weird quayside trackwork

[Pacific231G]

Anyone come across trackwork like this before?

 

This rather odd point is (or by now probably was) on a quayside at Port de Bloc near Pointe de Grave at the mouth of the Gironde Estuary north of Bordeaux. The left hand rail of the through track became the right hand rail of the siding (using a double sided inset rail) so you had three rails along the rest of the quay. It appeared to be long disused when I photographed it about ten years ago but there had been quite an extensive railway system in the area built by the Bordeaux Port Authority in the 1930s for moving the stone and pebbles used to protect the spit of land at the mouth of the Gironde from erosion but apparently also used for transporting buoys from their maintenance depot to the vessels that took them out to their anchorages. My best quess is that this strange siding was used to bring wagons closer to the edge of the quay to be loaded directly from ships with the materials needed for reinforcing the shoreline. The other possibility is that it enabled buoys to be pushed directly between flat wagons and the decks of the support vessels.

 

There is an electrified SNCF line from Bordeaux running up the spit that connects with the ferries to Royan the other side of the river mouth and the port authority railway tangled itself up with in a very interesting way. The quays and workshops were on the estuary side of the SNCF line and, apart from the inset track on the quayside, most of the railway had been dismantled a couple of years before I found it though a few signals remained hidden amongst the weeds along with odd lengths of track. However, the main part of the shore maintenance railway which meanders down the seaward side of the spit for 7 km. towards the small resort of Soulac-sur-mer has survived since 1985 as a tourist railway using converted Draisines (motorised pw trolleys) on the very lightly laid track.

 

I wondered if anyone had come across this arrangement anywhere else?

[RW James]

I've seen something like this on urban street car track - where two tracks would ordinarily pass each other on the same street, but the street was too narrow, so they would come together to share one rail. This saves having a set of points on each end if they were to share the same track. Not exactly the same as above interesting as well. I suspect your explanation is close. It could be the straight track was there first, then they came up with a reason it should be closer to the edge.

[Edwin_m]

Does the "shared rail" have a central groove or two grooves or is it just a normal rail with a groove towards one side like the rails in the foreground? If it is the last then the wheels of some of the wagons would be running on the very narrow "keeper plate" (I think that's what it's called) on the wrong side of the flangeway.

 

I've seen in Germany a tram rail with two grooves. This was to "pre-sort" trams approaching a junction, because the motorised point would otherwise have been in a traffic lane, vulnerable to damage and difficult to maintain. The same thing happens in Nottingham but there the rails are far enough apart that separate standard ones can be used.

[Pacific231G]

Does the "shared rail" have a central groove or two grooves or is it just a normal rail with a groove towards one side like the rails in the foreground? If it is the last then the wheels of some of the wagons would be running on the very narrow "keeper plate" (I think that's what it's called) on the wrong side of the flangeway.

 

I've seen in Germany a tram rail with two grooves. This was to "pre-sort" trams approaching a junction, because the motorised point would otherwise have been in a traffic lane, vulnerable to damage and difficult to maintain. The same thing happens in Nottingham but there the rails are far enough apart that separate standard ones can be used.

 

Sorry Edwin I never did answer this. The shared rail has a single groove but each rail is full sized rather than a rail and a keeper plate.

 

David

[Edwin_m]

Thanks for that. I'd imagine it was two ordinary rails buried close together rather than one double-headed one, as (unless something similar is used for cranes) such a non-standard section would be very expensive.

[Bernard Lamb]

Something similar was used on the narrow gauge lines in eastern Germany where they met standard gauge track. A dual gauge siding against a loading dock would be a typical situation. Not common but I have seen the odd photo.

Bernard

[Tankerman]

Something similar was used on the narrow gauge lines in eastern Germany where they met standard gauge track. A dual gauge siding against a loading dock would be a typical situation. Not common but I have seen the odd photo.

Bernard

 

Hi All,

 

First post since I joined the forum. I was an apprentice electrician wth Silley Cox in Falmouth docks from 1962 to 1967 and most of the wharves had a variation on this track layout using four rails. The rail nearest the edge of the wharf and the one furthest from the edge formed a track on which the wharf crane ran. The track for the rail wagons ran between these but was positioned in such a way that the distance from the crane rail nearest the edge of the wharf to the wagon track nearest the edge of the wharf was standard gauge, i.e. 4'81/2". This enabled the wagons to placed right at the edge of the wharf if the crane was moved to the seaward end of the wharf or run under the crane if required.

[Pacific231G]

Hi All,

 

First post since I joined the forum. I was an apprentice electrician wth Silley Cox in Falmouth docks from 1962 to 1967 and most of the wharves had a variation on this track layout using four rails. The rail nearest the edge of the wharf and the one furthest from the edge formed a track on which the wharf crane ran. The track for the rail wagons ran between these but was positioned in such a way that the distance from the crane rail nearest the edge of the wharf to the wagon track nearest the edge of the wharf was standard gauge, i.e. 4'81/2". This enabled the wagons to placed right at the edge of the wharf if the crane was moved to the seaward end of the wharf or run under the crane if required.

 

Welcome to the forum.

That's really interesting and not something I'd ever come across. I've always been fascinated by railways on quaysides though I always seem to have seen them after they'd closed but being inset they do have a habit of surviving for years longer than other closed railways. Do you happen to remember what sort of pointwork was involved in this ? Crane wheels are generally double tired aren't they so the rail is symmetrical (effectively two rails with a gap between them) rather than the usual tramway type railhead. Was there someting about the cargo worked at Falmouth that required this arrangement- China Clay? Would this arrangement also make the "gauge" of the cranes a bit wider than usual- I assume they were the usual Stothert and Pitt level luffing cranes that nobody seems to do a model of?

 

David

[Sir Balin]

I've seen something like this on urban street car track - where two tracks would ordinarily pass each other on the same street, but the street was too narrow, so they would come together to share one rail. This saves having a set of points on each end if they were to share the same track. Not exactly the same as above interesting as well. I suspect your explanation is close. It could be the straight track was there first, then they came up with a reason it should be closer to the edge.

 

 

I'm intrigued by this - if the centre rail of the three was shared, what would be the point, as rail borne traffic wouldn't be able to pass anyway. Was it simply a way of allowing trams/streetcars to pass parked vehicles to one side of a narrow street?

 

Ian.

[Edwin_m]

I'm intrigued by this - if the centre rail of the three was shared, what would be the point, as rail borne traffic wouldn't be able to pass anyway. Was it simply a way of allowing trams/streetcars to pass parked vehicles to one side of a narrow street?

 

It's a variation on interlaced track, which is common in Amsterdam for example and there is even a section in Croydon. In this arrangement the nearer rails cross each other via two crossings similar to those in pointwork. It's only used over short sections, normally short enough that drivers can see right through and decide whether to wait or to go without the assistance of signals. Better to use this rather than two sets of points because there are no moving parts so less maintenance and no risk of a tram going the wrong way if the spring mechanism fails on the facing point.

 

If the central rails come together rather than crossing they would probably be double grooved rather than having a double-headed rail with a single groove - I've seen double-grooved street track in Germany where it was needed for a slightly different reason. Sharing a single groove would require a double-headed rail and at each end there would either have to be a sprung switch tongue or it would rely on the guidance of the opposite wheel via the keeper bearing on the back of the flange. I think they'd avoid doing that if possible.