RFT

This thread is fascinating- I’ve lived next to the kineton base for about 15 years and often wondered about the rail traffic. Only once caught an actual mainline train coming in, which was an EWS 66 with a train of VGAs, and that was probably 10 years ago...

I've just been working my way through the WTT for Bath.  I can't find one for 1947, but I'm expecting the 1948 one written immediately after nationalisation to be pretty representative.  It looks like Bath saw 81 trains a day in the Down direction on most weekdays.  I've not gone through the Up timetable yet, but I assume that it will be a similar number.  I think that I might need some more stock and some James Bond style revolving number plates for my locos!

 

One interesting thing I hadn't appreciated before was that Bath was sometimes served by slip coaches off express trains running the Paddington to Bristol route.  That should be fun to model!  I'll need some on-board DCC uncouplers.

 

Does anyone know how far up the line the uncoupling would usually be done for slip services?

 

Also, the station speed limit at Bath was 30mph, so I imagine that the whole train would slow to this speed before uncoupling the slip carriages - I don't imagine that braking the leading train after detaching coaches would be a good idea!

 

EDIT: I just found this website: http://mikes.railhistory.railfan.net/r134.html, which shows an action shot of a slip off the Bristol express at Bath - what a stroke of luck!.  Judging by the livery this is c.1930 and from the buildings in the background I will be able to work out pretty accurately where the detachment has occured.  So the only question remaining is what speed was the train doing when the slip happened, given that it has to go through the station at 30mph just a mile or so further up the track.  Unless anyone can correct me I'm going to assume that it had already slowed to 30 before detaching the slip coaches.

On working slip coaches - My Grandfather had a working slip coach mechanism on the large 3mm layout in his loft that he built during the 70s, and that I loved playing with growing up during the 80s.

the mechanism, as I remember it, was as follows.

with the line clear, and the right isolated sections set, you had to press a push button to activate the system, then set the express off with the controller on the right speed setting.

There was a magnet in chassis of the slip coach, which activated a reed switch under the track. this reed switch released a weight to roll down a sloped channel, towards another switch. (this was just a timer - these days you'd use a 555 chip circuit or similar).

this switch fired a solenoid that raised (and then lowered) an uncoupling ramp, that uncoupled the slip coach - I think the standard tri-ang couplers were just filed to remove the locking hook.

The coach then just rolled into the station.

My Brother's still got the wiring diagram for the whole layout.

The problem would be, from a model point of view, that the model rolling stock would need to freewheel into the station (instead of being braked), and therefore the uncoupling point would need to be defined by that. though I suppose one could try and increase friction on the slipcoach's axles if it were overshooting.

Wonderful stuff. will you be exhibiting it?