Bailey Gate Creamery Siding

[Combe Martin]

Hello,

 

I'm attempting to model Bailey Gate in BR days, and wondered if anyone knows how milk tankers were moved up and down the Creamery siding. Obviously they were shunted into it by whatever loco was shunting the yard at the time, but how were they moved up and down it once the loco had departed. It was a 'kick back' siding and Bailey Gate didn't have a resident shunter.

 

The photo on page 75 of Jeffrey Grayer's book, Sabotaged & Defeated Revisited (a Peter Russell picture), shows milk tankers partially fouling the point that connected the Creamery siding to the rest of the yard, which makes me wonder if they were rope or chain hauled up and down the kick back . Next to the siding, there is also what appears to be a capstain that a rope or chain could be wound around.

 

Does anyone know about the milk tank operation at Bailey Gate.

 

Many thanks.

[Chris Nevard]

Brute force or tractor maybe?

[Combe Martin]

Well, I was hoping to find someone that knew definately, or even remembered, or knew someone that remembered how milk tankers were shunted up and down. It can't have been a loco, because with the tankers across the point a loco can't get in there. I would have thought a tractor was unlikely, because the rails arn't buried in a road surface but are standing clear of the sleepers like any other siding. Also, between the throat of the point and the station approach end of the siding under the canopy there is a pit between the rails, a tractor would fall down it. It would also be interesting to know what the pit was for ?.

 

The capstan next to the siding is the clue I think, I was just hoping for some confirmation of my speculation !

[bike2steam]

Sorry, I didn't see yer original post, but if your not in to much of a hurry I can find out for you from some one who actually worked there when I see him next Wednesday, unless he turns up in the Town Museum in Blandford tomorrow morning when I'm doing my stint on ' the door' ( see top web-site listed below ) .

[Combe Martin]

Sorry, I didn't see yer original post, but if your not in to much of a hurry I can find out for you from some one who actually worked there when I see him next Wednesday, unless he turns up in the Town Museum in Blandford tomorrow morning when I'm doing my stint on ' the door' ( see top web-site listed below ) .

 

Many thanks, that would be absolutely brilliant.

[bike2steam]

In the mean time, have you sen this;-

http://www.ovguide.c...000000000dcb693

or this;-

http://www.trainweb.org/railwest/railco/sdjr/bailey.html

[geoffers]

Sorry - I don't how they moved them. My father would have known, having worked at the Creamery, but he is long gone as is my uncle who also worked there. I wonder if they "jemmied" them along.

[Combe Martin]

Sorry - I don't how they moved them. My father would have known, having worked at the Creamery, but he is long gone as is my uncle who also worked there. I wonder if they "jemmied" them along.

 

It's a possibility I suppose, but how much does a full milk tanker weigh ?. I'm sure the capstan beside the siding is the clue, and must have something to do with it, afterall, if not, whats it there for ?

[Combe Martin]

In the mean time, have you sen this;-

http://www.ovguide.c...000000000dcb693

or this;-

http://www.trainweb....djr/bailey.html

 

Many thanks, I have seen some bits before, but some others are new to me. One thing thats allways puzzled me, the 2nd of these 2 links goes to the Bailey Gate signalling page, and at the end of this is the signalling diagram that reflects the 1955 track changes. At the top of the diagram, after the point where the new United Dairies siding joins the existing track to the creamery siding, the track layout is shown as 'forking', but surely this is wrong, there was no fork there but just a single track leading to the creamery siding which on this map would have run from left to right at the top, the connection being by a point roughly in the middle of this siding, or have I missed something ?.

[buffalo]

Have you looked at the diagrams in Judge & Potts, An Historical Survey of the Somerset & Dorset Railway, Track Layouts and Illustrations? This includes a similar signalling diagram, except that the left hand fork is longer and is labelled 'DAIRY'. Between the words 'UNIGATE CREAMERIES SIDING' and ground signal 19, it also shows a loading dock labelled 'UNIGATE DOCK'. Unfortunately, the scale plan shows the situation before 1955, but the actual location of down sidings No1 clearly shows that the signalling diagram has been expanded/exaggerated in the vertical direction. This may be what is confusing you as the creamery siding would have closer to parallel with the main line if drawn to scale.

 

Nick

[bike2steam]

Hello,

 

I'm attempting to model Bailey Gate in BR days, and wondered if anyone knows how milk tankers were moved up and down the Creamery siding. Obviously they were shunted into it by whatever loco was shunting the yard at the time, but how were they moved up and down it once the loco had departed. It was a 'kick back' siding and Bailey Gate didn't have a resident shunter.

 

The photo on page 75 of Jeffrey Grayer's book, Sabotaged & Defeated Revisited (a Peter Russell picture), shows milk tankers partially fouling the point that connected the Creamery siding to the rest of the yard, which makes me wonder if they were rope or chain hauled up and down the kick back . Next to the siding, there is also what appears to be a capstain that a rope or chain could be wound around.

 

Does anyone know about the milk tank operation at Bailey Gate.

 

Many thanks.

 

The answer to your question is - pinch-bars, or as geoffers delightfully put it, 'jemmied'.

Glad to be of help - Paul.

[Combe Martin]

 

The answer to your question is - pinch-bars, or as geoffers delightfully put it, 'jemmied'.

Glad to be of help - Paul.

Please forgive my ignorance, but what's a 'pinch-bar', is it some sort of long lever that they would stick into the ground next to a wagon and then pull the other end against the wagon to 'lever' it along ?

[phil-b259]

Please forgive my ignorance, but what's a 'pinch-bar', is it some sort of long lever that they would stick into the ground next to a wagon and then pull the other end against the wagon to 'lever' it along ?

 

Basically an extra long crowbar

[bike2steam]

Normally a five foot long piece of 2" hexagon high carbon steel ( modern ones are part Tungsten) one end has a 6" angled chisel shape end with which you place the 'heel' on the rail top next to the wheel to be shifted, with the end of the chisel point as far under the wheel as you can. The object, to be moved, should if you push down on the bar ( as long as the brakes are off !?). I've moved 12" to the foot locos with one.

Not to be confused with a wrecking bar/ prise bar/ crow bar, or jemmy which is only about 24" long.

[Combe Martin]

Many thanks for that,I'm not quite sure how I'm going to model it though, a micro decoder in a little man or maybe 12 inch to the foot scale finger !

 

That still leaves me to ponder what the capstan was for though ?, and also the pit under the canopy. I'm guessing the pit must have been something to do with flushing out the tanks ??

[bike2steam]

Nice little project, make a motorized milk tanker ????? just like the motorized wagon of the days of old, was it Ratio or someone ?

[Oldddudders]

Nice little project, make a motorized milk tanker ????? just like the motorized wagon of the days of old, was it Ratio or someone ?

Kitmaster?

[Combe Martin]

I did think of this, but the trouble is I've got loads of milk tankers, and photos allways show this siding having at least 3 or 4 milk tankers in it, so I'd end up motorising loads of them, then of course when a loco shunted them out it would be like running at least a 'quadruple header'. Yes, technically possible, but I bet it wouldn't run well !

[Jim49]

I think this is one time when you will have to ignore what really happened and resort to using the engine off the

goods train that conveniently happened to be shunting the yard at that time.

 

Presumably the Creamery facilities were able to load more than one tanker at a time and if the siding was long

enough to hold for example six tankers, with the loading dock centrally placed and able to deal with 2 tankers,

the procedure could be:-

1) A loco shunts four empty tanks into the siding, positioning them with two in the dock and two outside.

(Would these be delivered as Tail Traffic behind the Local Passenger or as a dedicated service?)

2) Once the inside pair are loaded, the shunter is called in to draw all four tanks forward so that the rear two

can be filled. The engine then goes back to the yard.

3) With all tanks now full, the milk train is now ready to depart, either as Tail Traffic on the Local Passenger or

as a complete train in its own right.

 

Jim

[Chris Nevard]

I'm with Jim here - a wagon moving on its own would look nothing short of silly without an animated miniature figure/milktankerwagonshunterperson. Though I guess if you do have a to do it, use a magnet under the baseboard with a suitable lump of ferrous metal between the solebars of the tank wagon could work. Of if you run with 3 links hand of god is already in the house there so one might as well prod the wagon too.

[bike2steam]

I tend to agree with the above, I should have added a smiley with my earlier suggestion about the motorized milk tanker, as it was meant tongue in cheek.

[Combe Martin]

The Creamery siding at Bailey Gate (the one where the milk tankers were handled) isn't shown on any of the online signalling diagram maps of the yard. It ran at the top of the map from left to right (roughly parallel with the main line) and was fed by what is called 'Down Siding No 2'. The 'fork' in the track layout at the top of the 1955 map didn't exist but rather the track continued the curve left and fed the Creamery siding joining it from the right hand track of a right handed point positioned roughly half way along the Creamery siding's length. The Creamery siding therefore had a 'kick back' section running to the right that tankers could not be shunted into directly, but which all tankers had to be pushed into.

 

That's the best way I can describe it, appologies if my description is confusing, or if I'm preaching to anyone that knows the layout already.

 

Tankers always arrived from and departed in the 'up' direction, ie from/to the left on the map. They were usually marshalled at the front of an arriving train and the rear of a departing train. An arriving loco would have uncoupled from it's train leaving it in the down platform, run forward, and then shunted back along Down Siding No 2 to the Creamery Siding, and pulled out any departing tankers, shunting them into the siding immediately behind the down platform for collection by a later up train. Having emptied this half of the Creamery Siding, the loco would then shunt back to its train still in the down platform, couple to the tankers (which would now be uncoupled from the rest of the train), haul them forward, then propell them back into the now emptied left hand (north west) end of the Creamery Siding.

 

The loco would therefore be at the wrong side of the tankers to be able to shunt them into the right hand (kick back) end of the Creamery Siding. It would need to be able to run round them somewhere. It couldn't do this on the main line because the rest of it's train was still in the down platform and blocking any 'run round' (this could be a passenger or goods train). The only other place to run round, was via what is marked on the map as 'Unigate Creameries Siding' (not to be confused with what I am calling the Creamery Siding) which was the new siding loop added to the yard in 1955. However, this was next to a loading bank where photographs show vans usually stabled being loaded with ????? (whatever), so it would be blocked and couldn't be used for running round .

 

This is why I believe using a loco to do all the milk tanker shunting movements isn't practical. Moving them manually was presumably the most convienient way for the dairy because they could move them from/to the arrivals/departure end of the siding when they were ready and not have to rely on a convienient loco.

 

Appologies if my explanation/reasoning is a bit confusing, this is quite difficult to explain without having the map here.

 

I did wonder about motorising one tanker as an 'interesting exercise', I might still try it. And the magnet under the baseboard idea had also occurred to me too. Every tanker would need to be fitted with its 'lump of iron' between the frames, but this might be the best 'simplist' way of avoiding the 'big finger'.

[The Stationmaster]

Simple answer - in the modelled world the creamery obviously owned its own little shunting loco, a Sentinel would be ideal I reckon

[Gordon A]

If there were no fences or other obstructions could rope shunting have been employed?

In model form a Planet (Roxey) or a Ruston 48 DS could be used to move the wagons on an as required basis.

 

Gordon A

Bristol

[Combe Martin]

If there were no fences or other obstructions could rope shunting have been employed?

In model form a Planet (Roxey) or a Ruston 48 DS could be used to move the wagons on an as required basis.

Well, the photograph that I keep going on about has a capstan mounted on a plinth next to the Creamery siding by the point thats roughly at the centre of the siding, so this was my first thought, as I mentioned when I first started this topic. However, I'm reliably informed by Paul Mays (bike2steam) who's asked someone that worked there that they man handled the tankers along the siding using pinch-bars. This 'begs the question', what was the capstan for ?. I wonder if rope haulage was originally planned, but then abandoned ?