Empty sidings

There are many heritage railways I've visited where most (if not all) sidings are full of rolling stock. I know there are many reasons as to why this occurs (no other space etc...) but does this actually bother people? Or am I just picky?

I'd personally like empty sidings at stations, so that on galas I'd be able to watch shunting and activities - and I think it adds to the atmosphere. I imagine however there is a counter argument that people get to see more stock than if it was hidden away out of sight. If I was a diesel fan I might love it! I don't know if it's a priority of any heritage railways to make more room (wagon/carriage sheds/more sidings), or perhaps it's just a minor issue that most people don't care about. I'd like your thoughts

 

I like looking at what's in the sidings, restored in not, contrary to some!

I suspect many sidings close enough to station platforms will be full, a fair few with old coaches or wagons with attractions of their own inside. Usually these sidings tend to be hard to shunt, and I'd have thought to clear enough siding space for it to be interesting would be possible.

The only reason railways would build more sidings is for more stock, remember track and particularly points are expensive, and not worth it if they are to be empty for most of their time. Much better they hold stock that will serve a use in either saving money, eg storage or will make money, eg coaches or a photographic goods train.

I really don't understand people's problems with sidings containing disused stock, it rarely is, on c+wtend to have more pressing things on their mind such as restoring stock that needs to look good such as that outlined above rather than just storage facilities.

One day, perhaps when a railway has suitable storage facilities for all the usable stock and no backlog, then work on these vehicles cam start, but not before, it is unpractical and uneconomical.

 

"Siding space" is a pretty big issue for many heritage railways. Of course, whether a siding is ever empty depends on the purpose of the sidings. If it is used for stabling (i.e. to put operational train sets when not in use, for example overnight), it may well be empty for large parts of the day.

At the NYMR, we have the South End Neck and Long Siding at Pickering which are empty on many operating days (the Long siding beyond Trout Farm Accommodation Crossing is permanently fully occupied with "the reserve collection").

Goathland Down Sidings is nearly always empty (it is actually the run-round loop for the Station and used daily except on the peak timetable)

At Grosmont, Brickyard Sidings are used for stabling overnight and at different parts of the day but are often empty or just have a couple of vehicles on the stops, except No.4 siding, which is often occupied, being the short stub siding, with special vehicles.

Steven

 

Really to look "authentic" a yard should never be more than about 1/3 full, but what seems to happen in practice is the collection of rolling stock expands to fill (or exceed) the space available and the accommodation is left to play 'catch up'. This seems to happen regardless of whether the rolling stock is privately or railway owned.

The difference with a heritage railway and the railway we are trying to recreate is that we don't run trains 24/7, so inevitably we have stock which spends much of its life standing around. I think about the best we can hope for is to get as much of this stock as possible into good working order, and have siding space available for operable goods trains and 'spare' carriages and so on, so that at least at galas when all of the trains come out to play, the backdrop of empty yards and sidings is restored, even if they are buried in stock the rest of the year.

In the meantime the only other thing we can do is make sure that the less aesthetically pleasing stock (aka the 'demics') are hidden, as far as is possible, in the furthest flung corners where our customers might hopefully not gaze upon them much. The trouble is that this sort of storage probably makes it even less likely that the 'demics' will be fixed any time soon.

 

On some railways it is difficult to put "demics" in the sidings with the long grass, at the GWSR we try to do this as much as possible, but due to the angle of some of the closer sidings to the railway to the sun, we don't like to put restored stock there, as it will be bleached. this means that some "demics" will always be stored in this siding in close proximity to where visitors are.

 

True, but if you really are storing stock for a long time the sidings do not need to be connected.

 

I tell you something...I'd love to have some empty sidings; would make life a lot easier!

 

Maybe the movement should invest in purchasing a former MOD depot to remotely and securely store stock from several lines, offsite and out of view.

When was the last time you went to Macdonalds and saw their spare burgers stacked in the public area..
or Blackpool towers and saw dismantled rides in the park..
The reason for the store room is business sound.. preserved railways shouldnt be showing their uglies in public.. it puts them off.

 

This was very briefly touched upon in a recent broadway blog post comment, someone asked when we get to Honeybourne what about long Marston sidings? don't think it got a reply but an interesting thought. perhaps if when we get there we do go down that route we could loan out siding space to other railways. On the other hand, many of the "uglies" probably wouldn't be in a railworthy state, not even to be dragged over the rails to some different sidings in some cases, and also, we must remember that many "uglies" are regularly used as storage so need to stay on their own railway. But because it is only storage, us in C+W don't put it high up on our list of repaints.

I'd love to spend my trips to Winchcombe with the relevant pot of paint and wander round the yard giving as many things as possible a lick of paint, even if, really, it could do with wood replacement and other things beyond my sphere of competence. but the reality is that there are many more important things I could be doing to help the railway, the temperamental weather would mean that anything painting would have to be taken inside so less space for more important stuff, and many could do with more than a repaint, which then begins to take serious time.

This is where I believe youth groups would be most helpful. for those wagons that are outside and are just heavily faded, all you'd need is one or two suitably experienced people to supervise with helping to rub down and paint and they could probably work through a number of projects. Unfortunately H&S comes into play here, as many of these would be near the main running line and would of course probably require the use of a ladder. really the only places the youth groups could realistically help would be wagons and rolling stock in a platform, such as those at Winchcombe, but as a general rule, these tend to be the ones in the bst state of repair, hence the premier siding placement!

Just some thoughts to be thinking about there, mostly me thinking out loud, but there you go...

 

A good idea, or rather it would have been 20 years ago. At that time there were plenty of MOD and industrial sidings around, though most were still in use. Today many, particularly the industrial sites, are gone. What's more, the scrap market has made track materials prohibitively expensive and such sites are nowadays classed as "brownfields" and therefore ripe for re-development, putting them out of reach for financial reasons.
However, I agree that something needs to be done. There are few things that our customers dislike more than rows of rotting vehicles, particularly adjacent to public areas and there are few things more depressing than railways where space is so short that even the platform roads are full except when the trains are running. I fear that the only answer is to take a critical, draconian even, view of the unrestored and probably unrestorable. Current scrap prices make the difficult decisions easier!

 

Some really good, informative replies in this thread so far. Makes for great reading

 

A couple of railways have done this recently, the GWSR included, I don't think we have a single piece of pre-nationalisation coaching stock anymore, certainly none with a hope of ever, ever being restored. but the fact is lots of the disused stock in the sidings is there for a reason. the GWSR is growing, we need to scratch together another whole rake by the time we get to Broadway, and those ugly things on bogies will in a few years time be part of a shiny new rake. the only thing that can be done is to move these items as far out of the public eye as possible, but still somewhere they are in a few years retrievable to shunt into the workshop. equally, with stores vans, they can't be mothballed into the sidings with the long grass, people would spend half their time walking to and fro collecting bits. efforts are being made at the GWSR to move restored stock into "front" sidings where possible, but as I explained earlier, sometimes this is not practical due to weathering or operational reasons.

Sorry for banging on about the GWSR, but it is of course the railway I know most about, I'm sure others do the same about their "local"

 

I don't think it's just stock in sidings.
Some places i can think of resemble little more than a scrap yard, with metal work rusting in the mud etc.

If an "insert your pet project here" isn't going to start work for 10 years whilst you raise funds.. why not lump it off site to some place secure.

remember it's not just the public that get sick of seeing it, many preserved lines have kicked out groups where "nothing visible" was happening.

Similarly the movement has all but lost 42859, and another group "might" have accidentally lost their loco's remotely stored frames to the scrap man..

The public don't always see our hobby with the dreamy eyes of 50 years ago, instead they see a hopeless lump of rusted metal causing a potential threat to safety, devaluing the neighbourhood or attraction to undesirables.

Remember Charles Darwin will eventually win… the best will always attract attention, the worst will be sacrificed, whether it's the railway or the stock… the best bet is to show your best face and securely protect your worst until such time they can be saved… remember it's not forever, it's only until your ready for it.

 

I would love to see empty sidings on the NYMR if only because it would signify that at long last there would be a large carriage shed built somewhere on the railway. As there's currently no available land for such a development it would mean that land had been acquired and that the sidings on it would be brand new, allowing stock from the old ones to be moved into it, and emptying them apart from items kept for practical use or effect.

 

I await the day when the gwsr has a carriage shed...

All railways should at least have a plan to have a carriage shed, even in the long term. They are such assets. Hopefully there will be one at the gwsr during my time but seeing as I'm only 15 I should hope so too!

 

What a pleasant change to have a young enthusiast who is able to put his point forward in a clearly thought out, logical manner. And not in ruddy text speak or monosyllabic grunts! Well done that man! Regards Ray.

 

Thanks Ray, I do sometimes write in txt spk in the wrong places, especially when I'm on tapatalk on my phone

PS I note that "txt spk" is not picked up in the spell checker

 

Problem there is much shunting cannot be achieved without encroaching onto the running lines, and you woulden't get a very gala like timetable with that happening frequently.

 

This is why the headshunt was invented...

 

Assuming there's room for one that is.