How to design a real railway station, and its lines and sidings.

[ianp]

Are there any books on this topic?  Yes, it's railway engineering and not model railway design. But some things intrigue me. For instance, what, apart from guesswork, dictates how many sidings are built next to stations, and how they are configured? Not many new ones are built these days, so maybe the original rationale for most stations has been lost in the mists of Victorian time. But any pointers towards a good book on the topic will be most welcome.

[Peter Kazmierczak]

Many variables - location, site, size of community served, area of the country etc.

 

Probably the main determinent is the company who built the line. For example the Midland had a very typical form of layout for their wayside stations; same with the Great Northern and duobtless other companies.

[kevinlms]

Rails in the Fells by the late David Jenkinson, gave a fair description of the rationale behind the Settle-Carlisle line. It was primarily designed as a way to get the Midland Railway's passengers & freight to/from Scotland. So it was designed & built primarily as a (relatively) high speed line over the fells, keeping an alignment that kept to the contours, rather than descending steeply down to the various towns & villages & back up again. So any local traffic wasn't the prime consideration for the line. Stations were built to service the line, but they were often well out of town & rather inconvenient.

 

However by the 1960s & 70s, with BR looking at closing down many loss making lines, the local aspect (or lack of traffic thereof) was virtually the criteria put forward for closure & any through traffic, virtually ignored! Fortunately each proposal to close the line failed & this line is still with us today.

[The Stationmaster]

Dead easy really (ahem, cough).

 

I've never done a station but I have done quite a few freight things from scratch and a bit of A4 scrap paper.

 

The first thing you need to do is try to establish exactly what is wanted commercially and what is likely to be feasible operationally - this tends to be reasonably straightforward for freight, not so easy for passenger.  Then look at the site and see if what you want operationally is likely to fit and do sketch plan.

 

Then go off to the civil engineers PWay design folk, ideally find one who is really good at layout design and planning, give him your sketch and say 'I want that and I think it will probably fit'.  A good designer will then not only get the practical stuff such as measurements sorted but will keep in touch as he tries to fit your track layout into the site and discuss any compromises he might have to make.  You then involve S&T design folk to make sure you specify and get the signalling you need to work the layout in the way it has to be worked.  If you've done it all properly it will work exactly as planned when it comes into operation and will do exactly what it was designed to do.

 

And if you work with a really good PWay designer he will sort with you as he goes any queries  (like me missing out a double slip on my initial sketch, oops).

 

Meanwhile for a station another sort of civil engineer designs platforms and access etc taking due note of anything the commercial and operating folk specify while an architect does the building again listening to the client depts needs.

 

That's how it worked on the best of BR but not everyone did it that way, not every operator was good at specifying and not every engineer (of various disciplines) always listened to the specification carefully.  

 

I haven't got a clue how it works nowadays but some of what I see at Reading suggests that somebody either didn't speak to the operators before designing the pointwork or didn't take much notice of what they said and hasn't got much experience of PWay maintenance either judging by the rate at which some of it is wearing.

[Barnaby]

Good stuff Mike.

This is an area I have great difficulty with.  I want my freight area to be operationally interesting but different to some of my favourite layouts on here.

I've decided on a track plan that gives me the operational interest I seek but I'm still having problems with deciding what should go where with the buildings.  IE do I just have one industry and add all the raw material drop off points for them to produce or do I jot lots of differing businesses about and send each a waggon every now and then.  I tend to lean towards the one industry type as I think that will have a better flow to it but I still struggle even knowing that.

 

Regards

[Old Gringo]

Hi Ian,

 

A couple of books that have chapters considering the layout of stations:

 

'Railway Construction', William Hemingway Mills, published by Longmans, Green & Co., 1905, 366pages with extensive line diagrams and photographs; Chapters 4 and 5 deal with the layout of stations, goods sidings, sorting sidings, etc. (Chapters 1,2, & 3, deal with location, construction and make up of the permanent way and 6,7, & 8, locomotives, signals and progressive improvements).  An excellent book, but hard to find.

 

Volumes 2 (186p) and 3 (194p) of 'Modern Railway Working', editor John Macaulay, assisted by Cyril Hall, Gresham Publishing Co., 1913 (parts of a set of 8 volumes).  These books cover the total process of running a modern railway at its zenith and Volume 2 sets out the departments and then the planning, design, construction, and works required in much the same way as Mills.  Then Volume 3 follows with bridges, tunnels and permanent way, etc. again with many line drawings.

 

A modern book that deals with what it says in the title is: 'Planning Passenger Railways' edited by Nigel Harris and Ernest Godward, Transport Publishing Co., 1992, ISBN 0 86317 174 5.  256 pages containing 22 chapters of policy, demand analysis, engineering aspects, environmental issues, and finance issues.  I've not read it thoroughly, but everything for those building todays' railways is explained in detail.

 

Another book that touches on how the Victorian railway system was built is 'The Railway Surveyors', Gordon Biddle, BR Property Board/Ian Allan, 1990, ISBN 0 7110 1954 1, 288p; IMO, a good book for understanding how the British railway developed alongside the communities it created and served (excellent maps and photos).

 

Other books that would prove helpful in understanding the process would be the 'Historical Surveys of Selected Stations' series by the Oxford Publishing Company, which covers many stations on the Great Western Railway (4 volumes), the LMSR (2 volumes.) and the Southern Railway (1 volume ?).

 

Hope this helps,

 

All the best,

John.    

 

Edit, While I've been looking on the book shelves, Mike has explained how they do it in reality - which may be what's in that 'Planning Passenger Railways' book!

 

2nd Edit: Good stuff, Mike - All the best.

[Mike Storey]

I have searched over many decades but never found a single book that encapsulates what you seek. There are many books on station design, but virtually all concentrate on architecture and passenger facilities. I would suggest that instead, you choose the area in which you are most interested, and buy one of the Middleton route studies, or similar publications, which will delve a bit more into the rationale of the layouts of particular stations. Internally to the industry, design was driven by engineering, signalling and safety standards of the day, but you also seek the original rationale behind the number of platforms, sidings, the facilities to be provided, which direction they faced, single-ended or looped, etc. etc. As Mike says, this was driven at a local level by unique requirements - high volumes of perishables would need a goods "shed" but bulk materials, such as coal, would not, and so on. Generically, the subject deserves a volume or two, but if such a publication exists, it has escaped me. It is explained in simplistic terms in some of the better model railway layout design books, such as by Freezer, so perhaps you could start there?

 

These days, as you say, freight or stabling sidings are almost invariably designed away from and separate to, station design. Design is now undertaken on a network basis, whereas in the 19thC (which I presume is the originating period you seek for the first principles) stations and freight existed locally, together, because of the lack of road or water distribution systems to feed into them (with some grand exceptions where inland waterways or coastal docks were a significant part of the decision to locate a transhipment depot, for example). I have helped design a few "new" stations, but these were mostly re-builds. You would put "customer" requirements (train operators, national and local government, various pressure groups, ad infinitum) on one side (number of trains, length, frequencies, types, numbers of passengers expected peak on each train, critical social and safety legislation requirements, facilities required by each operator for their passengers etc etc), and then the site constraints on the other and design what you could fit in to the space available. Then you produced an outline cost and translated that into what each "customer" would have to fund, at which point you were told to go away and start again......and so on, for many moons, until the design matched the pennies available. When you finally got the thing built, in recent years anyway, you basically found out that it was too small already and that you would have to go away and think about "Phase 2" or 3 or 4.... It was much easier in BR days - "here is your budget, this is what you must build, now build it. If we got the spec wrong, don't worry, there won't be any more money for another 25 years."

[Mike Storey]

Hi Ian,

 

A couple of books that have chapters considering the layout of stations:

 

'Railway Construction', William Hemingway Mills, published by Longmans, Green & Co., 1905, 366pages with extensive line diagrams and photographs; Chapters 4 and 5 deal with the layout of stations, goods sidings, sorting sidings, etc. (Chapters 1,2, & 3, deal with location, construction and make up of the permanent way and 6,7, & 8, locomotives, signals and progressive improvements).  An excellent book, but hard to find.

 

Volumes 2 (186p) and 3 (194p) of Modern Railway Working, editor John Macaulay, assisted by Cyril Hall, Gresham Publishing Co., 1913 (parts of a set of 8 volumes).  These books cover the total process of running a modern railway at its zenith and Volume 2 sets out the departments and then the planning, design, construction, and works required in much the same way as Mills.  Then Volume 3 follows with bridges, tunnels and permanent way, etc. again with many line drawings.

 

A modern book that deals with what it says in the title is: 'Planning Passenger Railways' edited by Nigel Harris and Ernest Godward, Transport Publishing Co., 1992, ISBN 0 86317 174 5.  256 pages containing 22 chapters of policy, demand analysis, engineering aspects, environmental issues, and finance issues.  I've not read it thoroughly, but everything for those building todays' railways is explained in detail.

 

Another book that touches on how the Victorian railway system was built is 'The Railway Surveyors', Gordon Biddle, BR Property Board/Ian Allan, 1990, ISBN 0 7110 1954 1, 288p; IMO, a good book for understanding how the British railway developed alongside the communities it created and served (excellent maps and photos).

 

Other books that would prove helpful in understanding the process would be the 'Historical Surveys of Selected Stations' by the Oxford Publishing Company, which covers many stations on the Great Western Railway (4 volumes), the LMS and the Southern railways.

 

Hope this helps,

 

All the best,

John.    

 

Edit, While I've been looking on the book shelves, Mike has explained how they do it in reality - which may be what's in that 'Planning Passenger Railways' book!

 

No wonder I couldn't find those! Except the Harris/Godward book, which is great for recent history although probably not specific station design, but way out of date now on how things are done and paid for - things moved on quickly after that!

[The Stationmaster]

Good stuff Mike.

This is an area I have great difficulty with.  I want my freight area to be operationally interesting but different to some of my favourite layouts on here.

I've decided on a track plan that gives me the operational interest I seek but I'm still having problems with deciding what should go where with the buildings.  IE do I just have one industry and add all the raw material drop off points for them to produce or do I jot lots of differing businesses about and send each a waggon every now and then.  I tend to lean towards the one industry type as I think that will have a better flow to it but I still struggle even knowing that.

 

Regards

I think you have to start by thinking about traffics, which means thinking about industries, which means thinking about the part of the country you are modelling in the time frame in which you are modelling it.  To start with 'operational interest' is I think something of a red herring because you then need to define 'what is operational interest?'.

 

One of my favourite layouts for 'operational interest' is DLT's Bridport Town - it doesn't just look good and work beautifully but it has more than sufficient 'interest' to keep me going for ages either watching or operating it.  But it is basically an extremely simple track layout - it proves you don't need a complicated track layout to 'add operational interest' (an approach which some folk seem to regard as essential) but you do need to think through your traffic flows and how they would be worked in the real world.

 

So what I would suggest is to start with the 'area - industry - what it consumes and produces/how they are handled' approach and let that guide your track layout planning having followed Mike Storey's advice of looking at Middleton press books and others showing track layouts and photos to give you an idea of what happened in the area you are modelling in respect of the industry/ies you are modelling in the period you have chosen.

 

The next stage is a very personal thing but what I'm inclined to do is doodle track layouts to get into my mind the way things were done in my chosen area - sometimes this can be very easy, just look at Midland Railway goods yard connections at small stations for a prime example.  But sometimes it won't be so easy and you start then having to think about topography.

 

Hope this helps a bit.

[Mike Storey]

To follow on from Mike, I tend to start with, for example, if I have to deliver coal to this station I am designing, how many wagons will it need at any one time, where will the wagons be unloaded, which direction will I arrive from, will it be part of a train that will have to be detached (from wagons going on to elsewhere), how I will get the loaded wagons in and then how will get the loco and other empty or loaded wagons out, and later, how will I get the empties back out again? Add in other freight (or goods if you are going back that far) and decide whether you will run mixed freights or short trip workings with one type of load only, or even block trains if you are going maxi, and you start to get a good feel of what you need to design into the track layout.

 

You will then design the perfect layout, realise it will take about 96 feet and many drinking vouchers to do properly and start to think about how you would compromise, just like the real railway, but with a lot less space.

 

I have started by cheating, basing my layout on a real life situation, as was, on the Isle of Sheppey, but if I modelled it as it really was, I would need to buy next door's field..... so then I go back to thinking what are the bits I really want to keep, and go back to stage 1.

[Brian D]

From my time at London Underground, although I was not involved in operational matters, I was aware that there were a whole range of LU "Standards" (a bit like British Standards and indeed often referring to BS documents) covering all aspects of LU engineering and activity, some of these related to station design.  It is almost certainly the case that Railtrack will have their own Standards for the modern mainline railway.  You need to find a mate who works for them.

I hope this is helpful.

Regards,

Brian.

[Edwin_m]

There's actually very little of today's railway that would meet current standards if it was being built today, particularly in the area of dimensions and clearances.  What is needed is effectively the "standards" of the company that built the line or at least the last one to make major changes to it.  However the pre-grouping companies wouldn't have had the same armouries of standards that Network Rail has today - there is probably little more than the basic Board of Trade "blue book", some of whose descendents remain on the Rail Regulator website but have changed quite a bit in later years.  Railways Archive appears to have some older ones.  Other than that it was down to the judgment and experience of the engineers that designed it. 

[Old Gringo]

In the O.P., Ian asks for books on the subject and as Edwin says the Board of Trade Blue Book sets standards for current new builds. 

 

However, in general the standards used by the pre-grouping Victorian railways after 1845 were regulated by those included in the Railway Regulation Acts (1840/1842) and Railway Clauses Act (1845).  The latter was a bill put forward by the Board of Trade and pushed through Parliament to deal with the 'Railway Mania' (of promotions put forward in the 1845 session) and combined much of the previous regulations into one 'handy bill'.  Later Acts added to this basic foundation, and were often concerned with raising safety standards, or attempting to control the power of the increasingly successful independent railway businesses.

 

All the Acts relating to and regulating the construction and operation of railways can be found in copies of 'Biggs General Railway Acts'.  One of the most comprehensive volumes is the 16th edition, published by Waterlow & Sons, 1912, containing all the Acts from 1830 to 1911.  Previous to the 1845 Act, it would appear that the design and layout of each separate railway company was up to the Chief Engineer employed by the company: generally the man, or men, who had undertaken the survey for the Bill promoting the railway, which was to be presented to Parliament.

 

Most (but not all) of these engineers had connections to the Stephensons (George & Robert), or the Stephenson company's London office and therefore adopted, or adapted their 'standard' dimensions and practices.  'Rails in the Fells', by David Jenkinson (previously mentioned by Kevin in post 3) is an excellent case study of one particular line to which the standards of the Midland Railway of 1865 were applied.  It was first published by Peco Publications Ltd., 1973, revised edition 1980 (158p), ISBN 0 900586 53 2.

 

Bob Essery has produced a series of paperback books covering some of the design principles and the operation of the (steam) railways.  The fourth in the series - 'Railway Signalling and Track Plans, 2007, Ian Allan Publishing, ISBN 0 7110 3215 6, 112 pages - describes and explains track formations and includes tables of the Board of Trade requirements as applied in 1922 (which are the results of the Act of 1845) and IMO give a good insight to the design of the 'steam railway'.

 

The other books in the series are: Railway Operation for the Modeller, Bob Essery, 2003, Midland Publishing/Ian Allan, ISBN 1 85780 168 7.

Passenger Train Operation for the Railway Modeller, Bob Essery, 2005, Ian Allan, ISBN 1 7110 3157 6.

Freight Train Operation for the Railway Modeller, Bob Essery, 2006, Ian Allan, ISBN 0 7110 3142 8.

All these paperbacks have further useful Bibliographies, references and sources, generally covering operation, signalling and rolling stock.

 

More to follow, if I can remember them! 

 

Edit: Another book along the lines of 'Rails in the Fells' and oddly enough covering a part of the same (Midland) pre-Grouping company's routes is; 'Through Limestone Hills', Bill Hudson, 1989, Oxford Publishing Co., 224 pages, ISBN 0-86093-217-6.  Possibly, one of the best books ever produced with the railway modeller in mind: a brief history followed by a full description of the line with diagrams, photographs and drawings of all the infrastructure, from bridges to buildings, and then an appendix with some operation details.  A shame that only a few other line histories have matched this standard and given us all the information to create an accurate model. 

[Mike Storey]

No wonder I couldn't find those! Except the Harris/Godward book, which is great for recent history although probably not specific station design, but way out of date now on how things are done and paid for - things moved on quickly after that!

 

Not sure what you are disagreeing with AER_2263? That I have not found the older classics, that it's not a great book (much of which was recommended reading at the time), or that a lot of it is now out of date for the privatised railway, including obviously funding criteria and sourcing, national and local government restructuring and regulation, the swathes of new DDA regulations and enforcement, environmental legislation, demand forecasting acceptable models, entirely new, mandatory project planning techniques (leading to GRIP) with "gate" controls, and new engineering techniques, possession planning criteria and therefore construction phasing and thus design, with which I had to contend as a project, then programme manager, then programme director in the two decades following the book's publication?

[The Stationmaster]

In the O.P., Ian asks for books on the subject and as Edwin says the Board of Trade Blue Book sets standards for current new builds. 

 

However, in general the standards used by the pre-grouping Victorian railways after 1845 were regulated by those included in the Railway Clauses Act (1845).  This was a bill put forward by the Board of Trade and pushed through Parliament to deal with the 'Railway Mania' (of promotions put forward in the 1845 session) and combined much of the previous regulations into one 'handy bill'.  Later Acts added to this basic foundation, and were often concerned with raising safety standards, or attempting to control the power of the increasingly successful independent railway businesses.

 

All the Acts relating to and regulating the construction and operation of railways can be found in copies of 'Biggs General Railway Acts'.  One of the most comprehensive volumes is the 16th edition, published by Waterlow & Sons, 1912, containing all the Acts from 1830 to 1911.  Previous to the 1845 Act, it would appear that the design and layout of each separate railway company was up to the Chief Engineer employed by the company: generally the man, or men, who had undertaken the survey for the Bill promoting the railway, which was to be presented to Parliament.

 

Most (but not all) of these engineers had connections to the Stephensons (George & Robert), or the Stephenson company's London office and therefore adopted, or adapted their 'standard' dimensions and practices.  'Rails in the Fells', by David Jenkinson (previously mentioned by Kevin in post 3) is an excellent case study of one particular line to which the standards of the Midland Railway of 1865 were applied.  It was first published by Peco Publications Ltd., 1973, revised edition 1980 (158p), ISBN 0 900586 53 2.

 

Bob Essery has produced a series of paperback books covering some of the design principles and the operation of the (steam) railways.  The fourth in the series - 'Railway Signalling and Track Plans, 2007, Ian Allan Publishing, ISBN 0 7110 3215 6, 112 pages - describes and explains track formations and includes tables of the Board of Trade requirements as applied in 1922 (which are the results of the Act of 1845) and IMO give a good insight to the design of the 'steam railway'.

 

The other books in the series are: Railway Operation for the Modeller, Bob Essery, 2003, Midland Publishing/Ian Allan, ISBN 1 85780 168 7.

Passenger Train Operation for the Railway Modeller, Bob Essery, 2005, Ian Allan, ISBN 1 7110 3157 6.

Freight Train Operation for the Railway Modeller, Bob Essery, 2006, Ian Allan, ISBN 0 7110 3142 8.

All these paperbacks have further useful Bibliographies, references and sources, generally covering operation, signalling and rolling stock.

 

More to follow, if I can remember them! 

 

Edit: Another book along the lines of 'Rails in the Fells' and oddly enough covering a part of the same (Midland) pre-Grouping company's routes is; 'Through Limestone Hills', Bill Hudson, 1989, Oxford Publishing Co., 224 pages, ISBN 0-86093-217-6.  Possibly, one of the best books ever produced with the railway modeller in mind: a brief history followed by a full description of the line with diagrams, photographs and drawings of all the infrastructure, from bridges to buildings, and then an appendix with some operation details.  A shame that only a few other line histories have matched this standard and given us all the information to create an accurate model. 

Don't forget that 'the Requirements' were in existence in the 19th century and as such provided contemporaneous summaries of what a railway was expected to provide in New Work.  The 1892 version, as amended for 1902, is readily available on the 'net (and as it happens I keep a copy on my 'puter desktop where it is nice and handy.)

 

When looking for books on signalling (and indeed some aspects of operation) there is always a need to excercise care as many contain inaccuracies or misleading information - sometimes what they say is, alas, out & out nonsense).  Without a shadow of a doubt the very best 'primer'  (and then a lot more on the subject) is 'British Railway Signalling' by Kichenside and Williams published by Ian Allan - alas it is long out of print but can probably be found on Amazon or even Ebay or in second hand bookshops.  A number of signal engineers I know co-operated very closely in the writing of it although if any criticism can be levelled at it all some input from operators might have been useful (but that's my bias, especially as at least one of the signal engineers involved also happened to think of himself as an operator ).  But it is a very good place to start with excellent explanations and cogent progression through the subject - which is more than can be said for most writings on the subject.

[Edwin_m]

I agree Kitchenside and Williams is a very good introduction to signalling starting from the Absolute Block system and hence most relevant to those interested in historic practice from the late Victorian era onwards.  Ian Allan did publish a volume by the same authors (I think) called something like "A century of railway signalling" and I wondered if this was the same book re-titled to reflect the fact its prime content is now disappearing into history.  I was preparing a briefing on signalling for civil engineering graduates recently, and decided the best way was to start with the principles of track circuit block and then touch on AB and semaphore signalling as something they might encounter but probably didn't need to worry about. 

[The Stationmaster]

I agree Kitchenside and Williams is a very good introduction to signalling starting from the Absolute Block system and hence most relevant to those interested in historic practice from the late Victorian era onwards.  Ian Allan did publish a volume by the same authors (I think) called something like "A century of railway signalling" and I wondered if this was the same book re-titled to reflect the fact its prime content is now disappearing into history.  I was preparing a briefing on signalling for civil engineering graduates recently, and decided the best way was to start with the principles of track circuit block and then touch on AB and semaphore signalling as something they might encounter but probably didn't need to worry about. 

'A Century of Railway Signalling' is more a sort of historical review of development and change - not a bad book in fact and quite well illustrated.  The Kichenside & Williams book was regularly updated and a revised editions issued (I've got three editions) so it kept pace with developments but that was - alas - a good while ago now.

 

As all systems in Britain are based on the Absolute Block principle or a variation of it (or a derogation - in effect - from it) I always start there.  Makes it far easier to explain what you can and can't do operationally in Station Limits or the Block Section plus I think it makes a better starting point for braking distances - once you've got those principles converting to understanding M.A.S. is very simple - going the other way is not so easy, albeit increasingly unnecessary.

 

It also makes it a lot simpler to use very basic principles when teaching trainee signal engineers (as I used to in my Lloyds Register days) about things such as headways and margins and line capacity.

[Edwin_m]

'A Century of Railway Signalling' is more a sort of historical review of development and change - not a bad book in fact and quite well illustrated.  The Kichenside & Williams book was regularly updated and a revised editions issued (I've got three editions) so it kept pace with developments but that was - alas - a good while ago now.

 

As all systems in Britain are based on the Absolute Block principle or a variation of it (or a derogation - in effect - from it) I always start there.  Makes it far easier to explain what you can and can't do operationally in Station Limits or the Block Section plus I think it makes a better starting point for braking distances - once you've got those principles converting to understanding M.A.S. is very simple - going the other way is not so easy, albeit increasingly unnecessary.

 

It also makes it a lot simpler to use very basic principles when teaching trainee signal engineers (as I used to in my Lloyds Register days) about things such as headways and margins and line capacity.

Bearing in mind my situation was civil engineers needing an understanding of how the railway works rather than trainee signal engineers, I wasn't too worried about the issues of converting them from TCB to AB and more concerned about introducing confusion with things like station limits and the idea of having several stop signals in succession. Some of these people will be designing the railway stations of the future (feeble attempt to get back on topic) but not the signalling. 

 

I have two editions of K&W somewhere from the 70s and 80s.