How busy could a single-track freight branch get?

[bigboyboris]

Before it would inevitably be upgraded to double-track? I'm interested in frequency of services but also the number/variety of different destinations/customers served. 

 

Is it plausible that a set of exchange sidings could be sited half a mile or so from where an industrial railway met the main track if there was no suitable location closer? 

Would multiple companies ever share one set of exchange sidings? 

 

The setting I have in mind is in circa 1968, but if the answers would be different for '54 or '84 I've also considered those. 

Edited December 20, 2021 by bigboyboris

[br2975]

Maybe as busy as the signalling, and single line operational procedures in force allow ?

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Unless of course your branch was operated under 'C2' conditions.

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Industrial exchange sidings could, in theory, be miles from the industry they serve, or immediately adjacent.

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Yes, multiple companies could use a set of exchange sidings, but there would need to be some form of control over the various industrial locos whilst using the yard, or, are we assuming the exchange sidings are BR owned and operated ?

 

Edited December 20, 2021 by br2975

[roythebus1]

Maybe look at the Felixtowe branch, that's very busy with Freightliner trains. Capacity is limited by the length of a block section on the single line. how long will it take for a train to enter and clear a section? Is permissive block working in force? If so you can have a whole succession of trains following in one direction only. Permissive block is only normally used on goods only lines; on passenger lines at a station where a passenger train can enter an occupied platform to couple to another train or stop just short of it.

[SED Freightman]

Whilst the BP Refinery was still operating the Grain Branch could see 10/12 trains a day in each direction, with more in the winter months and during times of exceptional demand for oil, additionally trains for Brett Marine Aggregates at Cliffe also used the Western end of the Branch.  Either the Grain Branch or the Fawley Branch would have been the busiest single freight lines on the SR during the 1970's or 1980's.

[The Stationmaster]

The lower section of the Merehead branch is single over 3.50 miles where it is used by all trains in both directions.  it was converted from C2 to NSKT (No signalman Key Token)  c 1972/73 although the Merehead Quarry Jcn end was staffed so there was no need for traincrew to operate the ground frame and token machine.  In addition to trains to/from Merehead Quarry it also handled the Cranmore bitumen tanks, plus return empties,  over that stretch.  

 

The maximum number of trains I know of the branch handling in a day was 27 loaded outwards from Merehead plus the same number of inwards empties plus the Cranmore out & back trip - a total of 56 trains in about 16-20 hours.  The normal average in those days was between 21 and 23 out&back quarry trips per day plus the out & back Cranmore on the days that it ran (and sometimes, especially when the useless Class 25 junk heaps were used, the Cranmore had to make two loaded trips down the branch because the loco couldn't handle the load up the gradient).   It was without a doubt the busiest single line freight only branch on the WR in the mid 1970s and from what I was told it was handling over 20 trains in total each day as a C2 line.