Up and Down

I’m not sure where the convention of naming travel in the direction of London as ‘Up’. Any ideas? But the convention has some odd consequences for the layout (and for the Beattock operational procedures).

Travelling from Beattock station to the Summit is northwards, away from London, and so in the Down direction. But of course we’re going ‘up’ the bank towards the Summit. This wouldn’t matter so much but for the habit of train crew to refer to ‘going up’ the bank*, meaning travelling in the Down direction from the station to the Summit. So Down trains travel up the bank, and Up trains travel down. Clear?

Of course, it’s different for trains approaching the Summit from the north, but (for the purposes of this layout project) I’m not bothered about this.

*The source of this is David Anderson’s excellent articles published in Steam Days between 1991 and 2003. In one he recounts the story of, when a teenager, being offered by a driver a footplate trip to the Summit from Beattock station, with his bike being tied onto the running plate of the banker.

Track layout begins

I have a basic track plan which is based on Beattock, somewhat modified to fit on a practical-length baseboard. I’ve used XtrkCAD as a planning tool, which has been okay to use.

The photos below show Board 1, which involves the southerly approach to the station. I’m checking whether the plan can accommodate one or two Class 439 tanks in the banker siding – great news, as it can actually hold three!

The Class 439 tanks are, of course, hacked Dapol M7s – not accurate but close enough for now and they look the part. Also, there’s only one tank currently, but eventually I’ll have three or four.

Operationally, the sequence goes something like this:

1. The banker runs down the hill from Summit in reverse (cab first), through the station (Up platform) and over the trailing crossover.
2. It then pulls forward over the crossover onto the Down line.
3. It then reverses over another crossover onto the siding.
4. It then pulls forward past the crossover, where it waits in turn.
5. When its turn comes, it pulls forward from the siding and drops onto the back of the train waiting in the station.
6. It remains uncoupled, and gives two crows from the whistle. Two crows are returned by the train engine at the front. A further crow from the banker is sounded, and it begins to push the train from the rear. At the same time, the train engine starts pulling, and the whole train moves off.
7. After reaching the Summit the banker drops off the tail of the train, while the train carries on, to coast done the other side of the bank. The banker crosses over onto the Up line and coasts down the bank, where the sequence begins again.

I worked this out from a mixture of photos, LMS rule book procedures, deducing tank movements from the track plan, and some relevant articles (which are few and far between on this specific subject). It may not be completely accurate but it’s the best I have at the moment.

The most complete source (though not entirely thorough) is Mullay & Coleford's article on the Moffat branch operations in Railway Bylines (March 2000), which, in a useful digression, explains the role and operational procedures of the bankers.

Turntable at Beattock

What's a suitable turntable to use? The obvious choice is the Peco NB55 model, and according to the catalogue is "based on a Ransome and Rapier 73ft well type turntable, supplied to many railways both at home and overseas." In other words, it's generic.

The turntable deck is 151mm (6.1 inches) diameter. It's just too big to fit comfortably on the layout, according to XtrkCad. The turntable at Beattock was "a balanced 54ft unit from Cowans Sheldon nearby at Carlisle" (source: LMS Engine Sheds, Vol 5). So it was 19ft (36mm in N gauge) smaller than the Peco effort. It was probably only used to turn banking engines - a Duchess or similar would never have fitted on it.

Re pictures, there aren't any. The only source I have is my North from Carlisle video (B&R videos, vol 33) which has a scene where they turn CR439 class 55234 prior to towing it off to be scrapped. You can see that it's a well-type table, but barely long enough to squeeze the tank onto.

My plan, such as it is, is to buy a secondhand Peco version on eBay and cut it down. I suspect I'll need a few goes at this, hence using the cheap option.

***Update: the video source is Cinerail's North From Carlisle, not B&R.

Beattock track plan

I've found no definitive plan of Beattock station as it was for most of its operational lifetime. The key sources are Alan Kirk's article on Beattock Station Modellers' Backtrack Jun-Jul 1993, Branches & Byways: Southwest Scotland and the Border Counties by Robotham, and LMS Engine Sheds Vol 5 by Hawkins & Reeve. All of these place the turntable close to the engine shed, but Hawkins & Reeve state that the turntable was moved to "the southern end of the down platform" in 1899.

A visit to the British Library showed that the turntable was indeed near the engine shed in the 1870s, according to a six-inches-to-the-mile map (which I forgot to record and will have to revisit to record the source and date).

I assume, therefore, that the three sources all use this old map as the original.

I have, however, a video of Beattock station in the 1950s & 60s (Great Steam Routes: The West Coast Main Line), which shows (fleetingly) the position of the turntable. Another video (North from Carlisle) has better footage of the turntable itself but the location is less discernable. 

So it's possible to guesstimate where the turntable was.

I've used XtrkCAD to plot the track plan, allowing for some simplification and compression (otherwise it's just too big and unwieldy) - operationally it should be fine.

The overall track plan (omitting some sidings and structures) looks like this:

 

The baseboard will be made up of four 4 x2 boards, with two 2x2 boards at either end as turning circles. I had hoped to squeeze it all on to four boards, but the boards then become too wide, or too short to create the visual effect I'm after.

It's basically a glorified dumbell layout - allowing long trains to run through uninterupted if desired, but goods shunting, banking and a branch line to maintain interest.

The station throat, goods yard and engine shed complex in detail looks like this:

There are plenty of points to install, and I'll need to check whether these coincide with baseboard joins or bracing.

More research on Beattock

I haven’t found a “Beattock station and summit” book – a gap in the market?! There are a couple of books on my wish list that sound useful:

Dumfries and Galloway's Last Days of Steam, Author: W.A.C. Smith

BRANCHES AND BYWAYS - SOUTHWEST SCOTLAND AND THE BORDER COUNTIES 1st Edition - January 2004 by Robert Robotham

LMS ENGINE SHEDS - VOL. 5 -THE CALEDONIAN RAILWAY, 1st Edition – 1987, by Chris Hawkins, George Reeve

I’ll tell you if they’re any good when I can find a copy...

Beattock – a short history

The main motivation for building a railway via Beattock was that it could serve both the Scottish centres of commerce: Glasgow and Edinburgh. As far back as 1835, surveys had been completed determining the viability or otherwise of various routes. The Beattock route enabled the line to diverge north at Carstairs, with a Y-junction connecting the Glasgow and Edinburgh branches. The decision to build via Beattock was controversial: could motive power of the day negotiate the steep inclines? Political and financial arguments also ensued – would a single line be more economical than two, and would it serve the commercial interests sufficiently?

The Caledonian Railway built its line from Carlisle to Beattock in 1847, and the line was extended to Glasgow and to Edinburgh in 1848, both routes going via Carstairs. The lines eventually competed with the Waverley route from Carlisle to Edinburgh via Hawick and the Scottish Borders region, and with the North British line from London to Edinburgh via Newcastle. The Glasgow and South West Railway (GSWR) also provided a service from Carlisle to Glasgow via Stranraer. So there were four lines northbound from England to Glasgow and/or Edinburgh.

An independent branch, the Moffat Railway, just over one and a half miles long, ran between Beattock and Moffat. It was opened on 2 April 1883 and was taken over by the Caledonian Railway, by Act of Parliament, in 1889.

The Railway Act 1921 caused the Caledonian to be absorbed into the London, Midland Scottish (LMS) railway, in an exercise known as Grouping. The LMS ran trains direct from London to Glasgow and Edinburgh, as well as throughout other parts of its extensive network. The backbone of the LMS was the West Coast Mainline (WCML) via Beattock.

From its inception, bankers were used to assist most engines and their trains up the gradient.

The gradient from Beattock Station to Beattock Summit, running ten miles, averages between 1 in 69 and 1 in 88. Bankers were initially Caledonian Railways (CR) class 439 0-4-4 engines, then CR Pickersgill class 944 4-6-2 tanks, being replaced over time with LMS 2-6-4 Fairbairn tanks (and ultimately with Class 20 diesels). But engines were often borrowed from other depots, to help out in busy periods or perhaps to rotate engines through onerous banking duties.

The Moffat branch served vistors to the local spa, a popular destination that needed a service of twelve to fifteen small trains per day. These comprised a Drummond 0-4-4T CR class 194 with three carriages. By the 1930s this was replaced by the so-called 'Moffat Bus' or 'Puffer', a steam railcar.

With the demise of steam, banking became less common and was eliminated completely by 1974 with the completion of electrification of the WCML and the introduction of the electric expresses.

Beattock depot closed in 1967 and the station closed in 1972 . At the Summit the sentinel signal box has been demolished and the trackplan simplified. But there are still passing loops and cripple sidings to remind us of the steep gradients and times gone by.

Sources:

http://www.virgintrainsmediaroom.com/media/adobepdf/6%20ShapBeattock%20D.pdf
http://www.dalbeattie.com/moffat/history/industr.html
http://www.railscot.co.uk/Caledonian_Railway
http://mikes.railhistory.railfan.net/r001.html
http://www.geo.ed.ac.uk/scotgaz/maps/I242.IMAGEMAP?369,61
http://130.209.236.149/ewan/chronology/dates.asp
http://www.railscot.co.uk/Moffat_Railway/body.htm

Beginning research on Beattock

I’ve accumulated some sources of information on Beattock. I’ve been surprised by the lack of info, given that Beattock was a major element of the WCML until its closure. My usual first source of information, Wikipedia, is surprisingly weak on the subject, though there’s useful background on the WCML and the Caledonian Railway. (One day I might update the entry myself.)

The most useful sources found so far are:

1. Magazines
Modellers Backtrack, June-July 1993. This has a full track plan of Beatock station, plus photos and drawings of some of the key buildings (station building, station master’s house, etc).

Backtrack November-December. This has a fab article charting a single day’s traffic over the Summit. Though the day was in the 1960s it gives a great insight into typical operations on a busy day. Plenty of operational scope, then.

Railway World May 1974 charts the introduction of electric expresses and demise of the bankers at Beattock. With 5,100bhp available these engines could cruise up the bank at 90mph, a considerable improvement in performance from the slow experienced by both steam and diesel engines.

2. Maps.
There are some important sources of information, the best ones are:

Oldmaps.co.uk

http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/maps/

I visited The British Library, which has old maps in large scales that clearly show the track plans. But it takes ages to retrieve them from the basement, and I timed out, so a return vsit will be necessary.

3. Photos.

The best online source I’ve found is www.phantasrail.co.uk/arcphotos. These are pictures of locos on the Summit taken in 1966, again later than my planned timeframe (BR rather than LMS), but I’m able to deduce much of the Summit track plan from these. They show the pronounced curve of the track plan, something to capture in the model.

There are some good pics of the station as it is now at http://www.railbrit.co.uk/location.php?photographer=John_Furnevel&loc=Beattock – a site hosted by John Furnevel (thanks, John).

Also try http://www.railscot.co.uk/Caledonian_Railway

Other sources include eBay, where occasionally people are selling photos and postcards, and other random web sites. Believe me, I’ve searched them all. I believe there are commercial sources for photos, but I’m reluctant to spend cash on something I haven’t seen.

On http://www.mulehouse.demon.co.uk/stations/ there is an index of photographs for all British and Irish stations. This is really useful, and provides more than a dozen references of books and magazines with photos of Beattock station. No references to the Summit, though…