling roads, as can be seen in the following linked photos.

https://flic.kr/p/aaNTTq

https://flic.kr/p/ci8Gko

 

Paul J.

[PatB]

There was a trap road at Watford at the south end of the Engineers Sidings that ended with rails turned up by 90 degrees in an curve of a similar radius to a wagon wheel.

 

There is also another variation on the sleeper on the rails type stop, where instead of using chain you get two fishplates one under the rail and one over the sleepers and clamp them together with long S&C bolts one set for each rail.

I'm pretty sure that I've also seen a photograph of a sleeper, with chairs still attached, inverted and keyed to the rails. Can't remember where though. Maybe in the letters pages of RM c35 years ago.

[BR60103]

PatB: check the second photo of March in post 16!

 

I remember a photo of the end of a yard where about half the siding had buffer stops while the rest had piles of timber -- rekitted buffer stops.

[PatB]

PatB: check the second photo of March in post 16!

 

I remember a photo of the end of a yard where about half the siding had buffer stops while the rest had piles of timber -- rekitted buffer stops.

 

Ah yes; that's similar to what i remember. Thanks. Was viewing RMWeb on my phone so didn't initially open the links so as to save on data.

[Dunsignalling]

I have three sidings at a remote, rural backwater location. As the track level is slightly cut into the surrounding hill, each of the sidings has a grass bank at the end.

Would there be a need for buffer stops, or would a pole for a lamp be enough, or given that total darkness shunting was probably not undertaken, would there be a need for anything at all ?

 

20170419_202046.jpg

 

Thanks in advance.

Stu

Just a gut feeling, but I feel that anywhere "busy" enough to need three sidings would have stop blocks on at least a couple of them.

 

A good way of thinking about which, would be "if wagons went off the end, what else might they damage/obstruct and how difficult would it be to retrieve them?"

 

Applying that to the sidings in your photo, I'd put proper stop blocks on the right hand pair, with maybe some lesser arrangement on the other one, which seems to have something more of a natural one anyway. 

 

John

[Stubby47]

Thanks John, that seems like a nice compromise.

 

(Not least because the near siding is only just long enough for 3 wagons and the stop would have had to been half buried in the bank anyway...)

[TheSignalEngineer]

I think it was at the reversing siding on the DC Lines at Harrow used mainly by LUL trains where there was just a pile of sand an the track. Didn't cause much damage if hit and easy to pull out the offending train.

[ejstubbs]

There was a trap road at Watford at the south end of the Engineers Sidings that ended with rails turned up by 90 degrees in an curve of a similar radius to a wagon wheel.

 

I've read that this kind of setup was quite common in small engine sheds, too.

[The Johnster]

Goods sidings in my time on the railway, blue era 1970s, usually had some sort of buffer stops at the end of them, mostly rail-built GW types in my area, sometimes with a sleeper forming the crossbar and sometimes a pair of rails, but some loading docks and bay roads had sleepers simply fixed to the end wall.  Where a running line was concerned, they had lamps (not always lit at night and in varying stages of decrepitude) on them and tended to be painted red, sometimes just on the portions which the buffers of an approaching vehicle contacted them.  But this was not an absolute rule, and places could be found with sleepers chained to the track, a common arrangement where a road had been truncated, a spur that had formerly been a branch line for instance. 

 

Actual shock absorbing blocks were rare; the only ones I remember were at Paddington (and the other London termini) and Swansea High Street.  Proper termini are rare in South Wales, where most of the branch lines simply continue past the passenger station to collieries further up; offhand, only Swanseas High Street and Victoria, Merthyr High Street, and Barry Pier come to mind, and the first 2 of those had routes continuing past them at the side and disappearing into the dock complex.  The 'ordinary' buffer stops were not shock absorbing in any way and were not capable of holding up against any serious hit.  I once ran into the set at the end of the headshunt at Pengam Freightliner terminal with a 47 (my fault; I was handsignalling the driver from the secondman's seat and concentrating on the shunter's handsignals on the ground instead of looking where we were going, and driver's fault for not changing ends but we never bothered in those days); they were attached to a short length of rail not fishplated to the rest of the headshunt and we moved them back about the distance between the bogies, leaving the loco marooned at one end...

 

The suggested compromise of proper stops on the two main sidings and a chained sleeper would look about right, Stubby, but I can't help feeling that the company that built that setup would have found the raised bank at the end of the short siding a very good place to put an end loading dock; the lie of the land has almost built it for them.  Nice grassy bank, by the way; my Bachmann sheep would love a go at it!   My own blt, Cwmdimabath, has a set of GW rail-built Peco blocks on the platform road and, as the goods siding has an end loading dock, a simple wood piece attached to it.  The private siding simply disappears under the debris at it's end, and an old Airfix kit coal wagon is glued there with a door open and nearly empty; this acts as the actual end of the siding for operating purposes, 3 solutions on the only 3 roads I have that end in this way, but this is the South Wales Valleys in the 50s where standards were not what they were at Paddington...

[Stubby47]

The Johnster,

Thanks for the idea of the end loading dock - something I'd not considered.

Stu