Matlock Bath Station Quarry Yard

[animotion]

I am at the planning stages of doing a track plan in Templot for Matlock Bath Station but I am a bit perplexed by the sidings into the quarry yard and how they were worked. If you look at the map diagram I have posted I can’t see how you could possibly shunt a load of wagons into the two roads 1&2 unless you already had a loco in the yard and pick up a wagons one at a time from the end of road 3. This to me would seem like a very laborious move as you would have to shunt the loco with the wagons on road 3 backwards and forwards uncoupling each wagon so that the loco in road 1 or 2 could pick up the wagons. If you wanted roads 1 & 2 to be occupied by wagons you would need two locos in the quarry yard. Maybe someone could kindly explain to me how wagons were shunted in the quarry yard. Maybe shunting horses were used. I look forward to your replies.

Thomas

Edited March 27, 2021 by animotion

[bécasse]

Horses are possible but probably unlikely in a quarry, so either pinchbars or ropes/chains were used. Good luck with modelling either realistically.

[RailWest]

What were the gradients on those sidings - maybe it was all done by gravity?

 

[Compound2632]

That turn-of-the-century photo we were discussing before [Hudson, Plate 67], contemporary with that 1898 survey, shows a great stack of stuff were the map has the outline of what one might take for a loading bank - stacked stone? The siding next to this - on the side away from the running lines - is buried under a great mound of darker stuff. What looks to be the other siding, curving away to the left, also looks to be part buried. 

 

So my suggested answer to your question

 

5 hours ago, animotion said:

how they were worked

 

is: not at all!

 

Possibly just hand-propelled trollies for moving stone about?

 

I note that by 1920 the siding had been laid out in a more rational fashion.

Edited March 27, 2021 by Compound2632