How common was this?

[pH]

 

I came across this prototype layout recently. I couldn't remember seeing anything just like this before, but then, I didn't pay too much attention to track when there was so much of it about! So I have a question for those people who are interested in these things. It's pre-grouping - double track with a loop on the north side. There is a goods yard and an industry off the loop (just sketched in here). The feature that surprised me was the track from the loop right across both running lines to the branch - no crossovers, no slips, just straight diamond crossings on both lines.

 

Virtually all of the traffic to the branch would have arrived in the 'down' direction, and virtually all of the traffic from the branch would have left in the 'up' direction. The overall gradient of the line here is 1 in 66 (up from right to left in the sketch), though I don't know if it eases through the station platforms. The branch starts to climb as soon as it crosses the running lines.

 

How common was this kind of access from a yard to a branch line?

[AMJ]

From the plan the only thing that I'm surprised about is the facing point in the down line giving access to the loop. I might have expected a trailing crossover at the left hand end of the platform and would include one. Many pre-group railways built plans with as few as possible facing points.

 

I assume that the branch is a good branch or industrial.

 

The trailing crossover at the left is a must so that you can loop a goods whilst a passenger train runs through.

 

Looks a bit GC extension to me.

[The Stationmaster]

I too am rather surprised to see the facing connection from the Down to the loop - suggests to me that it is either a fairly early layout or a late one (which has been altered at some time?) but not from the main period of Pre-Group layout planning/restriction on facing points etc. It also seems odd to me that there isn't a trailing crossover at the left hand end of the layout. So overall it definitely looks a bit strange and distinctly 'different' from what I would expect although I don't know what Railway it might be (for some reason which I can't fathom Scotland comes into my mind but don't ask me why).

[Kenton]

With only diamond crossings I cannot see how the branch line can serve passenger traffic into either platform. In fact the platforms are near inaccessible.

 

So the "branch" is goods only and has no real connection with the main. The branch could still be some significant industry and those sidings some interchange/marshalling?

[beast66606]

Freight only branch ?

 

Edit - agree with Kenton.

 

 

It says Scotland to me too StationMaster.

 

Couple of quetions spring to mind :

 

Where is the actual place ?

 

What's the source of the plan ?

[Guest stuartp]

It depends what the branch served - if as AMJ suggests [Edit - and Kenton and Beast while I was typing !] it was goods only then that would be reason enough for it to connect only to the goods loop.

 

There may have been other reasons; I hesitate to use the Wigtownshire Railway as an example of anything given its perverse approach to operations generally, but the connection to the Garlieston Branch at Millisle involved similar shennanigans with trailing points and a reverse for all movements on or off, including passenger trains. In this case it wasn't a fear of facing points but rather that the Garlieston Branch had only been authorised as a horse tramway and nobody had bothered to amend the Act to allow operation by steam locomotives. Typically, a couple of years after the passenger service to Garlieston was abandoned they relaid the junction to allow through running !

 

Where is it please ? (just out of curiosity...)

[Jamie]

Has a flavour of Caley, North Clyde lines, I think - but that's just gut feel.

[pH]

Gentlemen, I'm impressed! It's Upper Greenock station and Berryards Junction on the Wemyss Bay line. The sketch was made up from one in the True Line issue#9 plus the 1914 1:2500 map on the Old-Maps website. By that time, the Wemyss Bay line had been double-tracked as far as this point, but was still single-track beyond Upper Greenock. (Upper Greenock to Dunrod was never double-tracked.) I showed double track west of the station platform because the map is a bit vague in that area, and I was concentrating on the branch junction east of the station. I presume the two lines coming together would act as a trailing crossover for the down line.

 

The branch is the Overton paper mill branch. Yes, it was freight only. As I said, the Wemyss Bay line is climbing at 1 in 66 at this point - the branch climbed about 150 feet higher than it in not much over a mile, with a maximum gradient of 1 in 13!

 

The facing point connection from the down line to the loop was there - there's a picture clearly showing it in the True Line article. As far as the connection from the yard to the branch is concerned, earlier maps seem to show crossovers from the headshunt on to the single main line, and from that on to the branch. But by 1914, the connection was by diamond crossings over both main lines, again clearly shown in the picture in the True Line article.

 

I guess what struck me as most unusual about the layout was the fact that any traffic for the branch arriving in the down direction (and almost all of it would have) would have to go through some fairly complicated manoeuvres to get there, where a trailing connection off the down main would have accomplished that very easily.

[beast66606]

The branch is the Overton paper mill branch. Yes, it was freight only. As I said, the Wemyss Bay line is climbing at 1 in 66 at this point - the branch climbed about 150 feet higher than it in not much over a mile, with a maximum gradient of 1 in 13!

 

<snip>

 

I guess what struck me as most unusual about the layout was the fact that any traffic for the branch arriving in the down direction (and almost all of it would have) would have to go through some fairly complicated manoeuvres to get there, where a trailing connection off the down main would have accomplished that very easily.

 

I would guess these two statements are connected ..

[Kenton]

The branch is the Overton paper mill branch. Yes, it was freight only. As I said, the Wemyss Bay line is climbing at 1 in 66 at this point - the branch climbed about 150 feet higher than it in not much over a mile, with a maximum gradient of 1 in 13!

Given the steep gradient I am a little surprised that there was no runaway protection on the branch line to protect the main line. Unless all traffic was hauled down the grade into the loop and pushed back up the branch. An even better layout would have been the sidings on the south side of the station as always though there would have been other geographic/commercial factors.

[Weekday Cross]

Just because the predominant traffic is from one direction doesn't mean it would be dropped off at the earliest opportunity. It is quite possible that the traffic was worked beyond this station and was then brought back. Operating convenience often overrode what the modern eye would see as common sense.

 

Certainly some branch lines in other parts of the country were worked this way. The local goods would take the whole train to the end of the line and then work back, dropping and picking up as it went.

[beast66606]

Just because the predominant traffic is from one direction doesn't mean it would be dropped off at the earliest opportunity. It is quite possible that the traffic was worked beyond this station and was then brought back. Operating convenience often overrode what the modern eye would see as common sense.

 

Certainly some branch lines in other parts of the country were worked this way. The local goods would take the whole train to the end of the line and then work back, dropping and picking up as it went.

 

Indeed - the sectional appendix is useful for these occasions, I have a 1937 for Scotland which may yield some light, if I remember to look at it when I get home

[beast66606]

Upper Greenock station and Berryards Junction on the Wemyss Bay line.

 

Scroll down to it !

[pH]

Indeed - the sectional appendix is useful for these occasions, I have a 1937 for Scotland which may yield some light, if I remember to look at it when I get home

I'd be interested to hear what the sectional appendix says, though, since the branch closed about the time of Grouping, I don't think there will be any direct reference to it. To be honest, I would be very surprised if freight was worked to the end of the line at Wemyss Bay, then back to Upper Greenock for delivery. This was the last station on the line with significant industrial traffic - in 1914, there was a sugarhouse on the north side of the loop (it closed in the 1990s), the station goods yard, and a connection to another, disused sugarhouse. Beyond here, there were only stations at Ravenscraig, Inverkip and Wemyss Bay, none with industrial traffic. Plus the line from Upper Greenock to Dunrod was single line - I don't think they would have put any traffic over that that they didn't need to.

 

About protection of the main lines from runaways on the branch - in the sketch, I only showed the beginning of the branch, going east. At about the point where the sketch ended, there were reversing sidings, and the branch then headed off uphill to the west. So any runaways on the main part of the branch would not reach the main line. There was at least one, which ran through the sidings and over the embankment at the end. (Incidentally, the 'Up' and 'Down' on the sketch refer to the railway direction. They don't refer to the gradient on the main line, which is in the opposite sense i.e. the 'Down' line is climbing at this point.)

 

The layout still puzzles me - I think the branch could be served much more conventionally/simply. One thing affecting it, perhaps, could be a reluctance to shunt loose-coupled, unfitted trains on a 1 in 66 gradient.

 

I went to high school just below the Overton paper mill. In fact, our cross-country course went round the outside of the paper mill site (twice - the second time round was the killer!). I heard the branch called the 'pug railway', but it's only in the last few years that I've been able to find out anything about it. Apparently, the local council now wants to use the line as a footpath, under the name of the 'Puggy Line'. I hope to be back in the area next month and will definitely walk the line if I am.

[Guest stuartp]

Unless I'm missing something obvious (which wouldn't be the first time), the simplest way to deal with a down train for the branch would be to run straight into the loop via the left hand diamonds, then run round via the up main and set off up the branch via the right hand diamonds (or just propel out of the loop if authorised).

 

 

[The Stationmaster]

 

The layout still puzzles me - I think the branch could be served much more conventionally/simply. One thing affecting it, perhaps, could be a reluctance to shunt loose-coupled, unfitted trains on a 1 in 66 gradient.

 

 

The practicality of doing that safely (even by the standards of the day) plus the views of HMRI on the subject of gradients no doubt answered that one. The layout is certainly 'unusual' but far from illogical in the circumstances described.

[beast66606]

A quick look in the SA reveals little, some special instructions for shunting the sidings when Berryards box is shut, allowing drivers to pass signals at danger I will look some more tomorrow.