GWR morning mixed – take 1 – The Model Railway Show

I’ve been testing out various possible trains to include on the schedule for Bydemill – my 7mm scale layout depicting the Great Western Railway in the Edwardian Era. Having explored two passenger trains – a milk run and a school train – I decided it was time to introduce a mixed train to the morning workings.

As the photos will illustrate, there’s a lot of work to do…

The morning mixed train arrives at Bydemill. The consist includes a Brake-3rd and 1st/2nd Class coach, two “iron mink” vans for the goods yard, a private owner’s wagon of coal for the coal yard, and another Brake-3rd bringing up the rear.

The mixed makes its station stop, allowing passengers to alight.

At this point, I ran into a problem:

Backing into the goods yard to collect wagons headed out of Bydemill.

I thought I’d back the whole train into the goods yard to collect the three wagons there. But this train was too much for my little 517 Class.

The culprit was a combination of an ascending grade in the goods yard, and the weight/rolling characteristics of my coaches and wagons. (They generally roll “well enough” for the short trains I’m running, but there’s enough resistance that they’ll sit on a grade without rolling. This is the first time I’ve encountered this issue.)

There are two solutions to this. First, I can try a larger locomotive on the mixed train. My Dean Goods has more pulling power. Second – and what I did while shooting these photos – I reduced the cut of wagons I needed to shove up the grade.

I reset to the station stop and continued…

Having finished the station stop, the crew uncouples the two passenger cars ahead of the goods wagons and pulls them forward, clear of the loop switch.

The crew propels the two passenger cars into the loop.

While returning to the platform track, the crew pauses at the water crane to top up the tank.

Back on the platform track, the crew shoves the goods wagons along the platform.. .

Collecting the wagons. The black coal wagon with the yellow diagonal stripe is still loaded, but the one closest to the buffer stop is empty and ready to depart.

The goods yard is pulled and the entire consist is back on the platform track.

Here, again, I ran into a problem: The black coal wagon with the yellow stripe needed to be re-spotted while the brown coal wagon was ready to lift. I also needed to spot the three inbound wagons. This required a lot of back-and-forth work to re-order the train – which is fun, but consumed a lot of time…

The crew pulls forward to clear the yard throat, then shoves the empty coal wagon onto the main track then prepares to return to the goods yard.
Leaving a wagon on the main here is only allowable because the Bydemill branch uses a staff system that allows only one train on the branch at any time, so another train isn’t going to arrive and run into the wagon.

The partially-emptied coal wagon is spotted in the goods yard. The one-plank open is leaving so the crew pulls ahead…

… then spots the one-plank open and the Brake-3rd on the main track. The three wagons still coupled to the locomotive arrived on the mixed train and are all destined for the goods yard.

The crew shoves one inbound coal wagon – and the partially loaded wagon that’s staying in the yard – to the end of the track where the coal dealer’s bins are located…

… then pulls forward and drops the two vans in the goods yard.

I think this business consumed too much time for a branch line passenger train which has a schedule to keep. This work would be more appropriate for a dedicated goods train, run during an early afternoon lull between passenger workings. Regardless, the crew continues its work…

With the goods wagons spotted, the crew pulls forward through the yard throat…

… then reverses onto the main to collect the wagons left there.

These wagons are hauled past the station…

… then backed into the loop to couple up to the two coaches spotted there earlier.

Leaving the whole train in the loop, the crew heads up the platform track to run-around the consist.

These two freight wagons are heading back to Swindon, and points beyond.

Now on the head end, the locomotive heads up the loop to collect its train.

The assembled train is pulled forward then shoved down the platform track…

… where it pauses to load passengers for the trip up the branch.

Its work completed, the outbound mixed train departs Bydemill.

As noted, I need to experiment more with mixed trains.

First, I’ll try my Dean Goods on as power.

Second, I’ll likely add a few rules to the mixed train operations. Forexample:

Only lift wagons ahead of any wagon that needs to be re-spotted.
Only use a single, backing move to set out wagons. Any wagons that are off-spot (for example, those that must go to the goods shed, which is on a switchback spur) should be left for the early afternoon dedicated goods train to place in the proper position.

This was definitely an interesting exercise and I look forward to experimenting with more mixed trains until I get it right.

(There will eventually be a number of posts about the trains on the Bydemill schedule. You can find all of them in the Bydemill Operations category.)

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Published by Trevor