Pushing a train for a distance prototypical?

Snape article

I remember the article in the Railway Modeller in around 1958-60. It had good photos of the Snape branch in action and the Maltings with a view to modelling it. Not seen any of the pics on the internet. Never forgot the article and would love to see it again.

itareus said:

David,

As far as I know it was not normal UK practice to propel a train long distances - basically since the rule of thumb was that it had to be done very slowly. Propelling in 'station limits' was a different matter - but still slow!

I had a quick look on the net to see if I could verify this and came across a thread on a model railway forum.

http://www.newrailwaymodellers.co.uk/Forums/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=19390

See posts by "beamends" - he seems to know what he is talking about. I did not come across any further information about (steam era) propelling moves with the brief search.

There will always be exceptions that prove the rule!

Chris

Click to expand...

Cming back to this thread after some time ...

I am currenbtly engaged in reproducing (to some extent) the maltings at Snape, with a view to a small route/layout. My buildings are based on an article by Bob Barlow in Model Railways, June 1984, which in turn used buildings from Snape and Long Melford (Suffolk). The aim is to create typical module buildings which can be asembled in different ways to create maltings of different sizes - some were huge. So far, three buildings have been made - two long, straight ones and a corner section - with at least three more to do before publication.

I've thought about using them on a layout with both visible and invisible track - visible for wagons and a shunting tractor when pushing them, invisible to link these tracks to enable the tractor to move from one to another. One problem to be solved - making a suitable shunting tractor! The problems with horse propulsion would be too great, I fear.

Ray