BR Blue 08 shunting work/prototype scenario

[Wickham Green too]

11 hours ago, Morello Cherry said:

There were some smaller urban goods yards open till quite late.

 

Guildford for example. ... 

 

...

Another occasional traffic lurking in that shot - looks like Mr.Fison's weed-sprayers lurking in the yard ( larger/longer stock - sorry ).

[Rivercider]

26 minutes ago, Morello Cherry said:

@Rivercider your own collection gives another interesting location. The different Exeter yards.

 

 

 

 

Other images of various workings on this discussion of  Exeter City Basin http://www.cornwallrailwaysociety.org.uk/exeter-city-basin.html

Thanks for reminding me of that.

 

Until the early 1980s there were three class 08 duties at Exeter. One worked at Exeter St Davids as passenger and parcels pilot. One worked as Exeter Riverside Yard pilot (there had been 2 duties - east and west end in 1975). The third Exeter class 08 was the local trip pilot which worked from Riverside Yard to St Davids, Exeter City Basin (bitumen and oil terminal), Exeter Central (Blue Circle Cement), and Exmouth Junction (coal concentration depot and carriage and wagon workshops).

 

Here is the trip working from Riverside to City Basin with bitumen tanks, - I have not been able to find any photos taken at City Basin, though there were extensive siding serving several different customers until the late 1960s. 

 

 

08792 passes Exeter Middle Signal Box with tanks for City Basin, 9/7/85. The same day as the photo with the presflos seen earlier. 

 

cheers

[Morello Cherry]

Heading further west again, if you like grey towns and the rain - what about Plymouth?

 

Friary - mixed goods to Riverside, Bitumen tankers, 03/08 trips to Cattewater, Plymstock.

 

 

Dockyard traffic.

 

 

[Stoke West]

2 hours ago, Rivercider said:

Thanks for reminding me of that.

 

Until the early 1980s there were three class 08 duties at Exeter. One worked at Exeter St Davids as passenger and parcels pilot. One worked as Exeter Riverside Yard pilot (there had been 2 duties - east and west end in 1975). The third Exeter class 08 was the local trip pilot which worked from Riverside Yard to St Davids, Exeter City Basin (bitumen and oil terminal), Exeter Central (Blue Circle Cement), and Exmouth Junction (coal concentration depot and carriage and wagon workshops).

 

Here is the trip working from Riverside to City Basin with bitumen tanks, - I have not been able to find any photos taken at City Basin, though there were extensive siding serving several different customers until the late 1960s. 

 

 

08792 passes Exeter Middle Signal Box with tanks for City Basin, 9/7/85. The same day as the photo with the presflos seen earlier. 

 

cheers

 

2 hours ago, Rivercider said:

Thanks for reminding me of that.

 

Until the early 1980s there were three class 08 duties at Exeter. One worked at Exeter St Davids as passenger and parcels pilot. One worked as Exeter Riverside Yard pilot (there had been 2 duties - east and west end in 1975). The third Exeter class 08 was the local trip pilot which worked from Riverside Yard to St Davids, Exeter City Basin (bitumen and oil terminal), Exeter Central (Blue Circle Cement), and Exmouth Junction (coal concentration depot and carriage and wagon workshops).

 

Here is the trip working from Riverside to City Basin with bitumen tanks, - I have not been able to find any photos taken at City Basin, though there were extensive siding serving several different customers until the late 1960s. 

 

 

08792 passes Exeter Middle Signal Box with tanks for City Basin, 9/7/85. The same day as the photo with the presflos seen earlier. 

 

cheers

Was there scrap passing from Pearces at City Basin

[33C]

Grays Station in Essex had a loco bay behind the up platform to stable one or two 08's, for shunting the oil depot and cement traffic as well as Proctors factory. Long loops either side of the main lines, a small yard, access to the docks and a tramway under at Thurrock plus the station has a unique roof.

Edited May 18 by 33C
Added letter.

[Tom Burnham]

My photo at Granton Docks in 1972
https://www.flickr.com/photos/21602076@N05/2180829817

 

Edited May 19 by Tom Burnham

[Wickham Green too]

Can't help wondering whether those wagons survived their visit to the scrapyard !!?!

[James Hilton]

I’d suggest that if you’re really heading down a path as simple and distilled as Paxton Road the location / prototype is somewhat irrelevant. General architecture and structure will set the period, keep things neat and simple and let the locomotive and stock tell the story.

 

For a layout without turnouts, I find Paxton Road incredibly fulfilling, and still play with it most weeks. The Farish 08s are wonderful, I’ve got 5!

[MyRule1]

How about a preserved line/location? This would open up a number of possibilities that would only be available under rule 1 outside of preservation.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_preserved_British_Rail_Class_08_locomotives

 

[black and decker boy]

What about Glenrothes papermill

 

trip working hauled by class 06 and later by class 08

 

various traffics including coal, China clay and chemicals

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[HillsideDepot]

There is a short section of an 08 on a trip working in this film https://eafa.org.uk/work/?id=1948 from 1979, starting at 7:15, although its well worth watching the whole thing to soak up the atmosphere of the era.

[Nearholmer]

An engineer’s yard? Although most will instantly think “civils and p.way”, both S&T and power supply also had yards.

 

I was very familiar with the SR power supply setup at Horsham, which had a serious variety of cranes and wagons, and which had a shunting loco available, with a crew rostered iirc three days each week. We often had several trains out at the weekend, and apart from concrete troughing, which often went direct Taunton to a siding near the worksite, everything else had to be loaded and marshalled, and the marshalling was very detailed, to get things facing the right way, in the right order, for the job. One day would be spent breaking trains down and positioning wagons for loading/emptying (often Tuesday), and another (often Thursday) making trains up. The trains would then go to a siding close to site on Friday, and come back on Monday. Chipman’s weed killing were next to us, and their trains had to be shunted too, and if we or they had a job locally, within about twenty miles, the dreaded shunting loco and a brake van were used on the possession, which made everything really tediously slow!

 

 

 

Edited May 18 by Nearholmer

[scalerailmodelling]

Thanks for all of the posts everyone 

 

loads of great inspiration and ideas! 
 

its definitely ignited my ideas and hopefully I’ll get cracking on this soon, I’m torn between N and OO for this project but like many people I would benefit from a small layout footprint in the house!

I have no stock for this layout in either gauge so still stuck, I’ve not done N before but have done 009

 

Thanks

 

Tim

[Downendian]

I’d recommend getting hold of a copy of the ICRS publication Shunter duties which covers your chosen time period. Written by my late Bristol spotting mate Geoff Woodley and Ron Wood. The link below is for the 1979 edition which I think has a photo from another of my spotting friends Sean Baldwin on the cover 

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/364746064541?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0&ssspo=a0nRlm2RR5C&sssrc=4429486&ssuid=eKhcz41bQ6W&var=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY 
it as the title suggests, covers all BR shunter operations and thus a gold mine for what you are basing your layout on.

Neil 

[woodenhead]

@Downendian Shunter Duties was an awesome read - for something so basic about a railway it was so interesting to see where and how many shunter jobs there were around the UK at the time.  I would pour through it looking at what was where.

 

From a time when there were still small stabling spots around the country where you might find a couple of shunters and a mainline loco parked up at the weekend.  I can remember on any trips over the Pennines in the car we might end up looking through a gap in the wall at Penistone to see what 76s had been stabled on a Sunday.

 

It's sad to think with all the technology we have now we know exactly what train to expect next at any spot in the country, back then a day spotting would be full of surprises and books like the locoshed directory and shunter duties were for us to know where to look for stuff and then be excited about what we found.

[Rivercider]

1 hour ago, Downendian said:

I’d recommend getting hold of a copy of the ICRS publication Shunter duties which covers your chosen time period. Written by my late Bristol spotting mate Geoff Woodley and Ron Wood. The link below is for the 1979 edition which I think has a photo from another of my spotting friends Sean Baldwin on the cover 

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/364746064541?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0&ssspo=a0nRlm2RR5C&sssrc=4429486&ssuid=eKhcz41bQ6W&var=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY 
it as the title suggests, covers all BR shunter operations and thus a gold mine for what you are basing your layout on.

Neil 

I have that 1979 edition and found it very useful at the time as it gave a very good and accurate summary of when and where shunting locos might be found. I also had a copy of an earlier edition with even more duties, but sadly I left it on the train one day. 

Presumably the authors had some inside information to get that level of detail - I have a set of local trip working booklets for the Western Region West of England Division for 1975 and know how accurate the ICRS books were for that area.

 

cheers

[scalerailmodelling]

On 17/05/2024 at 10:51, Morello Cherry said:

Heading further west again, if you like grey towns and the rain - what about Plymouth?

 

Friary - mixed goods to Riverside, Bitumen tankers, 03/08 trips to Cattewater, Plymstock.

 

 

Dockyard traffic.

 

 

That second picture is really really good, do you know the year/location?

 

Thanks

 

Tim

[woodenhead]

1 minute ago, scalerailmodelling said:

That second picture is really really good, do you know the year/location?

 

Thanks

 

Tim

Plymouth 1982

[scalerailmodelling]

5 minutes ago, woodenhead said:

Plymouth 1982

Thanks :) it looks like an 08 has shunted the train together and is then taking it away to the next destination which is basically what I will be emulating on the layout 

[Morello Cherry]

3 minutes ago, scalerailmodelling said:

That second picture is really really good, do you know the year/location?

 

Thanks

 

Tim

 

If you click on photo it takes you through to the photo on flickr. This is the caption:

 

Quote

 

The Dockyard Goods Plymouth 26th February 1982

 

08576 makes slow progress through Plymouth station on 26th February 1982 with what was known locally to Plymouth enthusiasts as 'the dockyard goods', the 7B71 11.12 Keyham to Friary. This freight followed the marshalling at Keyham goods yard of various 'as required' trip workings, these being from the naval base itself or the Royal Navy armament depots at Bull Point and Ernesettle. The train was worked by a class 25 in the 70s switching to an 08 in 1980 with the ending of class 25s based at Laira.. Of particular note in the consist is a Southern Region PLV behind the 08. Note also the rows of BRUTES full of parcels on platform 4 and the red Royal Mail parcels truck waiting in the loading bay . The station pilot 08 sits at the end of the 'park sidings' and look at the embankment falling away to the right which is bereft of trees - unlike today.

 

 

[Rivercider]

2 hours ago, Morello Cherry said:

 

If you click on photo it takes you through to the photo on flickr. This is the caption:

 

 

That photo was taken towards the end of the vacuum braked wagon load network in the West Country. It may have been the May Working Timetable change when the air braked Speedlink feeder services started running for this was the same trip working photographed in November 1982 and the wagons are now all air braked.

08953 approaches Plymouth returning  from Ernesettle and/or Keyham 15/11/82. The air braked VEAs are modified vanwides and worked mostly between MOD depots,  the BR ferry van at the rear is probably acting as a barrier wagon for explosives in the VEAs ahead,

 

cheers

 

Edited May 18 by Rivercider
Clarification

[Morello Cherry]

6 hours ago, scalerailmodelling said:

Thanks :) it looks like an 08 has shunted the train together and is then taking it away to the next destination which is basically what I will be emulating on the layout 

 

My suggestion is that Keyham might be the place to look at. Ironically it probably has the least interesting layout but it was where the trains were made up. This shot shows the potentially interesting operations.

 

 

From the caption on flickr

 

Quote

BR Class 08 shunter 08941 was recorded approaching Dockyard Junction to the west of Keyham station with the 'as required' trip working from Plymouth Friary Goods. The single VDA van would be propelled along the short branch as it was destined for Devonport Dockyard.

 

So you would have propelling moves down to the various dock branches. As you can see from the shine on the rails the headshunt to the left was used.

 

As a footnote, Keyham it was also used for storing ECS.

 

There are some photos of Keyham in the 1970s here: https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~cyberheritage/nostalgia/saltoldie1.htm

 

Older (ie steam era) here - http://www.olddevonport.uk/Railways-Keyham Station.htm

 

Friary would have more variety of traffic though.

[Tom Burnham]

The Barnwell oil depot (on the truncated remains of the Mildenhall branch just north of Cambridge) was worked by an 08 -

 

[br2975]

How about 'Canton Brickyard' across the SWML from Canton Depot, where activities could be watched from the famous footbridge ?

.

The layout (in later years) was simple, a loop and one siding.

.

The mono-pitched roof shelter in the background spanned the  solitary siding and was built to allow newspaper vans to be unloaded under cover.

.

The Cl.08 would trip from Tidal Sidings each morning.

.

Freight traffic over the years included aluminium ingots, reels of newspaper, steel coils etc

.

 

Edited May 19 by br2975

[C126]

5 minutes ago, br2975 said:

How about 'Canton Brickyard' across the SWML from Canton Depot, where activities could be watched from the famous footbridge ?

.

The layout (in later years) was simple, a loop and one siding.

.

The mono-pitched roof shelter in the background spanned the  solitary siding and was built to allow newspaper vans to be unloaded under cover.

.

The Cl.08 would trip from Tidal Sidings each morning.

.

Freight traffic over the years included aluminium ingots, reels of newspaper, steel coils etc

.

 

 

Just wanted to say what a wonderful little yard this is: general goods, plus  van traffic.  Crying out to be modelled in some form, or transposed to a larger layout.  Thanks for the photos.