Turntable operation - shunting dead locos

[60800]

An odd but relevant question - in a roundhouse setting (lets use the NRM and Barrow Hill as the most available examples) where you have relatively short roads and long tender locos, large diesels etc, just how do you shunt a dead loco? I'm asking from both a prototype view and a model railway operation view as I wish to recreate these practices where there is seemingly no room for a shunter on the turntable deck or the road due to said tracks being already occupied by a dead loco.

 

Any help is greatly appreciated with this, especially with examples concerning 50A and 41E

 

Cheers,

60800

[LMS2968]

If you had to move a dead engine with no possibility of using an engine in steam, the answer would be a lot of men with pinch bars. You wouldn't be moving it very far, just enough to get the live loco attached.

[60800]

If you had to move a dead engine with no possibility of using an engine in steam, the answer would be a lot of men with pinch bars. You wouldn't be moving it very far, just enough to get the live loco attached.

Thanks for your reply - I had thought of this and consider it to be a very labour intensive way of doing things. The only instance I've used pinch bars in relation to moving locos is in rotating wheels for rod alignment. In today's modern H&S mad world, I very much doubt this practice would be allowed inside the NRM, which forms my query in the main. The other catalyst being the raft of AC Electrics inside Barrow Hill

 

Cheers,

60800

[russ p]

Two locos are used one sits on the road opposite to the one you want the dead one on and the other pushes it on the table

[60800]

Two locos are used one sits on the road opposite to the one you want the dead one on and the other pushes it on the table

In most instances with the NRM, this would not work as the shunter cannot physically sit on the opposite road due to it being occupied - trying to remove the offending loco from the opposite road results in the problem of then having a shunter stuck on the intended road as, unless one of the two main exit roads is used, you cannot get it out. I have managed to find a snippet of video though that shows D6700, Mallard and Churchill being shunted by a forklift! Which explains that situation. I can only guess therefore that in other places like Barrow Hill, either the forklift or pinch bar method is used. The forklift appears to have a block attached to the forks for pushing and uses a chain arrangement through the rear towing pin for pulling.

 

Cheers,

60800

Edited November 28, 2017 by 60800

[russ p]

I was thinking of Barrow hill where I've done this movement myself

[LMS2968]

Two locos are used one sits on the road opposite to the one you want the dead one on and the other pushes it on the table

That assumes that there is a road opposite the one you're shunting - not always the case, as in the semi-roundhouse at Crewe North - and that this road is not itself occupied by a dead engine, quite possible on a Sunday evening.

[TheSignalEngineer]

In a museum situation I would use a big tractor and some stout chains.

[jonhall]

Capstan winches.

 

On the continent there were dedicated shunters for turntables and traversers, they are often a little cabin with wheels that reach well under the stock to be towed, and some sort of jack system that transfers the weight of the towed loco, to provide tractive weight.

 

Jon

[60800]

Thanks for the replies all;

 

It seems like when space is at a premium the only choices are forklift / tractor, winches or pinch bar to fulfil the criteria. The two shunter operation is something I have witnessed on a movement in the NRM, but that relied on two things - space for shunter 1 to leave via one of the two exit roads and enough space on the opposite road for the second shunter. With how the NRM is set up, you nominally have a maximum of three or four roads from which it can be done with a two shunter operation. Two with single shunter operation and the rest have to be done with the forklift method.

 

Cheers,

60800

Edited November 28, 2017 by 60800

[great central]

Pre preservation days I have read accounts of stabling locos in roundhouses, if it was in steam and to be left to cool for work to be done enough steam pressure would be left in the boiler after the fire was thrown out to allow it to be driven into the roundhouse and off the turntable into the relevant stall, remembering that it may well need to have enough steam to operate the brakes as well (not always the case I believe with dire conseqences for the shed wall!). After the work was completed it would be lit up where it stood or shunted as already mentioned with another loco on an opposite road.

I've also read accounts of out of steam locos being dragged up and down the shed yard with the cylinder drains open and in the opposite gear to the direction it was being dragged, causing air to be pumped into the boiler and pressurising it, until enough pressure was obtained to allow the loco to be driven off the 'table into a stall.

[LMS2968]

I've also read accounts of out of steam locos being dragged up and down the shed yard with the cylinder drains open and in the opposite gear to the direction it was being dragged, causing air to be pumped into the boiler and pressurising it, until enough pressure was obtained to allow the loco to be driven off the 'table into a stall.

I've actually done that on the SVR. It was the first time Gordon was to be steam tested after arrival, and after a day there was nothing showing on the gauge. We used The Lady Armadale to move her twice back and forth through the station. I was firing The Lady A that day.

[Siberian Snooper]

If you had to move a dead engine with no possibility of using an engine in steam, the answer would be a lot of men with pinch bars. You wouldn't be moving it very far, just enough to get the live loco attached.

 

I have shifted a 9F by myself with a proper pinch bar, it has a shoe that sits on the rail and about a 10 foot long handle. The hard part is to get the thing moving once going it's fairly easy. WARNING, make sure you have placed some chocks where you want it to stop, or something with the brakes on properly.

[31A]

I believe some depots with roundhouse sheds had very small tank engines allocated for that reason; e.g. an NER Class Y7 or Y8 (classes usually used as dock shunters) was allocated to York.  The same could also be seen in various mainland European countries where some very small and old locos survived for  long time as depot pilots - in that case (possibly turntables were longer?) you can sometimes see pictures of them sharing the turntable with the loco they were shunting, although I can't imagine that would work very often in this country!

[JeffP]

Lots of french depots were roundhouses, built to two styles, semi-open, or closed.

Turntables and stabling roads were usually long enough for a diesel/electric and a small shunter.

 

SNCF had some very small ones, classes Y2200/2400, and Y5000. Many were allocated to large depots for just this purpose: shunting locos around dead.

With the advent of semi-privatisation in France, and new rules, the little shunters were taken "off the books", to avoid costs, and re-numbered in the "LOCMA" series.

NB: LOCMA: Loco de Manoevres.

Above is LOCMA007 at Tours St Pierre, circa 2000

[The Stationmaster]

I have shifted a 9F by myself with a proper pinch bar, it has a shoe that sits on the rail and about a 10 foot long handle. The hard part is to get the thing moving once going it's fairly easy. WARNING, make sure you have placed some chocks where you want it to stop, or something with the brakes on properly.

 

I always thought the hard part when using a pinchbar was stopping something once you'd got it moving - definitely the case with wagons.

[Siberian Snooper]

I always thought the hard part when using a pinchbar was stopping something once you'd got it moving - definitely the case with wagons.

Wagons, don't tend to have as many wheels and waggly bits attached to them, so easier to get on the move even when loaded. 9Fs may not move quite as fast as a wagon, but they definitely take a bit of stopping, hence the warning.

[jonhall]

This is the sort of machine I've seen for shunting turntables

 

https://www.produzionidalbasso.com/media/projects/15142/images/Senza%20titolo-ok.jpg

 

Jon

[LMS2968]

I hate to say this, but you wouldn't get even one of those and a Stanier Pacific on a turntable.

Edited November 29, 2017 by LMS2968

[jonhall]

This is the sort of machine I've seen for shunting turntables

 

https://www.produzionidalbasso.com/media/projects/15142/images/Senza%20titolo-ok.jpg

 

Jon

 

 

The Società Veneta Ferrovie who own this little turntable shunter use it to move their wagins around site, but at the moment they are raising money to rebuild it, and have made a litle video to encourage donations..

 

 

Jon