British style operations for a yank

[Tfc49]

Zekjet,
apologies if you have seen this already, but the "Goods and Not So Goods" website contains a lot of information that you may find useful

https://www.igg.org.uk/gansg/

While I hesitate to suggest slavishly following a particular prototype, the page on gwr.org.uk  dealing with modelling the Watlington Branch of the Great Western Railway gives some useful statistics about what could be regarded as a typical country branch line (if such a thing could be said to have existed):

http://www.gwr.org.uk/nowatlington.html

With regard to leaving wagons in sidings awaiting later collection, remember that railway companies would charge demurrage on wagon owners for leaving their rolling stock in sidings for more than a day or two (think of it as equivalent as a charge to park your automobile on the street if collecting or delivering goods at a shop) - so there was an incentive for wagon owners (be they private owners like coal merchants, or other railway companies) to have their empty wagons returned to their origin even if they had to pay mileage rates for such empty wagon movements, which gives scope for a lot of wagon movements.

Finally, remember that not all branch lines were out in the country. In the age of steam there were a lot of urban and suburban branches, often serving particular industries or exchange sidings (where two railway companies met), where there was a considerable amount of goods traffic - sometimes without any passenger trains at all.

See http://www.gwr.org.uk/nobrentford.html


I hope the foregoing is of some small help! Enjoy your modelling and remember it's *your* railway so Rule 1 always applies ("it's my railway so I'll run it as I like").

Best wishes for a Merry Christmas and hopes for a *much* better 2021 !

Tfc49

[zekjet]

Well, thank you everybody.  Go to bed and wake up to so much information!

I do have a runaround but the turnout is missing in the drawing, it is a y at the far right side to allow the loco to escape.  As things move along I will add at least one if not two sidings, probably for a private industry or perhaps throw a narrowboat in the lower left side with a siding there. 

"Goods and Not So Goods"  that looks like a great site.  I will be reading through that in the days to come.

I like the idea of wagons and vans not sitting around for days at a time so the frequency of them changing out sounds helpful.  In the past I have done single siding US modern operations and one strategy to provide challenge is to have car spots at an industry.  If a car is at door 3 and needs to stay at door 3 then to service doors further along the siding you have to pull the door 3 car, make the changes further down the siding and then replace door 3.  I would rather have things moving around though as I have done this already.

I have been looking at goods sheds and will have a go at designing one to print, I feel like I want it to be open on both ends with open air unloading available on the far end if needed.  Throw in some coal bins and that would fill one of the sidings.

I will keep looking for ideas for the other siding, cattle being an obvious thing and then maybe just a general unloading area for open wagons and very basic engine servicing.

I think 2 trains per day will be by starting point and will adapt from there.  I plan to use a dice roll to determine the length of train and then the makeup of the train.  This can be simplified down to a spreadsheet with random numbers to generate switchlists. 

Thanks again everyone for the information, now the problem is going to be how long does international shipping take?  Off to get a Jinty and some Peco kits!