Cholsey & Moulsford (Change for Wallingford)

[Nick Gough]

I would like to wish everyone who has commented, reacted or viewed 'Cholsey & Moulsford', a merry Christmas and best wishes for the new year.

 

Yesterday we drove to Swanage, where we will be spending the next week with father-in-law and our daughter and her family.

 

After our arrival I was just in time to see the last 'Steam and Lights' train, with a Bulleid flat top at both ends.

[Nick Gough]

We returned home yesterday, from our Christmas week in Swanage.

 

One of my presents, though pre-ordered, is still being made by Santa and his elves, somewhere in Cornwall I believe. Constructed of chocolate and cream it should arrive in the new year.

 

Unfortunately, number one grandson had an ear infection which entailed an early Boxing Day visit to Swanage hospital where they diagnosed the end of a a bout of scarlet fever as well. Fortunately, with antibiotics, he was soon feeling better.

 

I was surprised by how many people were about in Dorset at this time of year. A sunny Boxing Day walk on Studland beach was very busy with the NT car park virtually full.

 

Though the week's weather was a bit hit and miss, with quite a lot of rain, we managed a train ride, on Thursday, to visit Corfe Castle, though only the DMU was running.

 

Anyway, happy New Year to all and back to modelling in the next few days.

 

 

[The Stationmaster]

On 16/12/2022 at 22:38, ChrisN said:

 

Nick,

Your picture with the track labels is very interesting.  Two down refuges, if I have that right.  I can understand one off the relief line for goods trains, but did they operate goods trains off the fast line?

 

I keep thinking that they you are very close to London for relief lines, but of course you must be at least 45 minutes, (it used to be 30 minutes to Reading when I was young), and slow goods or pick ups would need to get out of the way.

 

No such need on the Cambrian, single line most of the way, and traind so slow and scarce why would you need to hide away, except just to admire the scenery.

Due to absence from RMweb I'm rather late to the party on this one and I realise that Nick has already responded but some more things.  There were plenty of refuge sidings on the GWML east of Reading including some on the Main Lines although the last of the latter were removed, or in a few cases converted to Loops, in the first half of the 1960s.  The two Down refuges at Cholsey were both removed  in 1964 (May and June respectively).  In the real world the Down Relief Refuge was the longer of the two but both have clearly  had to be compressed on the model for very obvious reasons.

 

The refuge sidings weren't necessarily just used to shunt trains (for another to overtake or simply to regulate them when approaching yards where they were booked to work) but were also often used to pick up and set down traffic which was otherwise shunted by the local freight trip.  This latter type of working changed considerably over the years reducing massively in post-war years especially after the 1952 ASLEF strike caused the loss of large amounts of freight traffic.

 

As far as running freights on the Main lines was concerned this was regular practice on the GWR and on BR WR and when i was in charge of freight planning on the Region from the very late 1980s into the early 1990s we made a point of trying to run at least some faster freights on the Mains on the London Division.  This included a regular train of empties back to the Mendip quarries in the early afternoon through Reading in order to reduce pathing problems at Reading although in practice it often ran, and suffered delay asa result, running Down the Relief Line to Reading.   But in reality the arrival of HSTs had severely reduced the opportunity to path freights on the Mains.

[Neal Ball]

16 hours ago, The Stationmaster said:

Due to absence from RMweb I'm rather late to the party on this one and I realise that Nick has already responded but some more things.  There were plenty of refuge sidings on the GWML east of Reading including some on the Main Lines although the last of the latter were removed, or in a few cases converted to Loops, in the first half of the 1960s.  The two Down refuges at Cholsey were both removed  in 1964 (May and June respectively).  In the real world the Down Relief Refuge was the longer of the two but both have clearly  had to be compressed on the model for very obvious reasons.

 

The refuge sidings weren't necessarily just used to shunt trains (for another to overtake or simply to regulate them when approaching yards where they were booked to work) but were also often used to pick up and set down traffic which was otherwise shunted by the local freight trip.  This latter type of working changed considerably over the years reducing massively in post-war years especially after the 1952 ASLEF strike caused the loss of large amounts of freight traffic.

 

As far as running freights on the Main lines was concerned this was regular practice on the GWR and on BR WR and when i was in charge of freight planning on the Region from the very late 1980s into the early 1990s we made a point of trying to run at least some faster freights on the Mains on the London Division.  This included a regular train of empties back to the Mendip quarries in the early afternoon through Reading in order to reduce pathing problems at Reading although in practice it often ran, and suffered delay asa result, running Down the Relief Line to Reading.   But in reality the arrival of HSTs had severely reduced the opportunity to path freights on the Mains.

This sounds like book 2 Mike!

 

Book 1 is obviously your signalling knowledge…. Book 2 is operations…. With maybe Book 3 being just the Thames Valley 😎

 

Welcome back to RMWeb your knowledge is terrific, thanks for sharing.

[Nick Gough]

18 hours ago, The Stationmaster said:

Due to absence from RMweb I'm rather late to the party on this one and I realise that Nick has already responded but some more things.  There were plenty of refuge sidings on the GWML east of Reading including some on the Main Lines although the last of the latter were removed, or in a few cases converted to Loops, in the first half of the 1960s.  The two Down refuges at Cholsey were both removed  in 1964 (May and June respectively).  In the real world the Down Relief Refuge was the longer of the two but both have clearly  had to be compressed on the model for very obvious reasons.

 

The refuge sidings weren't necessarily just used to shunt trains (for another to overtake or simply to regulate them when approaching yards where they were booked to work) but were also often used to pick up and set down traffic which was otherwise shunted by the local freight trip.  This latter type of working changed considerably over the years reducing massively in post-war years especially after the 1952 ASLEF strike caused the loss of large amounts of freight traffic.

 

As far as running freights on the Main lines was concerned this was regular practice on the GWR and on BR WR and when i was in charge of freight planning on the Region from the very late 1980s into the early 1990s we made a point of trying to run at least some faster freights on the Mains on the London Division.  This included a regular train of empties back to the Mendip quarries in the early afternoon through Reading in order to reduce pathing problems at Reading although in practice it often ran, and suffered delay asa result, running Down the Relief Line to Reading.   But in reality the arrival of HSTs had severely reduced the opportunity to path freights on the Mains.

Thanks Mike. That helps to put some more 'flesh on the bones'  operationally.

 

I used the measurement tool on the NLS website 25" O/ S map, for Cholsey, and calculated that the length of the Down Relief refuge was about 1,470 feet. That's more than twice the length that I've managed to fit in. The larger part of my 'compression' is between the goods yard headshunt and Silly bridge though, viewing this from the station, it doesn't appear too obvious.

[Neal Ball]

Why is it called "Silly Bridge" @Nick Gough

[RJS1977]

That's a question that's always puzzled me as well!

 

[Nick Gough]

6 hours ago, Neal Ball said:

Why is it called "Silly Bridge" @Nick Gough

Silly Bridge is apparently the local name although no one is entirely sure of the origin. One suggestion is that it was built to continue access for farmers to common grazing land to the south west of the line, but shortly after it was built the Enclosures Act came into effect , that land became privately owned and so it was now a (silly) 'bridge to nowhere'. Another possibility is that it was linked to unfortunate souls from the nearby County Asylum who used the bridge to 'escape'.

[The Stationmaster]

8 hours ago, Nick Gough said:

Thanks Mike. That helps to put some more 'flesh on the bones'  operationally.

 

I used the measurement tool on the NLS website 25" O/ S map, for Cholsey, and calculated that the length of the Down Relief refuge was about 1,470 feet. That's more than twice the length that I've managed to fit in. The larger part of my 'compression' is between the goods yard headshunt and Silly bridge though, viewing this from the station, it doesn't appear too obvious.

Official (1960) capacities for the refuge sidings at Cholsey were as follows -

Down Main =57 wagons

Down Relief = 72 wagons

Up Relief = 68 wagons

 

To get an idea of the length in terms of understannadble distances multiply the number of wagons by 21 feet, add the length of an engine, add the length of a brakevan, and allow a few feet to make sure it's not all squeezed up against the stop block.

 

Officially the length of freight trains was lo imited to the shortest refuge sidingg or loop on the relevant section of route.  However in practice it rarely worked like that as the short loops and refuge sidings tended to be discounted in order to permit sensible train lengths.  For example the longest Down Relief Line loop or refuge siding between Acton and Didcot was =95 at Maidenhead West while the shortest was =36 at Twyford East.  These were the same back in 1948 - when the permitted length was 80 wagons.

 

In my time in freight planning we were running some trains on the WR between Westbury and Acton, return, of  =120 for length (5,000 tons trailing load) in a period when the standard BR maximum permitted length was =100.  And at that time there were only one or two goods loops between those two points that could hold a train that long,  So - as always - it meant that carful timetabling was needed.

 

Escapes from the local mental hospital, Fairmile Hospital, were an occasional hazard in the Cholsey area and a number of deaths occurred involving people who had left that place when they weren't supposed to.  One event connected with the hospital occurred in the late 1960s when the Driver of a freight train stopped near Cholsey shortly after 01.00 to report that he had seen what might be a woman wearing what looked like a dressing gown on the line west of Cholsey station.  Trains were duly cautioned and someone was called out to walk the line looking for her - if she actually existed because they didn't find her.  However several hours later another Driver reported seeing a woman on the line wearing a nightdress and walking towards Didcot somewhere near Moreton Cutting.  Again a search on foot failed to find her but at around 05.00 a woman, naked except for a pair of slippers, walked up the ramp and onto the Up Relief platform at Didcot; she was duly collected by staff from Fairrmile Hospital and taken back there.  The hsopital clped in 2003 and the, listed, building, was converted into housing, 

 

 

[St Enodoc]

2 hours ago, The Stationmaster said:

Escapes from the local mental hospital, Fairmile Hospital, were an occasional hazard in the Cholsey area

There were many such known hazards across the network,

[RJS1977]

Indeed, I used to work at the Met Office in Bracknell and each Monday morning was punctuated by the testing of the Broadmoor escape alarm.

[Nick Gough]

15 hours ago, The Stationmaster said:

Official (1960) capacities for the refuge sidings at Cholsey were as follows -

Down Main =57 wagons

Down Relief = 72 wagons

Up Relief = 68 wagons

 

To get an idea of the length in terms of understannadble distances multiply the number of wagons by 21 feet, add the length of an engine, add the length of a brakevan, and allow a few feet to make sure it's not all squeezed up against the stop block.

 

Officially the length of freight trains was lo imited to the shortest refuge sidingg or loop on the relevant section of route.  However in practice it rarely worked like that as the short loops and refuge sidings tended to be discounted in order to permit sensible train lengths.  For example the longest Down Relief Line loop or refuge siding between Acton and Didcot was =95 at Maidenhead West while the shortest was =36 at Twyford East.  These were the same back in 1948 - when the permitted length was 80 wagons.

 

In my time in freight planning we were running some trains on the WR between Westbury and Acton, return, of  =120 for length (5,000 tons trailing load) in a period when the standard BR maximum permitted length was =100.  And at that time there were only one or two goods loops between those two points that could hold a train that long,  So - as always - it meant that carful timetabling was needed.

 

Escapes from the local mental hospital, Fairmile Hospital, were an occasional hazard in the Cholsey area and a number of deaths occurred involving people who had left that place when they weren't supposed to.  One event connected with the hospital occurred in the late 1960s when the Driver of a freight train stopped near Cholsey shortly after 01.00 to report that he had seen what might be a woman wearing what looked like a dressing gown on the line west of Cholsey station.  Trains were duly cautioned and someone was called out to walk the line looking for her - if she actually existed because they didn't find her.  However several hours later another Driver reported seeing a woman on the line wearing a nightdress and walking towards Didcot somewhere near Moreton Cutting.  Again a search on foot failed to find her but at around 05.00 a woman, naked except for a pair of slippers, walked up the ramp and onto the Up Relief platform at Didcot; she was duly collected by staff from Fairrmile Hospital and taken back there.  The hsopital clped in 2003 and the, listed, building, was converted into housing, 

 

 

Thanks for that info Mike.

 

I have a copy of the Bradford & Barton reprint of the 1945 Service Timetable Appendices but that doesn't have the refuge information for Cholsey in it.

[The Stationmaster]

3 hours ago, Nick Gough said:

Thanks for that info Mike.

 

I have a copy of the Bradford & Barton reprint of the 1945 Service Timetable Appendices but that doesn't have the refuge information for Cholsey in it.

Nick at that time the refuge siding and loop standage was shown in the Service Timetable (STT).  A lot information was included in the STTs and gradually moved to other documents during the 1950s with the last of it gone by c.1960.

[Nick Gough]

A few photos from our Christmas DMU trip to Corfe Castle:

 

I don't know a lot about the different types of DMU but it looks similar to the ones on my local, boyhood, BR line (GCR Neasden Junction to Northolt Junction), and the WR London area. I had a number of trips on those over the GW&GC Joint, and out to Didcot, in the early '70s.

 

I can just remember them, originally, in the green livery, but it wasn't long before they started turning blue.

[RJS1977]

27 minutes ago, Nick Gough said:

 

I can just remember them, originally, in the green livery, but it wasn't long before they started turning blue.

 

It was probably the cold winter of 1963 that did it!

[St Enodoc]

3 hours ago, Nick Gough said:

A few photos from our Christmas DMU trip to Corfe Castle:

 

I don't know a lot about the different types of DMU but it looks similar to the ones on my local, boyhood, BR line (GCR Neasden Junction to Northolt Junction), and the WR London area. I had a number of trips on those over the GW&GC Joint, and out to Didcot, in the early '70s.

 

I can just remember them, originally, in the green livery, but it wasn't long before they started turning blue.

That white front to the headcode box looks very odd. Even if there's nothing behind it, painting it black would surely be an improvement (and don't call me, etc...)?

[Nick Gough]

I have neglected to post on this thread recently though, despite what could be assumed, I have not been entirely idle.

 

For example, a few days ago I savagely attacked one of my baseboards with a variety of saws, drill and router bits, to produce a large, rough hole in it:

 

Together with an oddly shaped piece of plywood:

 

A couple of days previously I visited one of our local model shops to purchase some Peco Setrack:  

[Nick Gough]

Having savaged the baseboard, I then attacked the baseboard supports to cut more regular holes through them:

 

Having smoothed off the underside of the piece of plywood - it's placed back into the hole:

 

The setrack placed on top:

 

To create a low-level channel:

[Tallpaul69]

Maybe this is the start of laying in the branch, or the start of an approach to a low level storage yard? 

[RJS1977]

I would like to think that it is the start of the branch (for obvious reasons!), however the inside of the curve should be on an embankment, not in a cutting.

[Nick Gough]

1 hour ago, Tallpaul69 said:

Maybe this is the start of laying in the branch, or the start of an approach to a low level storage yard? 

 

1 hour ago, RJS1977 said:

I would like to think that it is the start of the branch (for obvious reasons!), however the inside of the curve should be on an embankment, not in a cutting.

This is indeed for the branch line - but not the start of it.

 

As you know, as the branch turns away from the main line embankment it gradually descends to meet the natural ground level.

 

Just after the branch leaves the connection to the exchange sidings, and starts to curve away from the main lines, I have made a slit in that baseboard to start the down gradient:

 

Of course, in the real world, as the branch curves away, the main lines (and sidings) should continue straight ahead, towards Didcot.

 

Due to space constraints though, on the model, they have to curve around the end of the railway room:

 

The branch will continue to curve, and descend, across the room to enter the storage/ fiddle yard board on the other side:

The branch line track will follow the route of the MDF pattern I have placed between the two boards.

 

Consequently the branch line enters the storage yard at a lower level, causing the recent woodworking efforts:

The tight space here meant I had to use train set curves - hence the setrack. The scenic branch curve will be to 30" radius - much tighter than the prototype, but not too bad.

 

Ideally I would have cut out the space for the branch when building the baseboard, but I wasn't sure what path the branch would take until I had got most of the track laid.

 

I also considered keeping the branch at the same height as the rest of the track (for simplicity) but decided to go for it in the end.

 

[Nick Gough]

Looking back, towards the station, the branch line can be seen curving away on the left of this photo:

The relief lines are on the right, and the two Up refuge/exchange sidings have been recently laid in the centre, with another dummy trap point in one.

 

Looking the other way, unlike the real railway, all the tracks have to curve to the right:

 

Crossing the window end:

From top to bottom we have:

Down Main,

Up Main,

Down Relief,

Up Relief,

Long Up siding,

Short Up siding.

 

Of course the space for both sidings is much shorter than it should be - the short siding ends bottom right.

 

To make the long siding a decent length I have decided to continue it into the storage/fiddle yard where it currently ends above the sunken branch:

 

The plan is to make it slightly longer and connect it to one of the storage sidings via the bottom turnout on the right:

[ChrisN]

3 hours ago, Nick Gough said:

Looking back, towards the station, the branch line can be seen curving away on the left of this photo:

The relief lines are on the right, and the two Up refuge/exchange sidings have been recently laid in the centre, with another dummy trap point in one.

 

Looking the other way, unlike the real railway, all the tracks have to curve to the right:

 

Crossing the window end:

From top to bottom we have:

Down Main,

Up Main,

Down Relief,

Up Relief,

Long Up siding,

Short Up siding.

 

Of course the space for both sidings is much shorter than it should be - the short siding ends bottom right.

 

To make the long siding a decent length I have decided to continue it into the storage/fiddle yard where it currently ends above the sunken branch:

 

The plan is to make it slightly longer and connect it to one of the storage sidings via the bottom turnout on the right:

 

You should have built a bigger railway room, just like I should have said that our extension was not for living in/family room/ entertaining, but for my layout.  😀

 

Looking good though, very impressive.  (Does the radiator work, and how does that effect things?)

[Nick Gough]

16 hours ago, ChrisN said:

 

You should have built a bigger railway room, just like I should have said that our extension was not for living in/family room/ entertaining, but for my layout.  😀

 

I do have an option for resolving this.

If I open the window I could extend the railway onto the flat roof of the old garage beyond. That should give me an extra 20 feet:

There might be one or two drawbacks with this plan though?

 

Actually, the room would have been slightly longer had the council planning officer not insisted that the extension had to be inset one metre from the front of the existing house.

 

16 hours ago, ChrisN said:

Looking good though, very impressive. 

 

Thanks.

 

16 hours ago, ChrisN said:

(Does the radiator work, and how does that effect things?)

 

It does but I have fixed a piece of thick card to the bottom of the baseboard here, and faced the underside with a layer of foil.

 

Without it the upper surface was warm to the touch (when the radiator was on). With it in place the temperature is fine.

 

[Nick Gough]

I came across a blast from the past today:

 

I spent many happy hours visiting the original Kenton shop before (and indeed after) we moved away from Harrow in the early 1980s. A big selection of useful bits and pieces, upstairs and downstairs, with regular noisy interruptions from the WCML alongside. 

 

I went past there, on a train, last October and the building looked pretty derelict.

 

We had two other model shops in Harrow at the time.

The Harrow Model shop - co-incidentally owned by one of my father's cousins - Arthur Cross - no I wasn't given any discounts!

Another one (I can't remember its name), near to Harrow-on-the-Hill Metropolitan & GCR Joint station, which always had a vast selection of all Triang spare parts.

 

All three sadly long gone now.