British style operations for a yank

[zekjet]

I am planning to start a little layout using Kato unitrack.  I am familiar with US style operations and have had layouts in th past.  Using the unitrack i can play with different trackplans before settling on something atached to the baseboards.

Initial tnoughts would be a GF Jinty and various wagons ans vans to shunt around.  Trains would enter from  not so hidden storage and run down to a platform with y turnouts leading the two sides, the far end working as a loco escape. 

Once the loco escapes it will work the 2 sidings i will have on the bottom of the layout.  Other ops will be a tram serving the station and eventually a single car passenger train.

Since this is an end of the line style plan, i was wondering what would be common car spots to go on the two sidings.  I see many plans have  coal, a freight house, a team track( us term ) like a loading dock for anyone to use and livestock loading. 

My main interest is in shunting cars around in a fairly random but somewhat realistic manner.  I will use random card draws to make up trains and decide what is removed from the layout.  That said i only need destinations on the layout and cars on thr layout just need to moved to the fiddle.

[Bealman]

G'day from Australia, zekjet, and welcome to the NGF! 

I think I get the jist of your project, but a layout plan would be good.

[JasonBz]

Hello there and welcome!

There is nothing in what you have outlined there that does not fit with working a typical branch line terminus and its traffic patterns.

Coal and the freight house (or Goods Shed) are both highly likely in most places, as are livestock pens.

The Team Track's closest alternative is the Mileage Siding; where a merchant would arrange to unload his wagons. This may often be at the back of the yard, a little bit out of the way.

Ther could, or would, also be the possibility of sidings for specific customers - say a Farmer's Coop

[zekjet]

Basic idea without the right most y turnout on the plan.  There will be a viewblock between the station and the fiddle at the rear.

[JasonBz]

At a terminus you definitely need a run round loop.

[Bealman]

Yes, country terminus stations always had a run around loop in steam days to allow the loco to be released, run around it's train, then couple to the other end to  pull it away.

This is the control panel for the terminus on my layout, which shows the run around loop.



And a track plan (not very good photo of a plan I had published in the British Railway Modeller magazine)

[zekjet]

So, Bealman, from your pics it looks like you can run a train in with brewery traffic up next to the loco and shunt the brewery first with its trailing turnout.  Next run around the train and shunt anything else since the loco is off to the left side of the train.

What about taking on water and fuel?  Are there always seperate facilities such as you have or could it be on one leg around the platform or combined on one of the lower sidings?  I could always have them off-stage to the right and just say the servicing was done.  I would rather have the moves though to keep the interest up.

[Bealman]

Basically an arriving train would simply enter the top most siding of the goods yard, (the one with the goods shed at the end), then simply push the beer wagons back into the brewery siding. The loco was then free to head off where ever it pleased.

To run the beer wagons out, it was a matter of hauling them out of the brewery, then backing them down onto a loop  on the branch and running around them so the loco was at the front of the train, and then heading off to the left, over the river and off to points north!

There are really two loops involved in the plan.

It's a brilliant plan for a country terminus, with lots of operational interest, but not one I can claim credit credit for. It is an unashamed copy of Leighton Buzzard on the late Rev. Peter Denny's Buckingham Branch. Peter Denny was a celebrated British railway modeller for 50 odd-years and had many articles published over those years. Fortunately his layout still survives today.

[zekjet]

Great, I get the idea.  Very much what I would have thought. 

As for goods yard and goods shed operations.  What items would be always unloaded in the shed and what in the open?  If it is a bulk material such as gravel or coal not going to a dedicated siding, would it be manually moved from the wagon to a truck?  How quickly would the car located in the goods shed be loaded/unloaded and changed out?  Would that take a matter of hours?  A day?  A few days?

Would there be a dedicated loco for this station that did this and the road loco simply drops off a cut of cars or would the road loco shunt the train it brought in?

[Bealman]

Whoa! Lot of questions there that I am not really able to answer, but there are people here who can.

My main concern is translating the American speak. By a cut of cars, I assume you mean a train being shunted into a siding?

I do believe it was loaded/unloaded by manual labour, but there are plenty of books on the subject, and people much more knowledgeable than me on the forum. 

[Wrinkly1]

Hi. I hope I'm not repeating information you already know, but here's a few more bits.
In the UK, if there is any double track on your layout, trains tend to keep to the left track so facing and trailing points (turnouts) are the opposite way round here. It was quite common for the community at the 'end' of the line to have a very small engine shed housing a single engine, which only got changed when it went to a workshop for a major service. Facilities would be very basic - coaling by hand, for instance.
Unless there was a special industry like a dairy or coal mine on a branch line, it would be unusual to have more than 1 or 2 slow, mixed freight trains on any day. The contents of those freights has been suggested by others but pre-1940s if the line went to a town with a cattle market there might be one day per month when cattle trains filled the branch but other days would be quiet. Passenger services might be 4 or 5 trains per day unless the branch was from a town and connected to a junction being used for 'commuting'. (I'm thinking particularly of one place called Stourbridge where the branch had a frequent passenger shuttle service to the junction)
Some of the branch line tracks could only support the smallest steam engines due to weight restrictions or sharp curves but in general the branch lines tended to end up with tank engines or ancient (worn out) tender engines. The branch line was one of the places where you might find such engines travelling tender first as there were no turntables. The American idea of having triangles for turning engines or trains was quite rare and one wouldn't be built especially for that purpose on a branch line due to the high cost of land.
Hope I haven't prattled too much!

[Bealman]

An excellent summary. 

[maridunian]

Welcome aboard! Excellent advice above. For freight ("goods") operations, this site has a wealth of useful information. Enjoy!

Mike

[chrism]

As for goods yard and goods shed operations.  What items would be always unloaded in the shed and what in the open?

Generally, goods that needs protecting from the elements would be transferred in the goods shed, anything else outside.

If it is a bulk material such as gravel or coal not going to a dedicated siding, would it be manually moved from the wagon to a truck? 

If a truck turns up on time then yes, otherwise it could just be dumped on the ground for later reloading and collection.
Branch stations often had dedicated coal staithes (bins) into which household coal was dumped for the local coal merchant to bag it up for distribution. Sometimes the bins were used to segregate different grades of coal, sometimes the dividers were simply to keep the stacks under control.

How quickly would the car located in the goods shed be loaded/unloaded and changed out?  Would that take a matter of hours?  A day?  A few days?

That would largely depend on what the goods were. Perishables would be transferred very quickly, other stuff would probably be dependent on how many wagons had arrived, when the empties would need to be taken away and, of course, when the recipient turned up to collect the goods.

Would there be a dedicated loco for this station that did this and the road loco simply drops off a cut of cars or would the road loco shunt the train it brought in?

Not on a small branch line. They generally operated what we call "pickup goods", where the train engine would drop off wagons at a goods yard and pick up any that were ready to be taken away before proceeding to the next station to do the same. Shunting within a small yard would often be done by man or horsepower unless a loco happened to be on site.

Looking at your plan, unless your running line is not bidirectional (i.e. clockwise running only), you definitely need a runround loop, either on the running line or in the yard - otherwise a loco approaching in the anticlockwise direction couldn't put wagons in the yard without becoming trapped by them. It would also be impossible for the loco to split the train to put some wagons into the yard and take the rest on to somewhere else.

[Newportnobby]

Hi zekjet, and welcome aboard.
This might help you with some UK terms of reference..............

https://www.ngaugeforum.co.uk/SMFN/index.php?topic=43697.msg542092#msg542092