Train working - local goods

[rodsmithhorton]

I'm starting to plan a layout based somewhere on the Settle & Carlisle line. It's well known that the Midland Railway avoided using facing turnouts, and track plans I have seen confirm this. Where I'm having difficulty is trying to work out the precise sequence of operations from the time a local goods train arrives at a station and when it leaves. Does anybody know if and where this kind of information might be available, please?

 

Rod Smith

[beast66606]

I'm starting to plan a layout based somewhere on the Settle & Carlisle line. It's well known that the Midland Railway avoided using facing turnouts, and track plans I have seen confirm this.

 

Had a look at St Pancras, Nottingham, Derby, countless other stations, connections and junctions ?? - this is a myth, because the S&C only had the facing point at Appleby it is assumed they didn't like facers, not true, they were used if needed

 

Where I'm having difficulty is trying to work out the precise sequence of operations from the time a local goods train arrives at a station and when it leaves. Does anybody know if and where this kind of information might be available, please?

 

In what way ? - any specific shunting requirements will be detailed in the Sectional Appendix, certainly for post 1931 when the LMS produced their first "corporate" one (for example cattle wagons to be attached to the front of southbound trains) - anything else will depend on which direction the pickup goods ran, WTTs will help with this - basically it would shunt clear of the running lines, mess around for a while and then depart.

[Guest stuartp]

Have a look at the track plans - you've already spotted the sparcity of facing points so your first move is to draw forwards of the connection to the goods yard then set back inside. A lot of the layouts were designed so that this could be done from either direction. Depending on the layout and what needed to go where you might or might not have to run round via the adjacent main line. Also, many of the stations also had 'lie-by' sidings to allow goods trains to be recessed while faster services overtook them. If you have a look at Kirkby Stephen (for example) you'll see that the lie-by on the up also forms part of the goods yard and further restricts what you can or can't do when it's occupied. It all adds to the fun !

 

The Christmas Quiz in the last but one MRJ was in the form of an LMS shunting puzzle by Don Rowland. It's well worth reading if you can get a backnumber, as I'm sure the solution will be when it's published.

[Penlan]

If you intend to model the S&C line, then it seems to me the first step is to have the late David Jenkinson's book 'Modelling Historic Railways' to hand, unfortunatly my 1985 copy does not have a ISBN number to quote.

 

This whole book is based on the S&C with all aspects of operation, track layout, etc., etc., detailed. Davids models of Marthwaite and Dent Head Jnct. gets a look in too..... (OK, perhaps not the whole book is S&C, but it's difficult to find any other lines refered to in it... )

 

 

And beast66606 pointer to the local Sectional Appendix is a very good reference for S&C operations, the above book only has an extract from the 1937 General Appendix - though it is about freight operations.

 

Penlan

[AberdeenBill]

This accident report:

 

http://www.railwaysarchive.co.uk/listing.php?showSearch=true&text=&startYear=all&endYear=all&development=all&category=all&author=all&publisher=all&published=all&submit=Go&event=100

 

gives a flavour of pick-up goods operations on the S&C...

 

Bill

[Guest stuartp]

Another David Jenkinson book - "Rails in the Fells" published by Peco. Rather than a straightforward history of the S&C it's a study of how railway and landscape influence each other and goes into traffic patterns and local sources of revenue/goods etc. Whether it partly duplicates his other book I don't know, but it's worth searching out as a good read in its own right.