Help required finalising a GWR branch terminal design

[The Johnster]

I would suggest not having an engine shed; some branches were supplied with locos from the big shed at the junction.  This means that the first train of the day is an arrival from the junction and the last a departure to it.  First train in the morning brings the mail and the newspapers from 'that London'.  An engine shed at a branch terminus is needed where traffic demands that the first train originates from the terminus, usually for morning shift commuters.  On a model it is dead space, as it is empty for most of the working day, and the space can be used for something else.  Water for the engines is the only absolute requisite, only very short branches did not provide this at the terminus.  Engines left their sheds with sufficient coal for a full day's work, but had to replenish water supplies fairly frequently throughout the day.

[Kris]

7 hours ago, Mike_Walker said:

Firstly, the 64xx and 4 trailer "Auto sandwiches" in the Plymouth area often trailed a pair of milk tanks although the photos I've seen these have been westbounds therefore empty. 

These would have been heading to Saltash. The working timetable does not note which service would have been used to convey the milk tanks however as they would have arrived into Plymouth in the early hours of the morning you would assume that it was a morning service. 

[Il Grifone]

The engine shed would be reached through a diamond from the loop in GWR practice. The facing point from the platform could have disastrous consequences!

Ashburton was usually (always? I've mislaid my book!) operated by the 'one engine in steam' principle. This saves on signals, but is much less interesting to operate.

Fly shunting was indulged in*. but this is a non-starter on a model.

 

* The story goes that on one occasion this operation was misjudged and the wagons came to rest blocking the pointwork. Calling for assistance was unthinkable of course - they'd have never lived it down! The solution involved taking a spanner to the point locking gear. Shh!

Edited June 21, 2023 by Il Grifone

[melmoth]

2 hours ago, Il Grifone said:

The engine shed would be reached through a diamond from the loop in GWR practice. The facing point from the platform could have disastrous consequences!

Ashburton was usually (always? I've mislaid my book!) operated by the 'one engine in steam' principle.

 

The bold bit is a rather sweeping statement.  Off the top of my head, it wasn't the case at St Ives, Tetbury, Bodmin, Abbotsbury, Moretonhampstead, Helston, Malmesbury, Kingsbridge, Fairford, Watlington, Easton and Minehead for example. Or indeed Ashburton for that matter.

Edited June 21, 2023 by melmoth
spelling

[Il Grifone]

I was referring to the specific diagram, where the shed is very close to the platform and there are always exceptions to rules....

 

I haven't checked all the examples, but:

St Ives shed had a headshunt from the mainline at some distance from the station.

Ashburton shed was accessed from the loop. (The short platform would have been used for parcels and milk loadng (and cattle on market days when the station was closed to passengers anyway).

Bodmin shed was accessed from the platform, but the pointwork was close to the signal box.

[The Johnster]

Important to remember that many of the GW’s branches began life as local independent companies floated by local interests, sold to the parent company (which had often backed them for it’s own strategic reasons) when it became apparent that the goose didn’t lay golden eggs and that at least the big company paid out on ordinary shares.  This meant that there was no standard track layout or anything else, and each branch had it’s own style and uniqueness, and that the ‘standard GW BLT’ is a myth.  
 

In addition to that, some terminus track layouts were determined by the site, like St.Ives, shoehorned between the cliff and the beach, compared to Malmesbury which spread out fan-like.  Track layouts were altered over time, added to as traffic increased or rationalised if it fell, modified when FPL was introduced, and adapted for new types of locos.   Stations in coal-mining districts did not have coal facilities in the goods yards as household coal was obtained by landsale at the collieries, and the length of the branch affected the loco facilities and turntables might be provided.  At Fairford the original terminus survived as the goods facility while a new passenger station was built a few hundred yards away, intended to be the beginning of an extension that would have connected Oxford to Kemble via Cirencester, but this never materialised.  Portishead had a long island  platform with run around loops both sides, more commuter-orientated, and Lamboune featured autotrailers to serve ground-level platforms, but hauled by big non-auto engines to handle the heavy horsebox tail traffic; you could find examples to prove or disprove any recieved wisdom on the subject!   

[melmoth]

8 hours ago, Il Grifone said:

I was referring to the specific diagram, where the shed is very close to the platform and there are always exceptions to rules....

 

 

Ah, understand - but I'm actually struggling to find an example of this 'rule'. In the meantime, I think Wallingford, Abingdon, Cirencester, Aberayron and Faringdon are also exceptions.

Edited June 22, 2023 by melmoth
Belated further thought

[Mike_Walker]

12 hours ago, Kris said:

These would have been heading to Saltash. The working timetable does not note which service would have been used to convey the milk tanks however as they would have arrived into Plymouth in the early hours of the morning you would assume that it was a morning service. 

Except the photos I've seen were taken west of Saltash, many of these auto workings continued to St Germans and/or Menheniot.

[Longhaireddavid]

I have been reviewing the last suggestion and come upon a few problems.

1. I was having to buy small radius points and having medium ones left over - so I have rationalised it to reduce any unnecessary expense.

2. My wife wanted to see the station platform (she likes little people) so I have reversed the whole thing putting the station at the back. This also removes one of the recent objections regarding stretching over to uncouple goods wagons.

3. I checked the clearance for the goods shed. Currently, I have a Metcalfe one and it didn't fit into the current layout so I checked the proposed one and found the same. I have stretched the interconnecting tracks a bit so now there is room for the goods shed and a small road along the front.

4. I have moved the creamery so that, again, the wagons are at the front making it better to see and easier to shunt.

 

I have just noticed that the coal stithies may be too close to the edge so I could move them to the other side of those two tracks.

 

I think that I am happy with this. It might not suit others but remember "Rule 1". I am off to my LHS tomorrow to buy the extra track I need.

[Peter Kazmierczak]

That looks good, David; just needs a couple of (dummy) trap points to protect the passenger running line. One being at the end of the run-round loop and the other at the exit of the goods yard. As this is GWR, they could just be single-bladed.
I'm just off to school, otherwise I'd draw what I mean. I'm sure someone will be able to oblige.

 

If you curved the two tracks by the release crossover (on the right) a tad, it'd give you a little more space in the goods yard.
 

Edited June 22, 2023 by Peter Kazmierczak

[Steamport Southport]

18 hours ago, The Johnster said:

I would suggest not having an engine shed; some branches were supplied with locos from the big shed at the junction.  This means that the first train of the day is an arrival from the junction and the last a departure to it.  First train in the morning brings the mail and the newspapers from 'that London'.  An engine shed at a branch terminus is needed where traffic demands that the first train originates from the terminus, usually for morning shift commuters.  On a model it is dead space, as it is empty for most of the working day, and the space can be used for something else.  Water for the engines is the only absolute requisite, only very short branches did not provide this at the terminus.  Engines left their sheds with sufficient coal for a full day's work, but had to replenish water supplies fairly frequently throughout the day.

 

All GWR branch line termini had an engine shed though. It was their method of working. Other railways such as the LMS had the engine shed at the mainline station.

 

Most of them even had a turntable, but they tended to phase them out after about 1910.

 

Try this. Then point me towards a GWR branch line termini that isn't in it. All in there I'm afraid. Maybe some obscure Welsh lines are missing, but they weren't really "typical" GWR.

 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/historical-survey-Great-Western-engine/dp/0902888161/ref=sr_1_1?adgrpid=1175378829758131&hvadid=73461378179486&hvbmt=be&hvdev=c&hvlocphy=41470&hvnetw=o&hvqmt=e&hvtargid=kwd-73461315671147%3Aloc-188&hydadcr=24433_2219198&keywords=great+western+engine+sheds&qid=1687433425&sr=8-1

 

For the pre 1947 details some more are in here including lines that closed prior to BR days.

 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Historical-Survey-Great-Western-Engine/dp/086093019X/ref=sr_1_2?adgrpid=1175378829758131&hvadid=73461378179486&hvbmt=be&hvdev=c&hvlocphy=41470&hvnetw=o&hvqmt=e&hvtargid=kwd-73461315671147%3Aloc-188&hydadcr=24433_2219198&keywords=great+western+engine+sheds&qid=1687433425&sr=8-2

 

 

Jason

[rovex]

Not all branch line termini had an engine shed although I expect most did.

 

Watlington didn't have a shed. The engine was sent down the line in the morning by the shed on the mainline

[Mike_Walker]

1 minute ago, rovex said:

Not all branch line termini had an engine shed although I expect most did.

 

Watlington didn't have a shed. The engine was sent down the line in the morning by the shed on the mainline

It did until around 1914 I think.  But not all had sheds by a long way.

[Kris]

4 hours ago, Mike_Walker said:

Except the photos I've seen were taken west of Saltash, many of these auto workings continued to St Germans and/or Menheniot.

Do those photos show them with milk tanks beyond Saltash? The calling points for the milk trains in Cornwall were Penzance, St Erth, Carn Brea, Truro, Lostwithiel and Saltash. 

[Flying Pig]

1 hour ago, Longhaireddavid said:

I have been reviewing the last suggestion and come upon a few problems.

1. I was having to buy small radius points and having medium ones left over - so I have rationalised it to reduce any unnecessary expense.

2. My wife wanted to see the station platform (she likes little people) so I have reversed the whole thing putting the station at the back. This also removes one of the recent objections regarding stretching over to uncouple goods wagons.

3. I checked the clearance for the goods shed. Currently, I have a Metcalfe one and it didn't fit into the current layout so I checked the proposed one and found the same. I have stretched the interconnecting tracks a bit so now there is room for the goods shed and a small road along the front.

4. I have moved the creamery so that, again, the wagons are at the front making it better to see and easier to shunt.

 

I have just noticed that the coal stithies may be too close to the edge so I could move them to the other side of those two tracks.

 

I think that I am happy with this. It might not suit others but remember "Rule 1". I am off to my LHS tomorrow to buy the extra track I need.

 

Yes, this is pretty much the layout we always seem to converge on ;)   It works but it does result in all layouts looking somewhat similar.  You could keep the Ashburton-like platform arrangement of your earlier plans for a bit of individuality.

 

I think a single long mileage siding would fit your space better than the split front siding you have drawn.  You don't need a dedicated coal siding in a small station like this and you don't need coal bins right by the track - they were by no means universal despite what CJ Freezer seems to have taught us to expect.

 

The creamery is something you may want to think about again.  Kickbacks off other sidings mean the other siding has to be at least partly emptied to get access to the kickback when you are shunting with a loco (pinch bars and horses are tricky in small scales).  Depending on your point of view that is either a pain in the neck or more interesting operation.

[Steamport Southport]

58 minutes ago, rovex said:

Not all branch line termini had an engine shed although I expect most did.

 

Watlington didn't have a shed. The engine was sent down the line in the morning by the shed on the mainline

 

It did, burnt down in 1906. Locomotives were subsequently stored in the open. Still officially a sub shed of Oxford (or was it Didcot?), details are in the engine shed book.

 

Actually Slough!

 

http://www.greatwestern.org.uk/m_in_gwr_sheds.htm

 

It also had a carriage shed which I believe was built for the railmotors and was why they didn't replace the engine shed. 

 

 

Jason

Edited June 22, 2023 by Steamport Southport

[Mike_Walker]

21 minutes ago, Kris said:

Do those photos show them with milk tanks beyond Saltash? The calling points for the milk trains in Cornwall were Penzance, St Erth, Carn Brea, Truro, Lostwithiel and Saltash. 

Here's one crossing Coombe Viaduct. 

 

 

Given the layout of Saltash, I'm struggling to see how an arriving auto-train with tanks in tow could detach them and easily shunt them into the sidings the connection to which faced east unless they were shunted back into the up loop from the west end.  And, how ere they loaded at Saltash?  By comparison the layout of both St Germans and Menheniot would allow the tanks to be simply set off in a siding.

[Jeff Smith]

David, just catching up a bit on this one.  On your most recent plan the goods shed would be awkward to work due to the short stub through the shed which would only hold one or maybe two wagons.  As mentioned earlier, a string of wagons would be moved through the shed to be emptied (or loaded).  Also, most BLTs had an end loading ramp with sufficient length to back a long vehicle up to load or offload girders or similar.  Kick-back sidings are tricky because you have to have an empty siding to kick-back from.

[The Johnster]

1 hour ago, Steamport Southport said:

Try this. Then point me towards a GWR branch line termini that isn't in it. All in there I'm afraid. Maybe some obscure Welsh lines are missing, but they weren't really "typical" GWR.

If by ‘obscure Welsh lines’ you mean the likes of the Tondu Valleys branches, for which locos were provided by the ‘hub’ shed at Tondu, I’d take issue with your understanding of ‘obscure’; the traffic on these lines was close to line capacity, 15 passenger trains (including workmens’) a day at Abergwynfi, pickup and trip goods, and a frequent and heavily loaded plethora of colliery clearances.  These lines, unlike most of the bucolic English branches, turned large profits until the demise of the collieries.  Other examples, though arguably more in line with the concept of ‘obscure’ and not part of the GW until the grouping include Penygraig, Cowbridge (this one was highly rural and the very essence of bucolic), Maerdy (the shed was down the branch at Ferndale), Senghenydd, and Coryton.  A purely GW-built example was the Riverside branch in Cardiff’s docklands, very busy at peak times, though this was only a mile long.  
 

I’m not a West Midlands expert but TTBOMK a similar situation existed there at Old Hill. As I’ve mentioned, the roots of many GW branches lie in independent locally promoted companies wanting to drag their town or village into the nineteenth century that the bigger railway then bought out, and this at least partly explains the commonality of small loco sheds at their termini; the intention was usually that they would bring prosperity to their communities and profits to their promotors and remain independent.  They would of course need a locomotive, which of course needed a shed!

 

This seductive dream mostly  proved to be just that; these lines never made a penny in their 80-100 years of typical existence (but were viable lossleaders generating traffic for the main line), and for most of them reality hit when the first lot of bills hit the office doormat.  Some, but by no means all, got as far as buying an engine and a couple of carriages, but few ever actually operated services as independents because the Board of Trade inspector wanted improvements they couldn’t afford before opening. Then a nice man from the GW made them an offer that solved all their problems, promised a reliable passenger and goods service for the local farm produce, and reliable divvies for the shareholders, and all was well until Beeching…

[Kris]

1 hour ago, Mike_Walker said:

Here's one crossing Coombe Viaduct. 

 

 

Given the layout of Saltash, I'm struggling to see how an arriving auto-train with tanks in tow could detach them and easily shunt them into the sidings the connection to which faced east unless they were shunted back into the up loop from the west end.  And, how ere they loaded at Saltash?  By comparison the layout of both St Germans and Menheniot would allow the tanks to be simply set off in a siding.

 

I wonder if that was pushing back into the goods loop at Saltash, it is just the right position to be doing that. The smoke appears to be blowing in front of the loco suggesting a reverse motion. 

 

Milk was loaded at Saltash from the dock siding according to the photos that I have seen. 

[Longhaireddavid]

1 hour ago, Flying Pig said:

 

Yes, this is pretty much the layout we always seem to converge on ;)   It works but it does result in all layouts looking somewhat similar.  You could keep the Ashburton-like platform arrangement of your earlier plans for a bit of individuality.

 

I think a single long mileage siding would fit your space better than the split front siding you have drawn.  You don't need a dedicated coal siding in a small station like this and you don't need coal bins right by the track - they were by no means universal despite what CJ Freezer seems to have taught us to expect.

 

The creamery is something you may want to think about again.  Kickbacks off other sidings mean the other siding has to be at least partly emptied to get access to the kickback when you are shunting with a loco (pinch bars and horses are tricky in small scales).  Depending on your point of view that is either a pain in the neck or more interesting operation.

I already have some staithes so I might as well use them. The second line was supposedly for storage but, I agree, I think I can do without it. That cuts down my costs as well as I only need to buy one point! I think the kick back for the creamery is OK as there is plenty of space for a loco and a couple of milk tanks or a single Siphon before encroaching on the coal area.

[Flying Pig]

12 minutes ago, Longhaireddavid said:

I already have some staithes so I might as well use them.

 

But you don't have to put them next to the siding.  Your coal merchant would be more likely in many places to rent a patch of ground elsewhere in the yard (if he didn't just cart the coal away to another location as it was unloaded), so you could put the bins somewhere against the fence next to his office.

 

And coal isn't the only goods handled on the mileage siding - it was used for pretty much anything that was loaded or unloaded by the customers themselves (I think @The Johnster went through this earlier in the thread).  So you'd see lots of general merchandise wagons (vans and opens) as well as coal and you might well fill the siding with wagons awaiting loading or unloading.

 

 

[The Johnster]

The staithes/cells were for storage and separating coal out into different sizes (nuts, cobbles, etc).  They were often away from the siding and the wagons did not always feed directly into them  Coal was often unloaded directly on to flatbed lorries (or carts in horse-drawn days), the lorry backing up to the wagon and a set of scales and a pile of hessian sacks at the ready on the flatbed.   The loaded sacks were stacked vertially against the lorry backboard, kept in place by their own weight and interlocking with the next row.  The lorry/cart would then be weighed on a weigbridge, usually near the road entrance to the yard.  'Oop North', particularly on NER and L&Y territory where the railway provided the wagons, the wagons were bottom-discharge hoppers and the cells were beneath the wagons, which were on a raised siding.

 

Weighing of coal, including household coal, was the basis for everybody's invoicing; the colliery's, the railways', and the merchant's.  Empty wagons were weighed on a weighbridge on arrival at the colliery, and the weighbridge clerk would note the wagon number.  It would then be loaded, and weighed again before dispatch, the difference between the two weights being the exact net load for invoicing.  The net load for train load calculation purposes was a rounded up or down standard figure.

 

 There was of course an allowance for the 'angels' share', lost to wind-blown dust in transit, and washed coal was heavier when it was wet than when it had dried out, but it was important to keep a check on this, not only for invoicing purposes but to keep a lid on pilferage.  Certainly in the South Wales valleys and probably in other mining areas as well, any coal that was not being watched was considered fair game, with even the great and good of the community joining in.  Difficult for local magistrates to convict coal theives when they'd helped themselves as well!  Not quite as bad as an online vid I saw a while back of a coal train in, I think, Albania, which had all sorts of characters on the wagons throwing the stuff off to relavtives and chums on the trackside. 

 

In the 80s, the Cynon valley was notorious for the locals taking advantage of the trains' low speeds to open the hopper doors of loaded wagons, which would be end of sports for the day and the whole town would turn out with wheelbarrows.  When the Tower colliery was taken over as a workers' co-operative the message went out that this would no longer be tolerated on pain of, well, pain; Tyrone O'Sullivan, their leader and NUM branch secretary, was not a man to be messed with...

Edited June 22, 2023 by The Johnster

[Nick Holliday]

On 21/06/2023 at 01:12, The Johnster said:

64xx were not really the most typical branch auto loco, that was the smaller 14xx.  The 64xx was a derivate of the 54xx, itself a modernised version of the previous 2021 class, but which had larger driving wheels and was designed for main line suburban commuter auto services; these were actually the majority of such trains. Neither 2021s nor 54xx were particularly powerful, but they were economic with light loads.  Having found the 54xx a bit challenged with two-trailer loads on the steeper branches of South Wales, the 64xx was provided.  The GW auto system allowed up to two trailers at either end of the loco, and when three-trailer 'sandwich' trains were needed for suburban work in South Wales in the 50s, a batch of 4575 class small prairies were provided with auto equipment to work them, as they were too much for the 64xx on some routes.  There was also a 74xx, basically a non-auto version of the 64xx, which was much more frequently used on branch lines, for both passenger and goods traffic, but this loco is not available RTR.

I suspect that modellers tend to under-estimate the capabilities of the smaller locos, such as the 14xx and the Brighton Terriers.  They were built to be capable of handling quite substantial trains, and it is their association with bucolic branchlines and short trains which has coloured our attitude.  There is a photo of a 14xx at Ashburton with a train of around 25 cattle wagons, which I'm sure was within its capacity, and the Terrier's first job was to haul trains of 14 or more 4-wheelers around the South London Line, yet reviewers seem amazed, and satisfied, that the Darnby Terrier can pull three bogie coaches!  On the Brighton the larger D1 and E1 tanks, probably around the same size as the 14xx, were expected to earn their keep with 7 or more bogies or 30 wagons.

On 21/06/2023 at 01:12, The Johnster said:

Miltas loaded up to 55tons (thick glass lining), hence the three axles, so a pair of them would be heavier than a two-coach auto train.  This is why Kris and myself are trying to steer you away from a 64xx for a train with loaded miltas as tail traffic.  The tanks were usually sent down from London late mornings, and arrived at the creameries for loading in mid or late afternoon.  The loaded tanks would be dispatched late afternoon or early evening for attaching to main line milk trains at the junctions that would arrive in London around midnight.  So for a branch as far west as to be influenced by/based on Ashburton, your suggested pattern of first train out last train in doesn't really fit the traffic.  A bigger loco from the junction shed would most probably be used and these generally weren't auto fitted, hence the loco-hauled stock suggestion.

I'm not sure the milk tanks were quite that heavy.  Photos of SR and GWR tanker wagons show a tare weight of between 12 and 15 tons, although this may be just the railway companies' share, excluding the tank itself, as post-Nationalisation views show a higher overall figure, with another below, around 8 tons, which may well be the weight of the tank, which had been the property of the dairy company, so the overall tare weight was around 24 tons, and 3,000 gallons of milk, at 10lbs per gallon, would add about 15 tons, making an overall loaded weight of under 40 tons.  The adoption of the six-wheel chassis was more to overcome stability problems, as they would have to run at high speed on their way to London.  A photo of Hemyock shows a 14xx with four such tanks and a bogie carriage, so such a scene is prototypical.

I have to agree with @The Johnster and others, that the presence of coal bins adjacent to the siding is not representative of GWR practice in the West Country, and, if you must keep them, they could be relocated to a quiet area at the perimeter of the yard, and to do so would increase the flexibility of the use of the sidings considerably.

[melmoth]

5 hours ago, Steamport Southport said:

 

All GWR branch line termini had an engine shed though. It was their method of working. Other railways such as the LMS had the engine shed at the mainline station.

 

 

No. Let's start with West Bay, Highworth, Blagdon, Clevedon, Barnstaple Victoria Road, New Radnor and Calne.