Inner city loco servicing yard
Dog Star
Western Thunderer
A small S7 layout, no more than 10' x 20", has recently left the workbench - the design of the trackwork is intended to represent practices of the 1880s and hence the result has some "interesting" features. This topic is to illustrate and describe the Victorian features rather than track-building methods. So to start, this is an overall view of the two baseboards:-
Farthest from the camera is the entry to a yard with a history... built originally as sidings to a warehouse on the right hand side that warehouse was served by a single siding from a loop (of 1880s vintage). Not long after the siding was installed there was a serious fire and the warehouse went out of business. At this point the railway company decided to utilise the area as a small yard for servicing locomotives and thereupon laid a second siding (that in the middle of the picture). After a few years, say 1895-ish, the capacity of the engine yard was exceeded by the growth in commuting to the nearby city terminus and the railway company was forced to extend the yard again - hence the left hand siding.
There is little written about the S&C practices of the Victorian era and so construction of these turnouts necessitated considerable research in photo collection, on-line archives and proceedings of "engineering" societies from around 1900-1910. Features to consider in the following photos include:-
* loose heel switches;
* interleaved timbering under the closure rails;
* short stock and closure rails of variable lengths to fit what can be seen in contemporary photos.
As might be expected of trackwork for "inner-city" yards of the nineteenth century the switches are rather short as is the planing length...
My method of driving the switch blades is to solder a wire under the switch rail... that wire fits into a tube that is part of the turnout control unit (under the baseboard). The wire is lubricated with silicon grease on initial assembly and does not require, generally, any further attention.
Next post shall consider the plain line track and pits within the yard.
Farthest from the camera is the entry to a yard with a history... built originally as sidings to a warehouse on the right hand side that warehouse was served by a single siding from a loop (of 1880s vintage). Not long after the siding was installed there was a serious fire and the warehouse went out of business. At this point the railway company decided to utilise the area as a small yard for servicing locomotives and thereupon laid a second siding (that in the middle of the picture). After a few years, say 1895-ish, the capacity of the engine yard was exceeded by the growth in commuting to the nearby city terminus and the railway company was forced to extend the yard again - hence the left hand siding.
There is little written about the S&C practices of the Victorian era and so construction of these turnouts necessitated considerable research in photo collection, on-line archives and proceedings of "engineering" societies from around 1900-1910. Features to consider in the following photos include:-
* loose heel switches;
* interleaved timbering under the closure rails;
* short stock and closure rails of variable lengths to fit what can be seen in contemporary photos.
As might be expected of trackwork for "inner-city" yards of the nineteenth century the switches are rather short as is the planing length...
My method of driving the switch blades is to solder a wire under the switch rail... that wire fits into a tube that is part of the turnout control unit (under the baseboard). The wire is lubricated with silicon grease on initial assembly and does not require, generally, any further attention.
Next post shall consider the plain line track and pits within the yard.
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