Four way Junction layout

[nigb55009]

Railway Modeller for November 1980 had Melton Constable as Plan of the Month.

[Jeremy Cumberland]

I've just been re-reading The Murder of Roger Ackroyd. How about King's Abbot?

 

Quote

King’s Abbot is a mere village, but its station happens to be an important junction. Most of the big expresses stop there, and trains are shunted, re-sorted, and made up. It has two or three public telephone boxes. At that time of night, three local trains come in close upon each other, to catch the connection with the express for the north which comes in at 10.19 and leaves at 10.23. The whole place is in a bustle, and the chances of one particular person being noticed telephoning or getting into the express are very small indeed.

 

The express is the night mail for Liverpool, we are told elsewhere in the book. Rather regrettably, Agatha Christie neglected to include a track plan.

 

[melmoth]

24 minutes ago, Jeremy C said:

I've just been re-reading The Murder of Roger Ackroyd. How about King's Abbot?

 

 

The express is the night mail for Liverpool, we are told elsewhere in the book. Rather regrettably, Agatha Christie neglected to include a track plan.

 

 

I believe CJF included it in '60 Plans For Small Murderers'

Edited December 23, 2022 by melmoth
spelling

[Oldddudders]

Chislehurst Junction, technically including St Mary Cray Junction, Bickley Junction and Petts Wood Junction. A four-track mainline, formerly South Eastern Railway, crosses another four-track mainline, London Chatham & Dover Railway, on a bridge. Loops enable connection between the two routes. 

[Wickham Green too]

Scenic breaks are a little distant in three directions - so you'd need a good bit of space !

[keefer]

22 hours ago, Brian Indge said:

Unfortunately the 1950 map shows the layout at Barking after the massive remodelling that took place around the mid-50’s prior to electrification of the LTSR route. Before that time there was a very complex junction at the Southend/Tilbury side of the station whereby trains from Forest Gate had to cross both the Underground lines and Southend lines to access the route to Tilbury. There was also a very large signal box at this position.

Barking on the 1939/1946 25-inch OS maps, pre-flyover (unfortunately not available as a scrolling map):

West Junction and Station: https://maps.nls.uk/view/104194788#zoom=4&lat=3939&lon=14236&layers=BT

SE end of station (East Junction and signalbox): https://maps.nls.uk/view/104194794#zoom=5&lat=1855&lon=1316&layers=BT

[KeithMacdonald]

Lansdown Junction, Cheltenham?

 

https://maps.nls.uk/view/109724769

[WillCav]

1 hour ago, KeithMacdonald said:

Lansdown Junction, Cheltenham?

 

https://maps.nls.uk/view/109724769

This layout stayed until about 1943 when the two track Gloucester to Cheltenham was quadrupled which would be a very ambitious plan to model.

Will

[Innerhome]

It would be helpful to know how much space you have - and also modelling period. In terms of county junction - then Barnstaple Junction - but that doesn't have the full traffic range you want - ie as far as I know no through trains Torrington > Ilfracombe or Taunton - Exeter  - plus only two railway companies ie GWR/SR.

 

[keefer]

8 hours ago, Oldddudders said:

Chislehurst Junction, technically including St Mary Cray Junction, Bickley Junction and Petts Wood Junction. A four-track mainline, formerly South Eastern Railway, crosses another four-track mainline, London Chatham & Dover Railway, on a bridge. Loops enable connection between the two routes. 

From https://cartometro.com/cartes/metro-tram-london/

 

Tracks on multiple levels too, which would be very interesting but challenging to model!

EDIT: There's a BTF (or similar) film somwhere featuring BR blue/grey in the late-'60s that has a sequence of clips of Chislehurst (actually maybe 'D & E on 35mm vol. 1 & 2') - looks strange as one Down line is on the right of a different Up line (at the diveunder) giving the impression of right-hand running!

Edited December 23, 2022 by keefer

[Wickham Green too]

Note the two reversible sections : the Reversible Chatham Loop ( top right ) is marked but the Up Chatham Loop briefly shares the track of the Down Slow Tonbridge Loop beneath the SE main line !

Edited December 23, 2022 by Wickham Green too

[Oldddudders]

47 minutes ago, Wickham Green too said:

Note the two reversible sections : the Reversible Chatham Loop ( top right ) is marked but the Up Chatham Loop briefly shares the track of the Down Slow Tonbridge Loop beneath the SE main line !

I think the latter, and the doubling of the Fast Tonbridge Loop, were products of the early '90s works to accommodate Channel Tunnel trains, while the introduction of two-way signalling on the former Down Chatham Loop was part of the Victoria Area Resignalling Scheme in the early '80s. It enabled up Kent Coast services to Cannon St, typically fast from Chatham, to avoid crossing over from the fast lines in the Grove Park - Hither Green - Parks Bridge Junction area. 

 

The 1960s BTF film mentioned would not show these more recent additional facilities. The layout following the 1960 resignalling, for Kent Coast Electrification, simply provided one up and one down Tonbridge Loop and one up and down Chatham Loop.

[keefer]

Apologies guys, I used the Cartometro map as old lines/stations etc are often marked, plus my 'go-to' Joe Brown's London Rail Atlas has very inconsiderately placed Chislehurst over a page join, with no close-up available!

I'm not sure if this is any clearer:

BTW the video clip used to be available on Vimeo but was presumably taken off due to copyright.

Edited December 23, 2022 by keefer

[Nearholmer]

Eridge, LBSCR, very complex service pattern in its heyday, and still very rural even now. But, all four directions were LBSCR, and it’s been modelled several times precisely because it fits your description. Trains from London and Tunbridge Wells used to arrive from the north, each with a Brighton and an Eastbourne portion, much shuffling about, and a train departed for each of the seaside towns, so through coaches everywhere to everywhere.

 

Guildford (six directions!) and if you model pre-grouping then all three constituents of the Southern …… but it’s not really an isolated place!

 

Halwill Junction, not quite the topology you want, but definitely isolated.

 

Melton Constable.

 

Camden Town (buried).

 

Mornington Crescent.

 

 

Edited December 24, 2022 by Nearholmer

[Tom Burnham]

12 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

 

Mornington Crescent.

 

 

Winner and the end of the game!

[Enterprisingwestern]

Chesterfield ticks a couple of boxes.

 

Mike.

[eastglosmog]

Limerick Junction in Ireland?  All trains had to reverse into that before 1967.

[Enterprisingwestern]

1 hour ago, eastglosmog said:

Limerick Junction in Ireland?  All trains had to reverse into that before 1967.

 

Limerick trains were still running past and reversing in in 1993.

 

Mike.

[Nearholmer]

Limerick Junction
 

A fast train went by the old junction,

Denying its purpose and function,

Its speed was prodigious,

The driver ambitious,

Pressed ahead without any compunction.

 

 

 

 

Edited December 25, 2022 by Nearholmer

[Wickham Green too]

1 hour ago, Enterprisingwestern said:

Limerick trains were still running past and reversing in in 1993.

Until they figure out how to build platforms on the Waterford and Limerick that are within walking distance of the Cork platforms reversal will always be required ........... so long as the Waterford service survives, that is. ☹️

[The Pilotman]

On 22/12/2022 at 12:59, The Stationmaster said:

Not exactly the middle of nowhere but definitely, and obviously, a one horse town. 

I presume you mean the chalk one on the hill, Mike? 😆

[The Stationmaster]

19 hours ago, The Pilotman said:

I presume you mean the chalk one on the hill, Mike? 😆

Exactly so - visible from much of the town just to remind the locals😊.   But although there was only one horse there were several pubs - but the Labour Club was much more popular because the beer was cheaper - and there was a top notch chippy hence we had a regular fish & chip lunch in the office on Fridays.  A little known fact is that one of the major dairy companies had. an establishment in Eden Vale Road - which name they would appear to have copied for use on some of their products.

 

The town has seen massive housing development in recent years which has probably totally changed its character.

[Rivercider]

I have thought about this question on and off over several days, and I think it is difficult to answer.

For one thing we do not know if the OP is looking for somewhere to be condensed into a 10' x 10' space, or has the use of a double garage, or the era . Have any of the suggestions been useful to the OP?

 

As has been previously mentioned most remote railway junctions did not stay remote for long. I would

suggest that the most likely time to find three different railway companies converging on a country junction would be in the last quarter of the 19th Century. Back then one of the lines might have been built by a local consortium, the line would possibly have been worked from the outset by the major local company, never paid any dividends, and been absorbed or taken over by the major company possibly before 1900, probably before WWI, and almost certainly by the Grouping in 1923.

If all three lines had remained open, and were successful, then a large settlement would have built up nearby, so it would no longer be in the middle of nowhere,

 

cheers  

[Nearholmer]

Towcester, during the phase before the SMJ was amalgamated. It fitted the topology, was pretty rural, and had two    companies serving it, although the passenger service on one limb only lasted a few months before it was realised that running trains to a place that nobody wanted to go, from a series of other places where nobody lived was never going to be a great earner.

[LNERGE]

On 21/12/2022 at 20:07, MyRule1 said:

Ely is a two (Cambridge,  Bury St Edmunds) to three (March, Kings Lynn, Norwich) way junction.

It was a six way junction. You could have gone to St Ives until the mid sixties. The facing move to the Sutton line was removed in the early thirties though. My "model" railway still has it, worked as a key token section to Sutton.

Edited December 29, 2022 by LNERGE