BR rationalised line

[Vanders]

I've been working on a plan for a small urban BR(W) yard set in the late 60's/early 70's. The line has been rationalised and truncated. The tiny yard has only survived as it is being used to bring in construction materials for the nearby motorway that's being built. Think Lawrence Hill meets Severn Beach and place it near Avonmouth!

 

I want to capture the rather run-down and sad look that rationalised yards seemed to have. I've assumed that the original line was a double track line, and due to the cramped site the yard is accessed via. a single slip:

 

 

Rationalisation has involved lifted the down line, making the up line bi-directional and truncating it at the end of the station:

 

 

My question is would BR have been likely to leave the single slip? I assume that any scheme like the one I imagine would be done as cheaply as possible, and it probably would have been left if it was in the yard, as happened at Lawrence Hill, but with the up now a bi-directional passenger line, would they have taken the safe option and replaced it with a point?

[woodenhead]

Or more likely left the down line intact, removed the up lines and skewed the down line where necessary.

 

The slip could then remain in situ but without and track either side of it and locked to one direction.

[Flying Pig]

Wouldn't the sidings originally have been worked by the up stopping goods (or whatever the WR called it) over a simple trailing connection, no slip or facing crossover needed? In the rationalised scheme, the trailing point remains, but with a facing point lock added to allow down passenger trains to run over it.

[Guest stuartp]

The facing junction for the former MSW was still in place at Penistone (Huddersfield Junction) in 1987, long after the (passenger) line had been singled between Penistone and Barnsley. The facing points in the down line were clipped, padlocked and spragged shut with a fishplate bolted to the sleeper top, and they were still detected and wired into the interlocking. (There were a few entries in the TRB along the lines of "Unable to clear 57 sig, fault cleared by braying redundant point ends with brake stick".) After the stub to Penistone Goods was lifted in early 1988 the connections remained in place until (I think) the early 90s when somebody at York decided that all redundant connections had to be removed and plain lined within 6 months.

 

The single line out towards Barnsley still had odd bits of crossing vee in it, and still snaked across from Down Main to Up Barnsley along it's original alignment. It's all been boringly straightened out since.

[The Stationmaster]

1960s WR and a redundant single slip in a passenger running line - it would have been out before you could blink. It would quite likely have been left, but spiked up, in a yard but that's about it. But not Flying Pig's comment - the yard would have been shunted from a trailing move through a simple crossover (an excellent part of the reason being that you cannot shunt a small yard you access through a facing connection - the engine is in the wrong place ).

[Vanders]

Thanks guys. I guessed that the slip probably wouldn't have lasted, although woodenheads idea of removing the up line and leaving the slip on the down is interesting, so I may play about with that.

 

On the subject of trailing v's facing access to the yard, I'm thinking in terms of Lawrence Hill, which only had access to the yard from one direction and had a facing crossover in place to allow access from the other. Or am I missing the point entirely?

[Rivercider]

 

 

On the subject of trailing v's facing access to the yard, I'm thinking in terms of Lawrence Hill, which only had access to the yard from one direction and had a facing crossover in place to allow access from the other. Or am I missing the point entirely?

 

Yes you are right about Lawrence Hill, up (the bank) trains could shunt OK, but down (the bank)

trains needed to be tailled by the yard pilot.

 

How are you intending to work your yard? Do you have a fiddle at the left hand end ? or is it on a roundy?

 

edit

Shirehampton goods yard, in your intended area, survived singling of the Severn Beach line,

oil trains had to arrive via Henbury, and with no means of run-round the empties routed via Clifton Down

and East Depot to reverse, before returning to Milford Haven

 

cheers

[Vanders]

I was planing to have a station pilot (An 03 or an 04...as Lawrence Hill did!) and the fiddle yard is off to the right (up) on the diagrams above. Trains terminate to the left and the track has been lifted to the left (down) direction. So the plan was indeed to work it as Lawrence Hill down trains were I.e. having them come into the yard "face first" and be released by the pilot.

[Rivercider]

Ah yes,

the justification for a pilot being perhaps retention only for the duration of the construction contract, (M5)

traffic being cement/steelwork/aggregates perhaps, after which the line closes completely.

 

cheers

[The Stationmaster]

Thanks guys. I guessed that the slip probably wouldn't have lasted, although woodenheads idea of removing the up line and leaving the slip on the down is interesting, so I may play about with that.

 

On the subject of trailing v's facing access to the yard, I'm thinking in terms of Lawrence Hill, which only had access to the yard from one direction and had a facing crossover in place to allow access from the other. Or am I missing the point entirely?

The point is small yard, no pilot (as was usual at most small yards) thus impossible to shunt if the engine was on the front.

[Vanders]

the justification for a pilot being perhaps retention only for the duration of the construction contract, (M5)

traffic being cement/steelwork/aggregates perhaps, after which the line closes completely.

 

Exactly. Presflos, bricks (in ex-pipe wagons) and steelwork, plus a bubble car running up and down the line to bring in workers to the nearby port.

 

The point is small yard, no pilot (as was usual at most small yards) thus impossible to shunt if the engine was on the front.

 

I probably should have been more clear at the start that I'm basically using Lawrence Hill as a template for this. The yard continued to receive cement traffic into the 80's, and had it's own pilot (an 03) as Rivercider points out was used to shunt down trains, which entered the yard engine first.

[Rivercider]

Lawrence Hill was a good place to get inspiration for urban decay,

I took a few pics there in the 1980s, there are also quite a few on the interweb.

 

Lawrence Hill yard on 22nd April 1981, the pilot is 08338.

 

cheers

[TheSignalEngineer]

1960s WR and a redundant single slip in a passenger running line - it would have been out before you could blink. It would quite likely have been left, but spiked up, in a yard but that's about it.

 

HMRI expected redundant facing points to be removed within 6 months of being secured out of use, otherwise they wanted them to be detected as in the example given by Stuartp above.

[Rivercider]

Here a few more pictures of Lawrence Hill in the early 1980s

Traffic dealt with on the yard was mostly cement, for Aberthaw Cement, and Ketton Cement,

the pilot also worked the Avonside Branch, traffic was for Blue Circle, and Distillers.

 

 

45062 passes mainline with 6C39 St Blazey - Severn Tunnel Junction

you can see some details in the yard, grounded van body, and cement silo, 2/6/81

 

Pilot 08338 shunting some empty vans which had arrived loaded with bagged cement from Aberthaw Cement

the pilot brake van this week is a Midland designed van, 22/4/81

 

37071 waits to work the afternoon 7C62 to Severn Tunnel Junction, 03382 is the pilot today, 6/5/80

 

08338 again, shunting PCAs in the yard, 22/4/81

 

A view of Lawrence Hill Yard, 6B46 airbrake service from Severn Tunnel is being dealt with,

it is a full length train and fills the yard, the pilot will be under the bridge, 28/9/83

 

47104 is stabled on the old brick siding.

Also in the yard a train of molasses tanks for Distillers on Avonside Wharf,08949 will later propel the train down the branch, with a brake van leading on which the shunter will ride, in touch with the driver via back to back radio, 28/9/83

 

47104 one of the Bristol area trip locos cautiously propels out of the yard onto the main line

with airbrake traffic for Kingsland Road, and (probably) Barton Hill Shops, 28/9/83

 

cheers

[Vanders]

Those are excellent, thank you Rivercider! There are some very nice details in those, and I'll be sure to reference them.

[Rivercider]

You're welcome

run down and sad are descriptions I remember well from the 70s/80s

 

cheers

[Fat Controller]

So that's why there were tank wagons in a siding on the site of the old Midland station when I walked through the site one day in 1975. I'd been to Max Williams' shop, and decided to walk back to Montpelier- on crossing the old station site on my way to Midland Road and Old Market, I came upon a rake of stabled green tanks lettered for W H Davis. I never saw them again in the area, and have often wondered what they might have been there for.

[Rivercider]

So that's why there were tank wagons in a siding on the site of the old Midland station when I walked through the site one day in 1975. I'd been to Max Williams' shop, and decided to walk back to Montpelier- on crossing the old station site on my way to Midland Road and Old Market, I came upon a rake of stabled green tanks lettered for W H Davis. I never saw them again in the area, and have often wondered what they might have been there for.

 

Hi Brian,

 

the tanks came as specials from somewhere in the Kings Lynn area, each autumn/winter.

Not very many trains, perhaps fortnightly, my memory is not very good.

 

They would be propelled down the branch with a brake van on the front,

I think the train might have been berthed in Distillers in 2 parts, so you may have seen

one half of the train before or after discharge.

I was lucky to have a trip down the branch that day with the shunters.

It was quite surreal on the balcony of the van bumping along over the rail joints,

the pilot so far back you could not hear it.

 

Barton Road crossing on the Avonside Wharf branch, 08949 with molasses tanks. 28/9/83

As traffic over the branch became increasingly sporadic commuters started to park their

cars on the crossing, the BTP having more than once been required to remove them.

 

08949 in the yard between Barton Road and Avon Street 28/9/83

 

 

Vanders, sorry to hijack your thread, but I thought the pics will give you some extra

inspiration to model the urban decay of the area.

 

cheers