Prototype ratio of locos:coaches:wagons

[Dungrange]

Whilst I don't think it is necessary to try and replicate these proportions on a model simply because we only model part of the network rather than the entire railway or even just one company, I'd be interested in seeing a breakdown for the 'modern railway'.  Is a Diesel Multiple Unit (DMU) a locomotive or a coach / carriage or both?   Are there more or fewer locomotives than multiple units?

[RLBH]

Reference was made up-thread to the venerable 'Keeping the Balance' series of articles. It's possible to get a little cleverer than that, though, if one is also armed with the Beeching report. You see, Beeching spent far more time in his report on the mechanics of freight working than on the better-publicised line closures. And part of that was on utilisation rates. There were an awful lot of wagons sitting around doing not a lot - the average open goods wagon spent almost 50% of its time completely idle.

 

Armed with that information, we can make some assumptions. The key one of which is that we're modelling a lineside location rather than a major yard, so the vast number of wagons that are being loaded, unloaded, or waiting for someone to do one of those two, can be ignores.

 

On that basis, Rowland's 706 goods wagons turn out to be 190:

 

Railway-owned:

Open goods wagons: 27 loaded, 9 empty

Covered goods wagons: 16 loaded, 5 empty, not that you can tell the difference anyway

Mineral wagons: 13 loaded, 9 empty

Rail & timber wagons: 2 loaded, 1 empty

Cattle wagons: 1 loaded, 1 empty

Special wagons: 1 loaded, 1 empty

 

Private Owner:

Mineral wagons: 50 loaded, 50 empty

Special wagons: 2 loaded, 2 empty

 

While that's still a lot of wagons, 19 for every locomotive is a lot more manageable than 70. Unless you're a wagon enthusiast, of course. The utilisation rates will be a little off for the rail & timber and special wagons, but since there are so few of them it shouldn't matter too much. Statistically, this is 5.6 trains of average length, so call it six brake vans.

 

Beeching's numbers on coach utilisation aren't quite as usable, but on their basis Rowland's 23 coaches probably ought to be somewhere between 7 and 17 actually running, depending on how many reliefs and strengtheners you need.  Call it 12 for the sake of an average. Much of the NPCS would be similarly afflicted, probably sitting somewhere between goods vans (31% of the time running) and coaching stock (30% in daily use, up to about 70% at peak periods).

 

 Of course, based on general availability rates for steam locomotives you're probably talking about three running on any given day out of his ten anyway. Ultimately, it's your train set, and who knows what's at the other end of the line!