clachnaharry

I'm going to guess something based on Devizes....

Thurso - there are many pictures of coal wagons in the bay platform, but I would presume they were unloaded on the offside. I'm not sure how that was allowed, as there was no trap point.

What about moving the turntable road to the right and running the carriage siding off the run round, parallel with that?

Light loco disappears into fiddle yard. Excellent scenic break.

Great picture, but it ain't small and it certainly ain't quaint!

Is the class 40 at Nairn on a passenger working, or is the BG in the consit of a freight train?

Could the bay starter be placed to the right of the siding to give it enough room as per the Kingswear example earler in the thread? The Kingswear starter is beyond the run round loop rather than a siding, but I'm not sure if that makes any difference. It would greatly improve visibility from the GWR driving position, especially given the curve.

Nuclear flask wagons were originally included in mixed freight trains, which were not always fully fitted.

I wonder what the reason for that move was - points failure perhaps, or attaching a van to the rear of the train?

I think the reason is more to do with access to any sidings at the station These need to be accessed via the "normal" setting of the sprung loop points. As most of these were originally trailing points, the loops have been reversed so that they are now facing points.

There are a couple of problems with restoring the missing point and using it to form a run round loop. It is in the goods yard and is of no real use for running round passenger trains, and using the majority of track length in the goods yard as a loop severly curtails the already limited siding space. Re the arrival platform, although it was signalled as such, I don't think I have ever seen a picture of a passenger train arriving at it, although I have seen a picture of a loco in the train shed, suggesting that it had arrived at the "departure" platform. I have seen picture of wagons in it, which suggested it was used as a goods loading or mileage siding.

What is the covered steel wagon doing there?

At some time after closure to passengers in 1938, they must have removed the platform lines from both faces and removed the run round loop. They must have then put in a connection between the goods shed siding and truncated main platform road to form a new run round loop. I wonder why they went to all that bother rather than just leaving the original layout intact as happened on almost all other branches which lost their passenger services that early?

I think it is Edzell.

It's great to see one of Harlequin's superb plans being turned into reality so quickly.

If that layout wasn't real, I would have said it was most unlikely!

My choice would be St Ivel, and replace the engine shed with a creamery.

One unusual feature of St Ives goods yard is that the only length of siding directly accessable at road level is the short stub beyond the goods shed. Where did they unload domestic coal, I wonder?

That really is very nice. Could the St Ivesish goods yard be opened out a bit by running one siding parallel with the bay platform, or at least closer to it. This would also allow the Goods shed siding to be straightened up and lengthened. It might allow the removal of the double slip in favour of back to back points. The headshunt woudl then be furhter from the running line, but it could go behind the signal box - handy the signalman's coal delivery!

If you put s long carriage siding parallel with the run round would be good. If you kick the goods sidings back off it, it will give you extra length for your long Saturday trains, but can also function as a goods headshunt during the week.

These are fantastic pictures, but I what is the activity we are seeing? What is the purpose of the structures?

I would agree with you if there had been injury, loss of life, or even if the incident involved a technical breach such as a SPAD. However, in this case the scope for speculation is somewhat limited and unless the cause is found to be arson, a prosecution is unlikely, so lets's keep a sense of proportion.

Why not? What's the harm in speculating on a model railway forum?

Livestock traffic seems to be a bit of a neglected area of railway modelling. Certainly cattle wagons and horsebox models are available, but I am struggling to find details of how it worked in real life. If we deal specifically wuth cattle: Traffic was presumably mainly from rural stations to larger station with cattle markets and abbotoirs. The experience must have been stressful for the cattle, so I was wondering about what arrangements were made to minimise that, If we consider cattle traffic from a rural branch line station: Was there a maximum time that the animals were allowed to be held in cattle trucks during transit? Were cattle docks arranged so that minimal shunting would be required to get the loaded trucks onto a train? Presumably the empties arrived on the branch goods, but did the loaded trucks leave on the goods, or attached to passenger trains? Were the empties left at the loading dock overnight or were the trucks deposited and collected within a few hours? Were the loaded truck remarshalled in goods marsahlling yards (including hump yards) or was remarshalling minimised in some way? Any info would be gratefully received!

There's always chain shunting of course. I'm hoping to do some of that in the bad old broad gauge days on Bristol Goods Shed at Wycrail on Saturday.