Saughall Station- Workings and Layout

[Siphon208]

Hi All

Have any of our local experts on this CLC station, have any information on the layout? I got an old drawing from the “Disused Stations” website, but it’s not very clear. The little bay at the end of the down platform seems a little peculiar, as does the banking at the back of platform, and the heads hunt at the entrance to the goods yard? Any information gratefully received! 

Edited May 23, 2021 by Siphon208
Insufficient Clarity

[John57sharp]

Just came across this, better view (zoom able) here Side by side maps

 

John

[Aire Head]

On 14/05/2021 at 13:48, Siphon208 said:

the heads hunt at the entrance to the goods yard? 

 

That isn't a headshunt it's a trap to prevent rolling stock from running onto the mainline.

[ardbealach]

Perhaps the short stub siding behind the platform accommodated horse boxes, and flat wagons for carriages, arriving by train for the landed gentry and guests to the nearby Shotwick Park estate?  (Alisdair)

[Wickham Green too]

24 minutes ago, Aire Head said:

That isn't a headshunt it's a trap to prevent rolling stock from running onto the mainline.

Quite possibly dual purpose - looks long enough to accommodate a loco ( but not much else ) switching from one siding to another.

[Compound2632]

This seems to me to be an entirely standard layout for a small wayside station, based on a loop with a trailing connection at both ends. As part of the passenger facilities, there is a small dock for side and end loading (as appropriate) of horseboxes, carriage trucks, etc.; no doubt also used for goods traffic such as cattle and the very occasional unloading of agricultural machinery. The goods yard has two sidings, one serving a warehouse or goods shed for the more valuable traffic. The slightly unusual feature is the bank between the two sidings, as mentioned. I suppose coal would be unloaded on the siding not serving the warehouse.

 

I suspect that wagons would usually be delivered to and collected from the station by a goods train running from left to right (on the map) as this would avoid the need for any running-round. Shunting would be done with the train standing on the running line...

 

4 minutes ago, Wickham Green too said:

Quite possibly dual purpose - looks long enough to accommodate a loco ( but not much else ) switching from one siding to another.

 

... so the running line was effectively the headshunt; there would have been no need for the engine to be trapped "inside". This train would be timetabled so as to avoid having to shunt out of the way of other traffic.

[Compound2632]

Looking at the article in Disused Stations, there seems to be a complete lack of photos of the goods facilities, though enough of the rather nice station building. it is stated that the feature between the two sidings was the cattle dock; I therefore interpret the octagonal feature on the map as a cattle pen.

 

Being rather ignorant of that part of the world, I learn from that article that this was a MS&LR station, not CLC, and opened in 1890. That relatively late date no doubt accounts for the smallness of the goods yard. Nevertheless, looking in the 1904 edition of the RCH Handbook of Stations*, one finds that the station offered the full range of facilities - in addition to goods, passengers and parcels, and livestock, by virtue of that small dock it could handle furniture vans, carriages, portable engines, machines on wheels, horse boxes and prize cattle vans, and carriages by passenger train.

 

*David & Charles reprint, 1970.

[ardbealach]

Yes it was MS&LR - running into Chester Northgate.   The overbridge is still in-situ but the station site is a housing development.  The trackbed is a cycleway and footpath.  (Alisdair)