Goods Train Operation

[devondynosoar118]

More good stuff coming out, thank you.

[roythebus]

To bring the thread more up to date, how far do we need to come forward? The traditional wagon load traffic was still prevalent in my relatively short time on the Midland region working from Rugby. A lot of fright would stop there for change of crews, with London or Rugby men working to rugby, then northern crews taking over from there. with the speed of freight trains then, it was not often possible for the locomen to work farther than that without running out of hours!

 

Some of the regulal trains we had were: the Redhill sand, a block train of sand hoppers, uncovered, and limited to 25mph as the sand blew everywhere if it went much faster; cars from coventry to the south, usually using Cartics by 1973; the coal trains for Southam and Bilton cement works, always unfitted mineral wagons; endless mixed trains with a fitted head of up to 10 wagons. These were usually limited to 45mph and could load up to 50 wagons. They invariably ran late for various reasons, usually waiting connections at Willesden yard from other regions.

 

Then we had the Freightliners, usually booked on the fast lines at 75mph anfd loading up to 1200 tons,

 

Rugby still had working cattle pens in 1974, though I don't know where the cattle traffic came from. The Bilton coal trains came via Nuneaton usually with a 20/25 or 40, so presumably from the Leicester area.

[LNER4479]

Thanks guys for those who have commented further and so knowledgeably on the details of individual PO wagons.

 

I've got a much better idea of where I'm heading now with Grantham's coal trains!

[The Stationmaster]

Mike - have you ever read the Gerry Fiennes passage about Bill Hoole and the 'Scotch Goods' catching up the Talisman somwehere up the East Coast?

 

 

I have indeed - and used to watch them regularly on the mainline between Selby and York from a spot with a fairly good long distance view so I can well recall what they looked like - especially a train of fish empties which usually seemed to be running faster than all the other fitted freights 9and was normally an A4 job although it didn't seem any slower with the occasional V2 on it instead.   So yes I was well aware of ECML (very) fast fitted freights but they would be even faster looking for a 50 mph average speed - so thanks Andy for confirmation from the good book(s).

 

As far as coal flows from mining areas to other mining areas are concerned as iron production became more sophisticated a lot of coal moved about for blending in order to produce a specific calorific value or carbon content (or cabon content or chemical content etc) for coke making for use in blast furnaces and similarly coal was often blended for power station use in later years in to alter calorific value or affect ash content (this still goes on in some places in Britain).  The yard I worked in in South Wales in the early 1970s used to send a block train a week to somewhere in the Newcastle area and we also had a couple of trains a week to the steelworks at Scunthorpe  (Entrance E for Andy's information).

 

Incidentally in later years both Andy and I were involved in freight operations in different parts of BR so between us we can maybe answer some questions (I did say maybe) and he remained in that sphere in the big changes of 1994 (when I went back to the passenger side of things via another short spell in Rules & Regs) - and I hope he doesn't me mentioning that.

[byron]

Rugby cattle came from Holyhead. Very regular flows to various destinations.

 

Mike

[Buckjumper]

 

Incidentally in later years both Andy and I were involved in freight operations in different parts of BR so between us we can maybe answer some questions (I did say maybe) and he remained in that sphere in the big changes of 1994 (when I went back to the passenger side of things via another short spell in Rules & Regs) - and I hope he doesn't me mentioning that.

Members of the GER Society have enjoyed the benefit of Andy's knowledge and the fruits of his research and writings for years, going right back to the very early days of the society in the 70s, so it's an added boon for us laymen to have the two of you bouncing your experiences and expertise off each other in an environment such as this.

[Mikkel]

During the twenties and thirties a large quantity of cattle was consigned from southern Ireland to East Anglia (no, I don’t know why!) 

 

 

On the question of cattle, I understand they were often shipped from Scotland to England for final fattening before sale. And I have recently come by a GCR document off Ebay that confirms flows of cattle from Holyhead and Liverpool to Yorkshire (and probably beyond) in 1907. I suspect LNW and CL cattle vans for this traffic, but I don't actually know. This traffic would almost certainly originate in Ireland.

 

This page quotes no less than 40 Irish cattle traders shipping from Holyhead to Cambridge:

http://www.cheffins.co.uk/185/livestock-markets.htm

[Rugd1022]

To bring the thread more up to date, how far do we need to come forward? The traditional wagon load traffic was still prevalent in my relatively short time on the Midland region working from Rugby. A lot of fright would stop there for change of crews, with London or Rugby men working to rugby, then northern crews taking over from there. with the speed of freight trains then, it was not often possible for the locomen to work farther than that without running out of hours!

 

Some of the regulal trains we had were: the Redhill sand, a block train of sand hoppers, uncovered, and limited to 25mph as the sand blew everywhere if it went much faster; cars from coventry to the south, usually using Cartics by 1973; the coal trains for Southam and Bilton cement works, always unfitted mineral wagons; endless mixed trains with a fitted head of up to 10 wagons. These were usually limited to 45mph and could load up to 50 wagons. They invariably ran late for various reasons, usually waiting connections at Willesden yard from other regions.

 

Then we had the Freightliners, usually booked on the fast lines at 75mph anfd loading up to 1200 tons,

 

Rugby still had working cattle pens in 1974, though I don't know where the cattle traffic came from. The Bilton coal trains came via Nuneaton usually with a 20/25 or 40, so presumably from the Leicester area.

Fingers crossed this reply will appear unhindered...!

 

Good post there Roy, one that perked up the old memory banks somewhat! The Bilton and Southam coal used to come from Toton and could produce whatever Toton Depot had going spare at the time, I think it was booked for a Type 4 but as you say, 20s and 25s did appear on it (and 31s in later years). Right at the very end of the 44's careers, 44 004 and 44 008 appeared on it several times. The odd Tinsley area 37 would appear too which was quite a treat.

 

I can remember walking down the rake of empty minerals at Southam Cement Works taking the wagon numbers down, then struggling to get them up to Marton Jnction to run round before heading back to Rugby - happy days now long gone. Very occasionally there would be a pair of 25s on this trip, if there were extra empties to bring back.

[roythebus]

Rather surprisingly there wasn't any cement taken by rail from either Bilton or Southam!

[andyrush]

Here we have the final instalment of the saga for 2012

 

 

Special Workings

 

One of the potentially confusing things about the goods train railway was how much of the operation was dealt with by special working of one sort or another. To appreciate the ‘special working regime’, we need to look at the compilation of the Freight Working Timetable and it must be stressed that all of this refers to the pre privytisation railway (as Mike, the Stationmaster, aptly calls it), and is applicable to the former BR Eastern Region.

 

Each issue of the WTT (summer and winter) was based on the previous one subject to ‘tweaks’ (or occasionally re-planning of a part of the service) to reflect changed commercial specifications or to achieve economies in train working. Broadly speaking, passenger trains were first on the graph (the means by which trains were pathed), with goods trains being fitted round them, although a lot of the overnight fast goods trains on the East Coast main line were pretty well sacrosanct, with the overnight sleeping car trains timings ‘adjusted’ to avoid them. Because goods train requirements changed more often than those for passenger trains, each issue of the Freight WTT was amended every two months (at least) by a supplement.

 

Then we come to special traffic working. The first manifestation of this was something called an ‘Until Further Notice’ or UFN circular (different railway companies and regions had different terminology), but essentially it augmented or amended the WTT as well as the most recent supplement. Usually, but not always, this publication commenced operation between supplement issue dates and continued until its provisions were incorporated in the next supplement. The ‘not always’ circumstance covers such things as Fruit and Vegetable Traffic, Flower Traffic and the Sugar Beet Campaign. For each of these activities, a multi page booklet was produced giving alteration to the train service for the whole of the period involved, but the actual dates when its provisions commenced and ended were advised separately.

 

Next in the hierarchy were Weekly Freight Special Traffic Notices, which lasted, not surprisingly, for a week and would detail the timings of all special freight trains (and cancellations or alterations to booked trains). The STN could, potentially, amend any of the publications already mentioned, and was accompanied by altered locomotive and train crew diagrams.

 

The shortest notice freight train alterations that the Train Planning organisation could deal with on a properly resourced basis (i.e, with accompanying locomotive and train crew diagrams) were at 48 hours notice, and were promulgated on a Daily Circular which, again, could potentially alter anything issued previously.

 

Finally, there were ‘Control Specials’ which were extra trains ordered by and advised out by the District/Divisional Control Offices. These could take many forms, including extra or diverted loaded services to cater for traffic fluctuations, alterations as a consequence of mishaps or block trains of empty wagons to meet sudden out of the ordinary demands.

 

As an example of the kind of fluctuation that some of these special traffic alterations could call for, we can look at the BR ER (GE Line, excluding the M&GN Section) Fruit and Vegetable Traffic Arrangements Season 1958. This was issued in May 1958 and presumably started on or about the date of the summer WTT which that year was 9 June. There are 15 pages showing a special from Waltham Cross to Whitemoor calling at Broxbourne and Elsenham to attach, an additional Horse Shoe Lane (Wisbech M&GN) to Whitemoor via Peterborough East, additionals from Sutton and Wisbech East to Whitemoor, as well as numerous other extra trains. A brief summary of the effect this had on the evening Down Joint departures from Whitemoor is listed below.

6.30pm C Special Parcels Doncaster

6.40pm C Special Parcels Guide Bridge

6.55pm C Parcels York

7.40pm C Special Fruit Niddrie

8.00pm D Goods Ducie Street retimed from 8.50pm

8.05pm C Parcels Cowbit - Sheffield

8.20pm C Special Fruit Guide Bridge

8.30pm C Special Fruit Ducie Street

8.40pm C Special Fruit New Bridge Street

8.50pm C Goods Niddrie retimed from 8.40pm

9.00pm D Goods Ardsley retimed from 9.03pm

9.10pm C Special Fruit Ardsley

9.20pm C Special Fruit Doncaster West Yard

9.30pm D Goods Colwick retimed from 9.40pm

9.40pm E Goods Mottram retimed from 9.15pm

 

Now it becomes clear why March had a number of K1 2-6-0’s with no regular diagrams!

 

All the best for the New Year to our readers! Vienna and trams awaits....

 

Andy

[62613]

Why a dedicated parcels train from Cowbit? Not exactly the centre of the universe.

[andyrush]

Why a dedicated parcels train from Cowbit? Not exactly the centre of the universe.

Don't tell the Fen Tigers that!.

 

The passenger rated fruit and flower traffic from stations Twenty Foot River to Postland (inclusive) was taken to Cowbit on a local goods service (3.50pm Whitemoor - Doncaster in 1957) where it was marshalled up to be attached to the York parcels and to form the Sheffield train. At the height of the fruit season, there was often more traffic on offer than could be accommodated on the two booked trains, and by early afternoon the Control office was investigating running a special from French Drove (often to the most unlikely places - I have seen paper evidence of one such train conveying 18 vans, all for Ducie Street). Yet another unbalanced K1 in foreign parts!

 

Andy

[The Stationmaster]

Adding to what Andy has written above about the timetable and amendment structure it's worth pointing out that names varied - the WTT was always the WTT (although some pre 1948 railways, e.g the GWR referred to it as the 'Service Timetable') but the special traffic documents varied in name.

 

On the Western (Region) we had Supplements to the WTT issued - again - at broadly 2-3 monthly intervals and which altered the WTT by adding or removing or retiming trains.  Below that we had what were called Weekly Notices (Weekly Freight Train Notice) and Daily Notices - although these latter were only issued if there was any need to do so.  

 

By the 1970s on the Western we were running quite a lot of our freight on weekly programmes - the customer told us each Thursday what trains they wanted from the WTT or as specials in the following week and we published a programme in the Weekly FTN in the manner described above by Andy.   However these programmes were still liable to alteration in the daily notice as customers changed their requirements.  

 

Another - earlier - feature in Weekly FTNs was weekend specials to clear surplus traffic.  Through the working week traffic arising in a particular area could exceed the capacity of the train service to move it - including any specials which were arranged by notice or at short term by Control offices.  Thus some large marshalling yards would gradually build up a surplus of wagons for various routes and destinations and specials would be planned for weekends - when many freight resources were normally stood down - in order to move this traffic.  An example on the Western was Severn Tunnel Junction yard which regularly developed surplus traffic for the London area at certain times of years and which could at times require as many as half a dozen specials on a Sunday to clear it.

[andypops]

So, if we consider originating points of coal wagons and the geography of the companies serving them, we can start to see what wagons ‘shouldn’t’ be on trains at certain places... It would be extremely unlikely to see a Stockingford Colliery Company wagon at Grantham because of the distance and torturous route it would need to take from the Warwickshire coalfield to get there for a domestic coal merchant.

 

Thanks to Andy (and everyone else who's added) - for this really useful and informative thread. But I do have a small point about your post above. In modelling terms we often do what looks interesting to us, and more often than not concentrate on the special workings, not on the routine ones.

 

And with that in mind, any explanation can be looked at as an excuse. For example regarding what you say above, what if the local Grantham merchant once bought a few retired / excess wagons from Stockingford Colliery Co, and used them in his area without a repaint because times were hard?

 

I'm not saying this because I disagree with the OP; in fact I agree wholeheartedly with you and what you're getting at. I'm just playing "Devil's advocate" I suppose! I myself wished that the people who operate layouts at exhibitions and in some of the threads would run prototypical workings. But then again, as a modeller myself if I know I'm just as guilty of getting things wrong myself. In terms of goods and freight, I suppose so long as the era is broadly correct, I can forgive small livery detail mistakes.

 

Anyway, thats my 2 cents, and whilst I know some people won't agree, I do look forward to seeing how things progress.

 

All the best,

 

 

Andy

[buckdancer]

For anyone interested in Grantham, there is a 65 page(!) thread at http://www.lner.info/forums/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=3429&hilit=grantham

[roythebus]

It's a pity John C doesn't post on here (andyrush will know who I mean) as his experience in South Western Control would be useful to know how the southern managed its freight.

[The Stationmaster]

It's a pity John C doesn't post on here (andyrush will know who I mean) as his experience in South Western Control would be useful to know how the southern managed its freight.

In later BR days it was no different from anywhere else Roy - there was a Regional freight planning office but unlike the other Regions it didn't carry out traction & traincrew diagramming or freight train timing and there were freight Controllers although I don't know what the number was when it was still organised on a Divisional basis pre1984/5.  In later BR days RfD had quite an involvement in the South Eastern side of things but elsewhere it was, by then, much like elsewhere on BR.

 

The freight white periods were always very strongly enforced in the Inner Area from what I could see from - at one time - the other side of a Regional boundary, and probably more rigidly than was the case on some other Regions.  After 1992 and prior to the TLF company split it gradually became just the same as elsewhere - a freight planning office at Friars Bridge Court ultimately doing its own diagramming and timing plus Control there too with a single Controller on each shift overseeing what had been the Southern Region area although by then a lot of Control type functions had of course gone to AFC (Area Freight Centre) level.

[andyrush]

Marshalling Yards

 

Very few people model marshalling yards, and for very good reasons - they are often large sprawling places which are difficult to replicate on the usual space-challenged layout. Two other reasons for not trying to replicate them in model form spring to mind: the difficulty of representing prototype ‘loose’ or hump shunting and the sheer lack of knowledge of what was undertaken at such places. An excellent general description of the working of a small marshalling yard can be found in articles by Don Rowland in Model Railway Journal in the last few years (detailed references can be supplied if required, but it means climbing up into a cold loft!).

 

However, even if you can’t actually model a marshalling yard, the workings of such locations would influence the appearance of goods trains in all sorts of subtle and not so subtle ways. I am not talking about branch line or main line ‘pick up’ trains, as the content and make up of these would be driven by the places served and the traffic or empty wagons on offer at each place. Generally, no intermediate resorting of these trains took place (except in special circumstances) and they arrived at the destination yard ‘rough’ (unsorted). However, most through main line goods trains reflected the needs and constraints of the dispatching yard, and sometimes the needs of the receiving yard and intermediate locations.

 

Going back to the earliest days, there were ‘working notes’ for goods trains, initially as footnotes in the WTT. These dealt with such things as what traffic could be conveyed on what train, marshalling instructions and maximum loadings. By BR days, the working notes had evolved into separate booklets and had become quite elaborate, the winter 1957 publication for the GE lines running to 44 pages. Examples of train marshalling from this booklet are as follows:

7.14pm Ipswich to Cardiff

To convey fitted wagons only, with the exception that Ferry wagons (Westo or unfitted) may be attached next brake.

Formation from Ipswich:- Engine-Cardiff-Newport-West Country-Bristol-Ferry Wagons-Brake

Formation from Cambridge:- Engine-Cardiff from Cambridge-Cardiff from Ipswich-Newport from Ipswich-Newport from Cambridge-Bristol from Cambridge-West Country from Cambridge-West Country from Ipswich-Bristol from Ipswich-Ferry Wagons-Brake

Not less than one-third of the total number of wagons must be piped and connected to the engine, to conform to Western Region Class “D” braked train requirements

3.14pm Norwich to Spitalfields

Formation ex Stowmarket to be:- Engine-Bishopsgate (fitted)-via East London Line (fitted*)-via Goodmayes-East London Line (unfitted*)-Bishopsgate(unfitted)-Spitalfields-Brake.

* Detached at Mile End

4.40pm Parkeston to Whitemoor

Engine:-

Curzon Street Fitted                         Forward on 9.51pm from Whitemoor

Camp Hill proper Fitted                   Ditto

Camp Hill proper Unfitted                Ditto

Curzon Street Unfitted                     Ditto

Coventry Cattle and

Northampton Castle proper

Stechford                                           Forward on 10.5pm from Whitemoor

Chaddesden                                     }

Chesterfield LMR                              }          

Leeds (Hunslet)                                }

Leicester LMR                                  } All one section

Masboro’                                          }

Nottingham LMR                              }

Sheffield LMR                                   }

*Via Whitemoor

BRAKE

To convey from Parkeston and Mistley traffic for Western Region via Cambridge and Yarnton attached extreme rear in following formation:-Cardiff-Newport-Breistol area-West Country-non vacuum fitted Ferry wagons.

Traffic from Ipswich and Parkeston for via Water Orton and Washwood Heath should connect with the 2.16pm from Parkeston

Traffic for via Crewe and Welham from Ipswich should be forwarded by the 8.1pm from Ipswich and from Parkeston by the 2.16pm.

*Via Whitemoor traffic not to be attached at Ipswich unless the 8.1pm is unable to clear

3.50pm K and EUB Whitemoor to Doncaster (Belmont)

To be marshalled at French Drove. Conveys from Twenty Foot River Siding to Cowbit inclusive, all down road traffic. Wagons from Joint Line stations South of Spalding for and via Spalding must be formed next engine. Class K from Whitemoor to Spalding. Class EUB Spalding to Doncaster

8.40pm C Whitemoor to Niddrie

Newcastle Forth bacon, Newcastle New Bridge Street, Niddrie. Containers of frozen food for Newcastle Forth may be attached next the engine for detaching at Croft Junction.

 

So, getting your trains formed up was not always a simple job of plonking some wagons together!  Of course, in model terms the order of anonymous looking wagons doesn’t matter a lot, but note the requirements for where some particular types have to be placed: imported cattle from Parkeston to Coventry in the fifth section of the train from Parkeston, the position of non vacuum braked Ferry wagons in the Ipswich – Cardiff service and the likelihood that the Whitemoor – Niddrie will have insulated containers at the front of the train.

 

The actual aim of all marshalling yards was (and still is in some countries) to split up inward trains into individual wagons or groups of wagons to match the outward services from that yard. All of this had to be done in the smallest number of shunts and in the shortest possible time, hence the need for inward trains to be ‘portioned’ as mentioned above. The actual layout of such yards varied tremendously as did the degree of mechanisation and other facilities, but the layout of one big yard can be seen in a recent posting in the ‘Whitemoor and Wisbech’ thread.

 

Taking Whitemoor Up Yard, generally trains arrived at the 10 reception sidings at Twenty Feet River (exceptions will be dealt with later). In the case of the trains off the Joint line the access was head first but trains from the Peterborough direction, as well as a very limited number from the south, had to reverse from the Down Joint line into the reception sidings. After the train engine had been released (together with any wagons that were unsuitable for ‘humping’ the whole train was propelled by a shunting engine over the hump at a slow speed (often a relative term at Whitemoor!) and the wagons uncoupled in ‘cuts’ to be directed into the appropriate of the 42 ‘classification sidings’. Courtesy of Jim Summers, a former Assistant Yard Master at Whitemoor, here is a scan of the allocation of these roads as they were in the mid 1960’s, complete with typed mis-spellings and decorated by amendments in his own fair hand.

 

More to come if you can put up with it....

[LNERGE]

There was mention of altering services at short notice earlier...

 

[mikeh]

An illustrating Mike's WR Weekly Freight Train Notices here are a few pages from a 1992 one:

 

 

 

 

 

Regards

Mike

[The Stationmaster]

An illustrating Mike's WR Weekly Freight Train Notices here are a few pages from a 1992 one:

 

Regards

Mike

 

Cor, that takes me back - thanks for posting it. That was just about our final WR layout for the Weekly Freight Notice as we made quite a few changes during my time - I think by then, or not long after, we ceased to issue traditional printed WTTs for freight trains and had gone over to a system of computer set pages of our own design with the 'WTT' sections completely reorganised to make sense  with the panel signalbox boundaries or sections of route where there were still mechanical 'boxes.  This allowed the Signalmen to no longer bother with having to prepare simplifiers off the freight WTT - that had become their simplifier as we issued it.  

 

We also reissued the 'WTT' every 8 weeks (to align with the traincrew diagram alteration dates which had to fit rostering cycles) instead of issuing supplements as that reduced work and got our planning timescales right down which meant we could go from initial train plan request to publishing in under two weeks (we sometimes managed it in under a week) so all in all it saved a lot of money at various levels on the Region and meant the WTT was always a fairly meaningful document with very few alterations - and we were carrying around 800 WTT tabled freights/fully resourced freight paths on the Region at that time.  The system worked well and we carried it on when went to TLF later in that year.

[LNERGE]

This may be of interest..

 

 

 

 

 

[andyrush]

Marshalling Yards (continued)

 

From the Sorting sidings, wagons for a train would be coupled up, receive Carriage & Wagon examination and then be drawn out by one of the south end pilots to one of the 10 Up Departure sidings where the brake van would be run on to it by from one of the two ‘kips’. If the departing train had to be made up in sections or needed a fitted head, the necessary shunting was carried out at the south end, as was the cutting out of any crippled wagons for repairs in the C&W sidings.

 

I mentioned earlier that there were exceptions to Up trains being dealt with on the Up reception sidings; these would be so called ‘block loads’ where the wagons were all for one destination or were in blocks for two or three places. Such trains from the north could run straight onto the Up departure sidings at Grassmoor Junction or, if from the south or Peterborough directions, would be directed ‘head first’ on to the Up departure sidings at Whitemoor Junction. In both of these cases the minimal, if any, shunting would be done on the flat at the south end. The Up departure sidings were also used to recess through trains from the Joint line to East Anglian destinations whilst they were being re-crewed and/or re-engined.

 

The Marshalling Instructions booklet extracts contributed by LNERGE illustrates another influence on how trains were formed by listing wagons that were unsuitable for shunting over marshalling yard humps. Trains destined for such yards had to have these vehicles marshalled front or rear depending on local requirements and arrangements had to be made for them to be moved to the sorting sidings bypassing the hump.

 

Finally, a word about pilots. The unglamorous shunting pilot was absolutely vital for the working of a big yard – not just the locos that were involved in the actual humping, but also the various trip and transfer pilots The Winter 1950 requirement at Whitemoor was as follows:

No.1    2 diesels        6.0 am Monday - 6.0am Sunday                 Up Hump

No.2                          6.0 am Monday - 6.0am Sunday                 East Side

No.3                          6.0 am Monday - 6.0am Sunday                 West Side

No.4                          6.0 am Monday - 2.0 pm Monday               ) Middle Pilot

                                 6.0 pm Monday - 2.0 pm Tuesday to          ) & Up Cripple

                                                             Saturday                         ) Siding

                                 6.0 pm Saturday - 6.0 pm Sunday              )

No.5    Diesel            6.0 am Monday - 6.0 am Sunday                Down Hump

                                 Second engine as ordered by Yardmaster

No.6    Diesel            6.0 am Monday - 6.0 am Sunday                Norwood Yard

No.7                          6.0 am Monday - 6.0 am Sunday                ) Internal

                                                                                                    ) transfers and

                                                                                                    ) Norwood

                                                                                                    ) South end

In addition, there was a passenger pilot at the station and two goods and trip pilots in March Yard.

 

One of the characteristics of March depot, certainly in BR days, was that there were very few tank locos allocated so there were often large goods locos to be seen working out their time before shopping doing various pilot and trip jobs. Here are a couple of views:

http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/2353272

http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/2855181

 

Unless any other brainstorm strikes me, that is all I'm going to say about marshalling yards (detailed stuff for Whitemoor is being dealt with in the 'Whitemoor and Wisbech' thread 

[LNERGE]

Again this may be of interest..

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[LNER4479]

Hi Andy,

 

Thanks for your latest theme (Marshalling Yards). Of great interest as my previous layout (thread link below) was based on just such a location, albeit 'over the hills and far away' from Whitemoor, March et al. Yet many of the principles you outline are equally applicable. Thanks to the timely publication of some reference books which gave copious details of the 1950's working timetables, I was able to replicate the operational patterns to try and recreate the working of the yard (albeit in a somewhat condensed form) in model form.

 

I have recently re-taken a series of photos depicting a sequence of movements from the model timetable. I've been wondering whether to post them here or on my layout thread (maybe I'll do both!) but I think you've inspired me to post them here. At the end of the day, all this info about how the real thing worked ultimately should be distilled into a recreation in model form and I'd value the critique of yourself (and others) in the never-ending challenge to 'get things right'. Might be a week or two yet as a certain amount of photo-shopping is required and have precious little time (or ability!) for such activities!

 

Keep 'em coming!