Lower Thames Yard

[Tallpaul70]

Good Afternoon, Everyone,
They say things come in threes, and that is certainly true , for me, of yesterday!
Fortunately only two of the three events were bad.

So firstly, yesterday morning, I went for a walk, but unfortunately, taking care over social distancing, I tripped over a kerb, and landed flat on my face! Fortunately the damage was limited to scrapes and bruises, but I decided to take it easy for the rest of the day.
In the afternoon, I was just settling to compose a posting for this thread when my wife called me to tell me that we had low water pressure.
Checks of our system seemed to indicate all was functioning correctly, so it was a phone call to the water company.
Eventually getting to talk to a human being, they said someone would come out within six hours. To be fair, we got a call from an engineer about an hour later. On checking while he was on the line I found the pressure was back to normal!

Finally, the good thing that happened was that Boris confirmed the easing of measures from Monday, particularly welcome was the ability for six people to get together in a garden, which meant our eldest son and his family can come over for my wife's birthday on Tuesday.

I had intended yesterday for a change from the recent wagon topics on this thread to talk about the local and suburban passenger trains on my Lower Thames Goods Shed layout, so I will press on with that topic today:-
Maidenhead was the point at which the suburban trains out of Paddington met the local trains running along the High Wycombe Branch from High Wycombe and Aylesbury. There was some overlap, some of the trains from Paddington ran onto the Branch, and some of the Branch trains ran as far as Slough.
The suburban trains in the late 50s were mainly 5 coach sets hauled by 61xx 2-6-2 tanks. As time progressed these were replaced by class 117 three coach DMUs sometimes singly, sometimes in multiples.
Because Lower Thames Goods Shed is a small layout its suburban sets will only have two coaches, the DMUs being represented by a Class 121, sometimes with a single trailer or by a single 3 coach Class 117.

One branch train that will be accurately represented is the 14xx plus autocoach that spent most of its day shuttling between Bourne End and Marlow but in the late morning and evening, did make trips to Maidenhead.
The rest of the branch steam hauled trains will like the suburban steam hauled be of two coaches. I may include for variety, although not historical accuracy, one B set.

I will detail the trains and the models I will be using to portray them in more detail in future posts.

Keep smiling, stay safe, and here's hoping you all can also meet up soon in the garden with family,
Best regards
Paul

[Tallpaul70]

Welcome to another warm and sunny day!
I had intended to expand on the detail of my coach sets in this post, but instead am updating on other topics and information found.

The saga of sheet bars on china clay seems to have come to a conclusion whereby the only china clay carrying wagons in the late 50s/early 60s with bars were those standard 5 plank wagons fitted with them for general service, and if end door china clay wagons had to be used on this traffic due to a lack of sufficient of the standard 5 planks then they were fitted with "flat" sheets to protect the load. It looks like W94071 was just a one off prototype that was not perpetuated?
Unless any one knows different...……??

I decided this week to take a trawl through my GWR Journals. I did this some time ago to extract those with articles or photos relevant to the
Reading -Slough and High Wycombe branch areas. I was pleased to find one article I had missed in issue 88 about the 0925 Hinksey Goods. This was the morning pick up goods from Hinksey via Thame and Princes Risborough to Slough.
While the article concentrated on the Hinksey -Thame - Princes Risborough part of the trip it did give me a number of useful bits of information:-
1) The Loco generally used was a 61xx (which I knew), which travelled bunker first (which I didn't know).
2) It also confirmed the train crossed with the morning Slough to Hinksey at Princes Risborough and that the loco crew and guard swapped trains (which I had guessed but it was nice to have confirmed!).
3) It explained that the train from Hinksey was often just an engine and van by the time it got to Princes Risborough, (which I didn't Know), and that there it picked up coal wagons for the paper mills on the High Wycombe - Maidenhead branch (which I suspected but was pleased to have confirmed).
4) It also explained that the train from Slough was often only an engine and van by the time it reached Princes Risborough, and that on its run to Hinksey, it picked up wagons prepared by the earlier train from Hinksey. This I did not know.

All the above will be useful in adjusting the two pickups to run on Lower Thames Yard. I may well not bother to adjust the sets in the small Goods Shed Layout!

So wishing you all as enjoyable weekend as possible without bending the lockdown rules, we just have to be patient!
Cheers
Paul

[Tallpaul70]

Good Afternoon everyone,
This week I am looking at the coaching stock to run the trains on Lower Thames Goods Shed.
Essentially these are the trains along the High Wycombe branch plus a couple of trains that started from Maidenhead towards Paddington or in the reverse direction.

The first train of the day, is typical of the line, and starts from the Branch Coach siding behind a 61xx that arrived chimney first from Slough Shed at 0530. After steam heating the coaches for a while they left the siding ready to depart for Paddington at 0600. In reality this train comprised 5 suburban coaches, but on Lower Thames Goods Shed there is only room for two. So un prototypically, they will be arranged composite then brake 2nd with the guards compartment next to the composite coach so as to place the guard towards the centre of the train in both directions. In the real life 5 coach set there was a brake coach at both ends of the set with the guards compartment outermost.
This set will comprise a Bachmann BR composite and a Hornby Collett Brake 2nd.

The first down passenger train is the 0620 from Slough which arrives at 0634. It also will be a 61xx plus two suburban coaches, but they will both be Hornby Colletts. This 61xx will be bunker first.

The second up train starts from Maidenhead and is a class 117 three car DMU leaving at 0655. It starts up in the down siding at 0645 before moving to the branch platform at o650. Ther model will be a Lima class 117 with a cut and shut DMS. If there is not room for the tree cars then the centre trailer will be left out!

The third up passenger train will appear from Bourne End at 0743 and will be similar to the first up train above except for consisting of a Hornby Collett Composite plus a Bachmann BR Brake 2nd. The 61xx on this train will be chimney first, ie the opposite way round to the first up train.

At 0730 a class 117 DMU arrivers from Paddington to form the 0750 back to Paddington. Slightly unrealistically this will be the same DMU as formed the earlier 0655 from Maidenhead!

At 0740 we have another down train this also a modern version but is a class 121 single car DMU plus a driver trailer. At 0747 this departs for High Wycombe.
This model is a Dapol class 121 with a cut and shut lima centre car forming the trailer.

At 0820 a train arrives from High Wycombe which is the return of the first down train of the morning. It departs for Slough at 0832.

0832 sees the arrival of the 0737 from Paddington to Princes Risborough. To cut the space needed for coach sets on the layout this will be a return trip for the first up train that had been stabled at Maidenhead overnight. If space permits for a bit of variety this will be a three car set.

The last of the morning up trains is the 0743 from Aylesbury arriving at 0854. The stock from this is shunted to the Branch Siding before the 61xx departs for Slough LE.

So we see that there is quite a variety of trains on this "branch" line!
The passenger trains through the middle of the day are a little less varied, but as I will show another day the evening "rush hour" is also quite varied!

Best regards
Paul

[Tallpaul70]

Well, that's summer over (in the UK at least!)

At the end of my last posting, I said that the passenger trains on the High Wycombe Branch were not as varied as the morning and evening "rush".

Apart from the arrival of the 121 and trailer back from Aylesbury at 0922 and the passing of the LE from Princes Risborough off the 0540 Reading Parcels there were only two trips of the Marlow Donkey later in the morning and two trips of the 121 to Bourne End without its trailer in the early afternoon, before the 1506 departure for Aylesbury comprising the 121 and a "Large Van (according to the Local Parcels Formation Book!).

To be fair the gaps do allow plenty of time for the shunter to do its stuff, and the shunting of the " Large Van" by the 121 between its trips to Bourne End are somewhat unusual.

In real life this "Large Van" arrived at Maidenhead at 1207 on the 11.38 Paddington to Didcot Parcels, but in the world of "Lower Thames Goods Shed" this train cannot physically run so I have to devise a means to get it on scene!

The easiest way would be to run the 1138 to Maidenhead only just with the "Large Van" and send its loco back towards Slough LE. I could make this slightly more interesting by having another "Large Van" ready for the loco to take back east. Alternatively I could use a 128 rather than a loco.

Next time I will detail the passenger trains after the 1506 to Aylesbury.

Stay Safe, be Alert,
Best regards
Paul

[Tallpaul70]

I had intended today to detail the late afternoon and evening passemger trains on Lower Thames Goods Shed.
However, as that would take a while and SHMBO has rescheduled my afternoon, I will limit myself to my latest thoughts on how to improve the flow of passenger traffic between 0900 and 1500:-

It occurred to me that it would be a reasonable compromise to include the approximately hourly Paddington to Reading and Reading to Paddington suburban trains.
This can be done by cutting the service back to Paddington to Maidenhead and return. There is stock already available for this in the shape of the morning Paddington to Maidenhead and return 3/2 car DMU and the steam set that covers the 0737 Paddington to Princes Risborough, which in reality returned to Paddington via the GW& GC after a trip from Princes Risborough to Thame.

Cutting the trips back to Maidenhead would, if I keep to the original timings, result in a fairly lengthy turnaround stay at Maidenhead. It would be best to keep to the original timings because as far as possible they were planned to allow good transfers from and to the High Wycombe and Marlow trains at Maidenhead.

Why not also include the Oxford and Didcot trains you might ask?
This would INHO be too unrealistic on what is a small layout and would give problems with some of those trains which were hauled by tender locos.

So I now need to look at the details of this and also decide if I am going to treat any of the rush hour Reading Trains in the same way. My inclination is not too because I am not sure there will be enough trains on the layout to avoid any of them making unrealistically frequent (in my opinion!) appearances in the scenic section.

Any thoughts gratefully received?

Best regards
Paul

[Tallpaul70]

Good Afternoon All,
I hope no one has suffered at the hands of the wind and the rain? We have quite a lot of small (tree!) branches down!

I haven't got to sorting out the timings of the Maidenhead to Paddington and return trips yet , so will concentrate today on the afternoon and evening passenger trains:-

Once the 1506 121 car and van have left for High Wycombe and the shunter has left for Taplow, all is quiet until around 1611 when a 61xx plus coaches appears from Slough as the 1558 from Slough to Aylesbury. This departs at 1620 then almost an hour later a light engine (another 61xx) arrives from Slough to collect the coaches from the Branch Siding and form the 1726 to High Wycombe.

At 1755 the class 121 returns from Aylesbury towing a van (but not the same van it left for Aylesbury with at 1506!). It then deposits the van in the Branch Siding, collects its trailer and prepares to leave for Bourne End as the 1855.

But inbetween its movements the 1742 from Paddington to Aylesbury arrives at 1820, leaving at 1824.

Next at 1920 a 61xx arrives with the 1838 from Paddington to Aylesbury. This must wait until 1925 to allow the next train off the branch.
So at 1923 this train arrives in the shape of the 61xx that left with the 1726 to High Wycombe returns with the 1850 from there. As well as the coaches it left with it has also a GUV destined for Crewe via the 2010 parcels train.

Twenty minutes later the 121 and trailer growl through empty stock returning to Slough. and another 10 minutes after that at 1954 another passenger train arrives from the branch.
This is the 1825 from Aylesbury that left as the 1558 from Slough at 1620. This also has an extra load, this time two vans, both being forwarded on the 2010 parcels, one going to Didcot and the other a BG just to Reading. The train engine will act as a passenger pilot to place the passenger stock from this train into the Branch Siding and form the vans up for the 2010 Parcels. What I have yet to work out, and the WTTs are not clear, is where the loco for the 2010 Parcels comes from?

However, the shunting cannot start yet as there is one more imminent through down train. This is the 1904 from Paddington to Bourne End which arrives at 1956 and leaves at 2000 provided the above 1825 from Aylesbury has arrived off the Branch.

At 2054 the Marlow Donkey makes the first of its four evening visits at roughly hourly intervals to Maidenhead.
The only other evening passenger movements are the departure of the Slough and Reading Parcels at 2010 and at roughly hourly intervals trains from Paddington and their returns to meet with the Marlow Donkey.

At just after 2100 the 61xx that powered the 1904 from Paddington returns from Bourne end LE to Slough, followed from Maidenhead an hour later by the engine off the 1825 from Aylesbury that has then finished its shunting duties.

I think the above demonstrates that the late afternoon and early evening is as complex as the morning rush hour?

Cheers for now
Paul

[IanS]

You can also plan in unusual happenings - wrong type of leaves on the rails, broken down engine, rail-strike (which will produce totally new timings)!

[Tallpaul70]

Boy, did we have some thunder storms here later yesterday, but no damage done!

In answer to a comment, yes, you can put in unexpected events, but you need IMHO to have your basic timetable and stock/loco allocations sorted first!

In my write up yesterday of the afternoon and evening passenger services on Lower Thames Goods Shed, I forgot one important item:-
I need to run a Paddington to Maidenhead DMU in the late evening so there is a unit stabling overnight to form the 0655 to Paddington next morning (see my posting last Monday) .

The best candidate in the WTT for this is the 2155 Paddington to Reading arriving at 2248 which then connects with the 2254 departure of the Marlow Donkey. There is a later departure from Paddington at 2300 but this is a steam run to Oxford and Maidenhead is served by the rear portion of the train which is detached at Slough!

There is also a 2342 DMU from Paddington which would arrive at Maidenhead at 0034, but I am trying to make midnight the cut off time for my timetable.

I might make a portrayal of the above steam trip the last appearance of one of my steam suburban sets, which would give a connection into the last Marlow Donkey. It would then return to Slough ECS, just before my 0000 cut off! Otherwise the last Marlow Donkey would only be picking up a few late night revelers from Maidenhead?

The return to Slough need not be ECS as the WTT shows on Saturday only a Train from Reading at 2345 to Slough calling at Maidenhead 0002 to 0004, a prime case to run 10 minutes earlier every night and apply rule 1? This would also excuse my not running the DMU (in real life from Reading) that left Maidenhead at 2325 for Paddington.

I will have to sort out the rest of the evening running of suburban DMUs and Steam to/from Paddington when I sort out the daytime running of those trains.

So best regards to All from a soggy South Bedfordshire,
Cheers
Paul

[Tallpaul70]

So, as I proposed in an earlier posting, a start has been made on analyzing the Paddington to Reading and return suburban trains running outside the rush hours with a view to modelling them as Paddington to Maidenhead and return trains by running one steam set and one DMU alternately around the right hand side of the Lower Thames Goods Yard Layout.

In the 1961WTT there are 25 such trains Down but only 22 Up. This discrepancy is likely to be due to the fact that in reality coach sets and DMUs were stationed at a number of different points, not just Reading and London and their daily duties did not always finish at the same point as they started!
There are 14 trips down and up that can reasonably be paired so I could just run those, or I can analyse the other Paddington outer suburban trips to Newbury, Didcot and Oxford to see if curtailing any of them give me more matches.

Another problem is that there are more DMU trips than Steam ones so my idea of alternating them for interest doesn't quite work, particularly as there are down trains that get to Maidenhead at a good time to match to a return up train but one train is a DMU, the other a Steamer!

I would prefer to avoid running the DMU or the rush hour steamers on consecutive trips, but there is not room in the fiddle yard to hold both the number of steam hauled sets needed for the rush hour services, more than one class 117 DMU, and the necessary parcels and Freight sets.
There is another way that the outer suburban trains mentioned above could help because a higher proportion of them were steam than was the case with the Reading trains! However, against this is that a number of the steam hauled trains particularly the Oxford ones had tender locos, which are not really suitable for a small layout.

Another possible compromise is to look at my 1959WTT, when the quantity of DMUs in service was smaller and see if using that will improve the number of steam runs I can use.

Thus there is quite a lot more to do to get to a workable solution, so don't hold your breaths!
More to follow on this in a day or two (maybe!)
Best regards
Paul

[Tallpaul70]

Good afternoon to you all,
I thought I would update you on my researches in sorting out the possibilities for Paddington to Maidenhead and reverse trains for the right side of Lower Thames Goods Shed, which is proving a challenge!

The steam hauled trains in particular are complicated by a number of factors, as to be sensible for this small layout the steam trains have to be:-
Tank Engine Hauled
Non corridor stock
Stopping at Maidenhead (preferably!)

Most of the Paddington to Reading (and reverse) trains are generally ok except for one or two that since my last post I have ruled out since I found they used corridor stock.
The longer distance trains (Paddington to Newbury/Hungerford/Frome and Paddington to Didcot/Swindon/Oxford/Banbury ) and reverse are less useful.
Most are corridor stock, just a couple each way are non corridor, and haulage is mainly tender Locos. In addition many do not stop at Maidenhead!

So tomorrow I am taking a look at my 1959 WTT, but to make sense of this I will need to find a Carriage Working Book for the period, hopefully from Robert Carroll's many on line volumes!

I hope everyone is staying safe and keeping well.
Best regards
Paul