block and beam track?

[The Q]

I have been studying the station I wish to buld a model of (Former MSWJR became GWR, Ludgershall, date of Model 1940)and have notice that in some post war photographs, in several of the sidings, the track is supported on four or five concrete blocks and then what appears to be a steel tie bar between a pair of blocks. Now the Question is, is this common? when did it come into use and therefore is it MSWJR or GWR or BR. and finally does anyone make the components to model such a track (4mm / EM Gauge)

Thank you

Q

[TheSignalEngineer]

These were quite common in sidings, especially where these were added or improved for wartime traffic, although Col. Stephens for one had tried them in 1919 near Clevedon on the WC&PR link

[Bernard Lamb]

Very much a GWR thing.

Mainly used for lightly used sidings.

No idea when it was introduced.

However the London and Birmingham Railway used a similar style in the very early days. Blocks can still be seen in rockeries and garden walls in the Watford area.

Ian Rice describes building this type of track in his book on fine scale track.

He used 60 thou plasticard with brass strip tie bars and C and L chairs.

Bernard

[Trog]

No tie bars used on the L&B stone set sleepers, and the sleepers were used with the rails crossing them from corner to corner. They can still be seen forming retaining walls all up and down the L&B. There are a load forming the outside wall of Bletchley station car park, and some in the roadside verge of McConnell Drive in Wolverton if you want a close look at one.

 

I have also seen the more recent concrete with tie bar type marked GWR&GC Joint, photo of one in the P-Way Details Gallery.

[TheSignalEngineer]

Edmond Vagneux designed a concrete two-block and tie sleeper known in France as 'Systeme Vagneux' in 1916. These are used on SNCF and RATP, and also appear in Britain on CTRL and tram systems in Sheffield, Birmingham, Nottingham and Manchester. link

[Pacific231G]

Edmond Vagneux designed a concrete two-block and tie sleeper known in France as 'Systeme Vagneux' in 1916. These are used on SNCF and RATP, and also appear in Britain on CTRL and tram systems in Sheffield, Birmingham, Nottingham and Manchester. link

It's curious that the GWR only used this system for sidings as in France where it's known as bi-bloc it was and is used on main lines including LGVs (high speed lines)

I photographed this example from a Eurostar held up just south of Lille a couple of years ago

 

 

Presumably the VAX stamped into the block is an abreviation of Vagneux.

 

 

This type of track has fairly solid steel beams or lattices connecting the two blocks but it's well buried in the ballast.

I can see that a lighter version of bi-bloc for slow speed track might be lighter than conventionally sleepered track and this would have been a considerable advantage durig the war when a lot of sidings had to be laid very rapidly. I wonder though if the inspectorate were unwilling to accept Vagneux for passenger lines as the GWR itself wasn't slow to introduce new technologies from abroad especially from France.

 

David

[The Stationmaster]

It's curious that the GWR only used this system for sidings as in France where it's known as bi-bloc it was and is used on main lines including LGVs (high speed lines)

David

 

I think the essential difference was that the GWR 'pot sleepers' (as they were usually referred to by PWay folk of my acquaintance) were much shallower in the depth of the concrete so were overall far less substantial than even the earlier French versions. I was told many years ago that they were a wartime introduction (don't ask me which war - but what I was told came from PWay men who had been about in WWII and had first seen them then) and they were still in pretty good condition into the early 1970s in some yards which suggests to me that they might well have dated from the 1940s - presumably when lots of additional sidings were required but timber sleepers were in short supply?

[Adam]

Like this you mean?

 

 

I made a few panels of this for my own amusement having seen some in situ in the old oil depot sidings at Aberystwyth a couple of years ago. You're on your own with the pots - I cut mine from black 60 thou' plastic sheet - but the chairs are near enough the standard GWR 2 bolt pattern (though I don't think they're exactly the same), and mine came from Exactoscle. The size was judged from the size of the chair and the photo attached below. In 4mm, EM in my case, I think this was about 4mm x 6mm: a proper batch production effort.

 

 

 

I think we're dealing with 45' lengths of rail here so I guesstimated the distances by counting pots per length and marking this out on paper as you should be able to see in the first picture. I've since seen proper Pway diagrams showing the spacings (in an old issue of GWRJ, I forget which, but I believe the article referred to the route between Yeovil Pen Mill and Dorchester - the same diagram appears in the David J. Smith's GWR Switch and Crossing Practice. A Design Guide for 4mm Modellers published by the Great Western Railway Study Group), which show that I haven't got them quite right, but they're close enough. I think WW2 is right Mike, but cannot be wholly certain. There were variants: I've used a wooden sleeper at the end of each panel, but I've seen pictures of panels with a tie bar instead (at New Radnor IIRC). The tie bars are actually angle and dad, who was involved in the early days at Buckfastleigh tells me that this track is an absolute swine to pack... Some day, I'll actually lay it!

 

Adam

 

PS - I note, from Bernard's post above that Iain Rice did the same thing, since I've not got, nor read, that book I can claim no influence!

[The Stationmaster]

Like this you mean?

Adam

 

Exactly - and I like your reproduction of it, very nice

[The Q]

Thank you for the replies, I've since noticed a photo in one of my books that shows one of the sidings with normal sleepers in 1932. so that rules out MSWJR.

From your comments it seems likely that they were replaced during WW2 as this station was heavily used then. This also means I know the name of one of the men who would have done the work! Ganger JB Pointon, who worked there from mid 30s to Beeching. He happens to be my grandfather but sadly died around 30 years ago.

This means I will definately model them even if they weren't fitted till after June 1940. Thanks to Adam, those close ups of the track and your model replicas they will be a great help to make mine!!

 

The Q

[James]

Adam, very nice work! I can imagine it would be very easy to physically get material below the blocks but a ###### to get it consolidated to take the weight! Can't be much worse than packing the 'channels' which some turnouts at Scunthorpe steelworks still had. These were deep upturned U sections which were an alturnative to wooden bearers - a Grant Lyon Eagre 'innovation' which made sense given their easy access to steel, but it seemed as soon as you packed them all the material disappeared inside the channel!

 

Back on topic... Mike Cook's Sinnington featured a road laid in very similar blocks, so not exclusive to the GW.

[unravelled]

Another example in Oxford shed, taken in March 1966

 

Dave

[Trog]

The two block sleeper systems have a disadvantage in the in the event of even a minor derailment where a wheel hits the interblock bars. Gauge is lost and nothing can run until the track has been relayed.

 

With monoblock track add a few tie bars to the damaged area and you can often use it perhaps with a speed restriction until it is convienient to relay it. Minor dings in monoblocks can be patched with epoxy cement, or even ignored.

[multiprinter]

IIRC the ex GWR ones were about 5" deep. There used to be a load of them forming part of the terracing at Somerton Park, Newport, in the days when Newport County were still in the Football League.

[Brian Harrap]

Thought you might like to see this variation on the theme. This is NS track, Brian.

[James]

Interesting arrangement but it'll be a real bu**er to change a block!

 

A UK example of blocks -

 

[Nick Holliday]

Interestingly this month's Railway Bylines (July 2011) has a photo of Moat Lane Junction taken in 1960 which shows a point on the platform road laid using these concrete block sleepers in an inter-laced fashion, as has been the subject of another thread!

[stadman]

There are a couple of "Pots" near the entrance to the car par at Exeter St Davids.

 

Perhaps I'll try and measure them sometime.

 

Kev S

[Eggesford box]

The up loop at Abergavenny had this type of track in the eighties and it was converted from a refuge siding during WW2 which would lend credos to earlier posts about it being a wartime practice to save on scarce resources. I believe the work was done by Westinghouse, certainly the signals ended up with their 'ice cream cone' pattern finials though most seem to have disapeared/been nicked. I do not know if the loop has been relaid but I believe a loaded BAA did spread the track sometime after my time there.

[RIP OO]

It's curious that the GWR only used this system for sidings as in France where it's known as bi-bloc it was and is used on main lines including LGVs (high speed lines)

I photographed this example from a Eurostar held up just south of Lille a couple of years ago

 

 

Presumably the VAX stamped into the block is an abreviation of Vagneux.

 

 

This type of track has fairly solid steel beams or lattices connecting the two blocks but it's well buried in the ballast.

I can see that a lighter version of bi-bloc for slow speed track might be lighter than conventionally sleepered track and this would have been a considerable advantage durig the war when a lot of sidings had to be laid very rapidly. I wonder though if the inspectorate were unwilling to accept Vagneux for passenger lines as the GWR itself wasn't slow to introduce new technologies from abroad especially from France.

 

David

 

The French went in for this sort of thing. One of the main proponents, Roger Sonneville, achieved a high profile in the 1950s while advocating the advantages of the twin-block sleeper, which began to be rolled-out across France, Spain and their colonies. The main advantages claimed are a doubling of the area of the side of the sleeper to resist buckling and an easier task of reinstating the line in the unfortunate event of a derailment. They became known in some places as "RS sleepers" after the proponent's initials.

[RIP OO]

Like this you mean?

 

 

I made a few panels of this for my own amusement having seen some in situ in the old oil depot sidings at Aberystwyth a couple of years ago. You're on your own with the pots - I cut mine from black 60 thou' plastic sheet - but the chairs are near enough the standard GWR 2 bolt pattern (though I don't think they're exactly the same), and mine came from Exactoscle. The size was judged from the size of the chair and the photo attached below. In 4mm, EM in my case, I think this was about 4mm x 6mm: a proper batch production effort.

 

 

 

I think we're dealing with 45' lengths of rail here so I guesstimated the distances by counting pots per length and marking this out on paper as you should be able to see in the first picture. I've since seen proper Pway diagrams showing the spacings (in an old issue of GWRJ, I forget which, but I believe the article referred to the route between Yeovil Pen Mill and Dorchester - the same diagram appears in the David J. Smith's GWR Switch and Crossing Practice. A Design Guide for 4mm Modellers published by the Great Western Railway Study Group), which show that I haven't got them quite right, but they're close enough. I think WW2 is right Mike, but cannot be wholly certain. There were variants: I've used a wooden sleeper at the end of each panel, but I've seen pictures of panels with a tie bar instead (at New Radnor IIRC). The tie bars are actually angle and dad, who was involved in the early days at Buckfastleigh tells me that this track is an absolute swine to pack... Some day, I'll actually lay it!

 

Adam

 

PS - I note, from Bernard's post above that Iain Rice did the same thing, since I've not got, nor read, that book I can claim no influence!

The GWR 2-bolt chair for timber sleepers differs in base dimensions and hole spacing to the BR CS1, which would be found on E1 concrete through-sleepers. The LNER used the 3-screw S2 chair on concrete pots during WW2 for sidings.

[Trog]

The S2 was designed for use with 85lb BH rail, so presumably these sidings were laid with the lighter section of rail.

Both the S1 and S2 have the chair screws at the same spacing, so should fit on the same type of pot.

[5050]

Will be using a length of this type of track on my Drybrook Road FoD layout for the platform loop.  It was used quite a bit on the FoD lines.  Anyone got any additional info on details etc.?

 

EDIT - just found this which is very useful.

 

http://85a.co.uk/forum/view_topic.php?id=2797&forum_id=6

[Gordon A]

Details of pot sleepers in The Railway - British Track since 1804 by Andrew Dow.

 

Gordon A

[alanbuttler]

Details of pot sleepers in The Railway - British Track since 1804 by Andrew Dow.

 

Gordon A

 

Thanks for the pointer Gordon, I knew I'd seen the drawings somewhere.  5050 I'll put a 45' length worth of samples in the post to you with your figure when they are sorted