Did the railway companies draw their own maps of junctions and major changes?

[Gordon A]

My question is did the railway companies draw or plot layouts of major junctions and any major changes to point and crossing layouts?

 

The reason for my question is that there was a major change at Bitterley sidings (Freight only line) where ordinary turnouts were replaced by a scissors cross over, I think post nationalisation.

I cannot find any detailed OS maps that show the later layout in on a map.

 

My understanding is that a major piece of crossing and turnout work would first be assembled away from site. To do this I am assuming there would have to be a site survey followed by a drawn plan showing crossing angles and what switches would be used. This information would be used to assemble the crossing and turnouts away from the actual site before breaking down into sections to be transported.

 

If above is correct would such records have been kept and where?

What is the chances they have survived?

 

The line I am researching is the Ludlow to Clee Hill branch which was I believe a GWR & LNWR operation, later to be W.R British Railways.

 

Gordon A

[The Stationmaster]

Simple answer is 'yes' but things probably differed to some extent between companies (and even BR Regions).  There would have originally been the required Parliamentary Sections showing acquisition of land and the railway layout to be built and logically any company would (and i know the GWR in some respects did) update those Sections although that was mainly in respect of land ownership.

 

The engineeer's  original design would be sub mitted to the Board of Trade as part of seeking authority to constract what was planned but effectively that omnly applied to passenger lines and that continued until the whole arrangement in respect of seeking approavl etc was changed during the privatisation process (change to how HMRI worked) and subsequent legislation early this century.

 

Obviously if something is going to be built, or altered, scale drawings are usually necessary to show what the work entails, to enable materials to be ordered and costs to be estimated so all along the process right up to today and into the future layout changes will almost inevitably be preceded by the production of scale drawings to various scales for different purposes. For example in the early 1990s I planned the layout for a new high capacity coal loading terminal - I worked out what facilities were needed in order to meet the specified throughput of the terminal, assessed what the maximum length of train would or could be to serve the principal flow from that terminal which gave me a length, plus loco(s) and clearance distances that I needed for various sidings such as run rounds and what pointwork I needed to obtain the required flexibility to reliably deliver the specified tonnage.   Then came in the interesting bit because I'm a railway operator not an engineer but I looked very carefully at the site to estimate if what I needed would fit into, decided I had a runner, and then went through my outlinesketch which showed all the critical length dimensions (not to scale) with the permanent way design engineer.  the design engineer checked the site and  fully measured it, then produced a scale drawing of it and then added what I needed as a track layout onto it  (probably at 40ft:1" if i remember rightly).  As it happened it all fitted the site - which is just under a mile long - with about 90 feet to spare but as I had worked on the basis of planning around 2xClass 37 coupled and the main traction used was Class 60s there was a bit of room tospsare  in lots of places.

 

The S&T engineers then drew their own drawing - working to a smaller scale - which I used in discussion with them to specify the signalling to be provided.  And the completed drawing was then used to estimate the work required and what it would cost to carry out.   That sort of thing went on in BR days for any running line major or alteration, or track layout alteration and so on. For example back in the 1970s one part of our yard where I was working had all the pointwork relaid by contractors - no change to the layout but the permanent way design people drew up a detailed drawing to inform the contractor what they needed to price for when bidding to supply and install the replacement pointwork.

 

So yes, almost invariably there would have been a drawing somewhere some time and in the best regulated circles it would have been kept up to date/redrawn as necessary.  There used to be huge quantities of these drawings held by both permanent way and signal engineers but following privatisation the drawings usually passed to private companies and masses of PerWay drawings were dumped or sold off.  so your only problem - sorry - is trying to find whatever drawings might have once existed and hopefully still might be hiding somewhere

 

As for OS maps never forget that they are simply a reflection of what the mapper found, or thought, was there, when the map was drawn.   OS never went back and remapped or updated for track layout alterations for the simple reason they usually didn't know about them and even major changes which were picked up eventually by OS might well only be done some time later.  Over a dozen years back we had a knock on the door and it was lady from (or on behalf of) OS going round checking on what had changed since the last survey.  In our case she thought the house footprint looked a bit different from what their largest scale maps showed and she was right because the previous year we had moved into our newly built house on that site.  Fortunately (and she said, unusually) I was able to tell her precisely what the changes were so maps now show our new house correctly.  I understand that OS now make a lot of use of satellite technology to update maps and in fact our garage is now shown correctly although it wasn't when the house detail was updated.  But whether OS bother to do that with railway track layouts is, I suspect, an open question.

[Stephen Freeman]

I recall, when I was involved with a local Model Railway Society we acquired through contacts a large scale map of the local station. At the time the detailed maps were held by Railtrack in Birmingham but I think they ultimately went to the NRM.

[iands]

All drawings relating to the current commissioned infrastructure will be held at the Network Rail Records Group (NRG) at York. Any infrastructure drawings for ongoing projects, for example Werrington Diveunder, will be maintained by the project until all the work relating to that project have been completed and commissioned, then the infrastructure is "handed back" to maintenance for the day-to-day operations. From this point, the "project" amends any "red line" drawings to accurately reflect the installed infrastructure and then submits all the drawings to NRG - experience has shown that this last task can take several months, if not longer, to complete. 

[iands]

Just for interest (not suggesting you purchase), if you search for the following on eBay "1980 Manningtree Remodelling of North Junction Railway Drawing Diagram", there is a 1:100/1:200 scale drawing for Manningtree. Obviously not the area of the OPs specific interest, but some drawings are out there. Specific region/company society/associations etc., may well have such drawings in their library/archive.

[Stephen Freeman]

I should have added that the plans were somewhat historic being of Northwich showing the various saltlines and mpd detaips

[4069]

On 27/05/2021 at 14:42, The Stationmaster said:

As for OS maps never forget that they are simply a reflection of what the mapper found, or thought, was there, when the map was drawn.   OS never went back and remapped or updated for track layout alterations for the simple reason they usually didn't know about them and even major changes which were picked up eventually by OS might well only be done some time later.  Over a dozen years back we had a knock on the door and it was lady from (or on behalf of) OS going round checking on what had changed since the last survey.  In our case she thought the house footprint looked a bit different from what their largest scale maps showed and she was right because the previous year we had moved into our newly built house on that site.  Fortunately (and she said, unusually) I was able to tell her precisely what the changes were so maps now show our new house correctly.  I understand that OS now make a lot of use of satellite technology to update maps and in fact our garage is now shown correctly although it wasn't when the house detail was updated.  But whether OS bother to do that with railway track layouts is, I suspect, an open question.

I recently had cause to alert to OS to a garden boundary, which had changed around 1966, still being shown incorrectly on their maps. They explained that even as far back as that, they relied on aerial surveys to keep on top of that sort of thing. In this case tree cover meant they couldn't see the fences concerned, so they thanked me for getting in touch and sent round a man with a GPS-enabled pole, which he put up against the fence in question in two places, entered the result on his tablet and declared it re-surveyed. They have since assured me that the alteration will be visible when the monthly update of the master map is issued in three weeks time. 

 

How that works in the context of updating railway details I have no idea.

[Compound2632]

The Midland Railway Study Centre holds a large collection of the Midland Railway's plans at a scale of two chains to one inch (1:1584).

[Gordon A]

Thankyou every one for your replies . 

R.A.Cooke shows the scissors crossover was in place in 1925, so I think the chance of finding any detailed plans of the scissors crossover are very slim.

 

Gordon A

[The Stationmaster]

1 hour ago, Gordon A said:

Thankyou every one for your replies . 

R.A.Cooke shows the scissors crossover was in place in 1925, so I think the chance of finding any detailed plans of the scissors crossover are very slim.

 

Gordon A

Unless there were any local problems which influenced the layout and design the scissors would have been made up of stock items from K Shop (the S&C shop) at Swindon so basically standard GWR design (yes, they did happen sometimes).  So the book on GWR track would be your guide - if you can find a copy.