Layout blog

Hello Alan,
Fantastic, I even turned up a picture of Ashburton cattle dock

Thank you  :)

Hi David,
It gives me a great flavour, on cattle docs I can only assume the Ashburton terminus platform was suitably orientated (from the map it looks indeed that the CD was to the East of the passenger platform).
I think I was tempted to keep the loco stud on view as part of the layout rather than hidden in traverser sidings or storage loops as they have been in many of my past layouts plus there's always the possibility for a bit of shunting when the one required for service is inexplicably at the back of the shed behind several others  :)

That's a fantastic photo Roger.   :thumbs

I'm surprised the cattle dock was just opposite the passenger platform but, as you say, at least it was "down-wind" !

I wonder if the engine drivers held their breath whenever they entered the train shed - looking at those smoke marks, it could have been a bit hairy at times given the timber structure - no doubt well treated with inflammable creosote !   :shock:

I've found two more! this time on the Southern.


Seaton, where the cattle dock was on the run round stub, between the engine shed and the loco coal, and opposite the platform. Per OPC Historical Survey of Southern Stations. Again to the east of the platform. No clear photo in the book, just the plan.


Lyme Regis, where the cattle dock was on the other side of the bay platform road. This time to the west of the main platform. Wild Swan Branch Lines of the Southern Railway Volume Two.


Then again, some stations didn't have any at all - I've looked at Clacton-on-Sea and Walton-on-the-Naze, neither of which I can see as having cattle docks - and why would they, being mainly resorts - significant goods yards for general merchandise and coal, but not livestock.


How long would cattle have been penned awaiting either transhipment or herding to the farm? It's possible that there was rarely a smell emanating from the pens, as they would have been washed out after each use just as the wagons were.

Hi Peter,
Given a name the internet is our friend provided you avoid sites that are only interested in your personal information, I use DuckDuckGo along with advert blocking and anti-tracking software. That picture apparently comes from this site that has other GWR titbits to offer. I guess that took me an hour to find, there is also an Ashburton in Australia!!
 

Hi Alan,
This just gets better  :) making the stub a CD rather than fully parcels/loading is less of a conflict with the goods shed IMOP AND makes for easier access both by road and rail being located on a short stub rather than a long siding. The only downside now is the layout operator is located downwind of it, however although technology has delivered us model railway sound, thankfully this has not yet extended to smells (that I am aware of).
 
I wonder if the cattle originated directly from local farms or from the local market, probably some and some depending if there was a local market but in either case I cannot imagine anybody would want them on an exposed platform for more than a few hours. One of the many situations where the prototype is no longer available for examination nor the people who can recall such operations.

Roger,

Although you have stated that you haven't fixed a location yet, there are lots of hints that there is a reasonable amount of development around the station to provide both passengers and freight. Conversely, it isn't a city centre with lots of dense urban development….

From my own (second-hand) knowledge of prototype practice between 1920 and 1960, there were broadly three kinds of movement:

1. Juveniles and bulls travelling from market to farm.
2. Fattened meat stock (and the same bulls?) from farm to market, or meat stock directly to abattoir.
3. Fattened meat stock from market to abattoir.

I think your plan and your discussions rule out both tiny village with associated farms and big town or city with large abattoir. By process of elimination, you have a medium sized market town with all the above movements associated with a cattle market and/or a small abattoir.

To elicit more detailed and personal evidence, I have circulated the debate to my contacts in the Carnforth Station Heritage Trust. Unfortunately, George, who worked at Carnforth shed from 1944 to 1969 and rose to be yard manager, died in 2019.

It may be two or three days before I get their recollections, but I will update you once I know more.

David.

Hello all, here we are in summer and gardening (weeding) takes up much of my time together with domestic chores like carpet cleaning but at least I can still think about railway modelling! Whilst slowly acquiring a menagerie of stock I have decided upon an imaginary scenario to run it and that is that BR was broken up again becoming just one of many competing companies, Dieselisation never happened on a large scale and goods traffic remained largely on rail (presumably through heavy road tax to limit congestion).
With that thought I am off to feed the triffid (cucumber) that has taken over the conservatory, happy modelling everybody :)
PS nice trip on the "Poppy Line" in Norfolk yesterday behind Black Prince a 2-10-0 mixed traffic.

Today an Hornby R239 BR Fowler 2-6-4 tank repair. This loco was drooling oil when it arrived from *bay so I de-bodied it for a cleanup. I immediately noticed one of the two flimsy pickups was floating around without a home because it's holder was broken, this needed repair as the pickup arrangements on this loco are cr*p being only on the front and rear drivers (the centre ones being fitted with traction tyres!). I at first thought the pickup holder was a claw fit in the chassis but with so much oil around impossible to glue.
So the keeper plate had to come off but the single screw didn't want to release it, eventually I realised the thing was held on by many plastic claws that have to be released from on top simeltaniosly, and two of these claws are the pickup insulators attached with almost no plastic to the rest of it, no wonder one had snapped, a completely terrible design totally unfit for purpose grrrrrr.
After removing the excess oil with hot water and detergent the pickup holder was superglued back in place, more oil mopped out of the chassis and the whole re-assembled successfully.


Needless to say I wont be buying this vintage of Hornby again and this one will need more work to add additional pickups to make it halfway reliable.

[user=2202]6243[/user] wrote:

Roger,

Although you have stated that you haven't fixed a location yet, there are lots of hints that there is a reasonable amount of development around the station to provide both passengers and freight. Conversely, it isn't a city centre with lots of dense urban development….

From my own (second-hand) knowledge of prototype practice between 1920 and 1960, there were broadly three kinds of movement:

1. Juveniles and bulls travelling from market to farm.
2. Fattened meat stock (and the same bulls?) from farm to market, or meat stock directly to abattoir.
3. Fattened meat stock from market to abattoir.

I think your plan and your discussions rule out both tiny village with associated farms and big town or city with large abattoir. By process of elimination, you have a medium sized market town with all the above movements associated with a cattle market and/or a small abattoir.

To elicit more detailed and personal evidence, I have circulated the debate to my contacts in the Carnforth Station Heritage Trust. Unfortunately, George, who worked at Carnforth shed from 1944 to 1969 and rose to be yard manager, died in 2019.

It may be two or three days before I get their recollections, but I will update you once I know more.

David.

I've had some feedback from Terry at the Heritage Trust. He, unfortunately, confirms how knowledgeable George was on such matters. From what Terry could tell me, it seems that the through livestock trains which passed through from Heysham could be up to 50 wagons, each containing 8 to 10 cows or 24 pigs/sheep. Local movements to Lancaster, along the Furness line from the southern Lakes or on the Wennington branch from the Dales, would be less than half that with 16 to 20 in the typical formation. Few movements terminated at Carnforth, but for those that did there were strict rules on handling:

Feed and water had to be kept available and the animals should be rested for at least one hour during changes of mode (rail/road or vice versa).
No rail movement over six hours duration was permitted without a rest such as above at an intermediate point.
A local vet was to have been retained who would check the health of any stock who had either been in transit for six hours, or were waiting in pen for six hours. (One apocryphal story has the Heysham vet prohibiting onward movement from the docks for 24 hours as the animals were seasick.)
Arrangements for milking or suckling should be made for lactating females and accompanying juveniles.
Horned varieties should be loaded to face alternately.
Moveable partitions may be used to offer support to smaller numbers of stock in transit.

I hope the information contained in those two posts has helped you visualise the type of scene you're wishing to include.

David.

Hi David, thank you so much for your excellent mini-article, this will be of very much help to me and I am sure others too. All the small details help to set the scene indeed, I already have some suitable rolling stock and the cattle dock itself will be on the run-around stub adjacent to the platforms, a few trucks at a time being sufficient  :)
Roger.

Is Black Prince still owned by David Shepherd?.

[user=1033]Spurno[/user] wrote:

Is Black Prince still owned by David Shepherd?.

David Shepherd passed away 19 Sept 2017.

The NNR are the current "custodians" of Black Prince having purchased it in 2015.

I remember a thread here recently "planning it or whinging it" well I reckon I am/was 2/3rds through tracklaying before deciding to alter the plan a bit as I was not happy with the goods yard & MPD, so here is the modified plan

The passenger station, mainline & traverser remain unaltered. A loco release crossover has been added into platform 2 to create a goods arrival road within the goods yard enabling locomotives to be detached without using a pilot (this will only be possible if platform 2 is actually clear).

The goods yard throat has been shortened by changing from medium to small radius points, the problem here is the baseboard joint (thick black line) so the new throat relieves the curves into the arrival road and prevents the goods shed road being forced into the backscene. The goods yard itself has had the shed added and detail about its arrangement, unfortunately Xtrkcad doesn't have  the ability to draw roadways etc so I have just written text instead.

The MPD has been re-organised to move the shed away from the baseboard edge and make a more realistic ash handling & coaling facility (the ash wagon can be in the coaling road while the pit is dug out).
Some scenic features have been noted together with the cattle dock moved to it's final location.

Fortunately due to the Peco shortage I had not purchased the full compliment for the previous plan so nothing will go to waste  :)  Certainly acquiring some stock and building the platforms helped me visualise how it would look so next up I must start on some buildings!
Roger

Thanks Alan,I didn't know David Shepherd had died as he offered my late father in law a job driving Black Prince after he left the army,something to do with Longmoor in my sadly fading memory.

Two whole months and almost no progress  :sad: Excuses vary from to much gardening in the summer, to many other family commitments and ongoing Peco stock shortages…… However a recent burst of tracklaying saw most of the goods yard complete together with it's throat except ONE POINT (SL-E88) still unobtainium at a reasonable price. Still no buildings or scenic features beyond the bare bones platforms but I have my eye on some kits when budget constraints allow. Good to see you have all been very busy during my hiatus  :)

[user=2213]fourtytwo[/user] wrote:

A better view of the traverser minimalist control panel (a feature of this layout is small control panels)

Hi,

I can't find any mention of the drive system for moving the traverser using this set of controls. This is a current topic for me on my new layout under construction so would like to learn of your solution.

Colin

Hi Colin

 I am sorry to disappoint you but at the moment it is entirely hand driven!

 In practice so far I have not found that a bother as I have to be physically standing at the traverser in order to prepare the next train (running the loco around or swapping brakevan ends) and the dreaded uncoupling!

It would be possible to motorise it as I had done exactly that with it's vertical predecessor in my N gauge layout Riccarton Junction, for that one just dialled in the bay number and the automation did the rest, I would however warn you it was a considerable quantity of software code with some unusual sensors and fairly complex mechanics involving a couple of lorry windscreen wiper motors.
 As this OO layout is an experiment I have tried to keep it simple but things creep so I am currently experimenting with motorising semaphore signals……

Regards
Roger

Hi Roger,

Thx for getting back so promptly. I've been discussing this with a friend who is a dab hand at things electro-mechanical and he's been suggesting a stepper motor driven device. That got me wondering what you might have done, given your aptitude in this area.

I'll be putting up some more posts shortly as I'm doing an early trial run assembling the Traverser in situ, now that the main framework is in place.

I hope you're finding some time to progress things at your end.
Regards,

Colin