Numbering Goods Yard Sidings

[Andy873]

I've just come across an article which mentions siding No. 3 at a particular station. The question is this - In a goods yard say with 8 sidings, would they have been numbered from the station side or the goods yard entrance side? This is an L&Y yard in 1906.

 

[Ashley Hill]

AIUI no1 siding is the one nearest the mainline.

 

[Gloster]

Agreed. Normally numbering would be rising away from the ‘main’ line, but there is no strict rule. However, there were exceptions and you could have gaps or a restart if the two blocks were considered to be different. You could also have gaps if the numbering covered all sidings and then a new group was built next to the originals, e.g. the original sidings were 1 to 8 at the east end and 9 to 14 at the west end, then they built another five so that 15 to 19 are next to 1 to 8, with 15 being the next 8.

 

[Big Jumby 74]

AIUI no1 siding is the one nearest the mainline.

Agreed. Normally numbering would be rising away from the ‘main’ line,

Also agreed in my experience/time, although a wee niggle in the back of my head is telling me I have noted an exception to that (somewhere?), which having noted it, I am wondering if it is/was on my old patch (S/SW)?. That's got me wondering now!

 

[driver9000]

Also agreed in my experience/time, although a wee niggle in the back of my head is telling me I have noted an exception to that (somewhere?), which having noted it, I am wondering if it is/was on my old patch (S/SW)?. That's got me wondering now!

Preston station South sidings are numbered 3-2-1 counting away from the main lines. There are probably other examples dotted around the network.

 

[Andy873]

Thanks everyone. The newspaper article reports an accident were a young boy, 11 was killed on siding No. 3 during a shunt of wagons. Some other boys had made a bird trap and placed in in between the rails earlier, and he had gone to see if it had caught anything. I know now which siding that was.

 

[Gloster]

But of course the numbering might not start right next to the main line. The first siding might might have a particular name, often related to a designated purpose, such as Mileage, Exchange, Branch or whatever, and the numbering started with the one after that.

 

[Rescars]

Taking this to extremes, I have unearthed a plan of Feltham marshalling yard which shows the same numbering logic. Each fan of sidings is numbered outwards with "siding 1" closest to the main line.

 

[Dunfanaghy Roa]

Andover Yard (before the remodelling a few years ago). A plan showed the roads as 3,2,1 from the main line. It also called them Swindon Sidings, which explains a lot!
Pat

 

[Rescars]

Andover Yard (before the remodelling a few years ago). A plan showed the roads as 3,2,1 from the main line. It also called them Swindon Sidings, which explains a lot!
Pat

Oh the cheek of the MSWJ to invade GWR territory and run trains through Swindon Town!

 

[Gloster]

Andover Yard (before the remodelling a few years ago). A plan showed the roads as 3,2,1 from the main line. It also called them Swindon Sidings, which explains a lot!
Pat

I can’t remember ever referring to any of the sidings by number or anything else when I worked there in 1978 and 1979. They were generally just called the goods sidings, the UKF siding, the parcels shed and the bank.

 

[Efini92]

Preston station South sidings are numbered 3-2-1 counting away from the main lines. There are probably other examples dotted around the network.

I wonder if that’s because it used to be a through line.

 

[Big Jumby 74]

I can’t remember ever referring to any of the sidings by number or anything else when I worked there in 1978 and 1979. They were generally just called the goods sidings, the UKF siding, the parcels shed and the bank.

I spent odd spare moments in my early days on the job hand copying a Control track diagram of the SWD as was, dated 1958, amended to 1964. My attempts to copy all of same were hindered when it vanished from my office (guilty parties unknown), so some of the larger locations, which I had left until last due to their size, I never got to copy, and so are now lost to me. The remainder I have donated to the Signalling Record Society, and this one, for Gloster's benefit, is just one example of same.