Bristol Barrow Road. The Fishponds Banker 4F 43875.

[barrowroad]

I have been meaning to test out the consist mode on my NCE system for a while and after a bit of practice I have managed to take this video of 4F 43875 moving out of the banker siding at Engine Shed sidings to buffer up to the rear of my rake of Devonian Mk1's, headed by Patriot 45506 'The Royal Pioneer Corps', before tackling the 1 in 60 Fishponds bank. The banker will drop off near Fishponds station before returning to it's siding to await the next train.
All eleven coach trains stopped at a disc marker by the coaling tower to await the banker.

[bécasse]

Wouldn't the two locos have exchanged crow whistles before moving off in tandem?

[barrowroad]

Yes I believe so but once the controller is in 'consist mode' I only managed to operate the whistle on the Patriot - as heard when it pulls away from alongside the coaling plant. If anyone knows how to do both please let me know. I could have operated the 4F whistle when it buffered up but forgot.
I then switched to consist mode. Operating the controller and camera at the same time can prove interesting.

[Suddaby]

Hi Robin,

I've been following your layout with interest, you certainly get a good standard of running on it, as evidenced by this video.

With regard to "consisting" for banking, I'm not really sure that is the way to go for that particular operation. I think consisting is more to enable multiple locos or dmu's to run in tandem, as they would in the prototype with one driver. Banking however involves 2 locos working independently together, if that makes any sense. That means there are 2 drivers (crews) working together, so they should both have control of their own engine. It also means that when the banker drops off the back someone has control of it independently of the main loco. I believe this should also apply to traditional double heading in steam days.
On Leeds City North, we use consisting a lot when 2 or even 3 dmu's are coupled together to form one service, Unfortunately we don't have any need for banking, and so far have avoided double heading, even if it is an essentially Midland layout.
I wonder what others think about this???

All the best, please keep the reports coming,

Kevin

[barrowroad]

Hi Kevin,

Thanks for your comments regarding consisting. I can see the benefit of operating the banker with a second operator but it's not that easy balancing the speed of both locomotives when I am operating solo hence the trial with consisting. Too much speed/power at the rear can cause derailment of the coaches - no doubt as on the prototype - been there done that. At least with consisting I can drive both locos using one controller.

Robin

[jim s-w]

Good stuff

What was the procedure for getting the banker back to the start point? Did it run back wrong line or was there some shuffling involved? I dont see any facing points?

[barrowroad]

Hi Jim,

The banker dropped off the train at Fishponds station on the prototype - the storage sidings on the layout. It then returned correct line to stop alongside Engine Shed sidings signal box. The signalman then set the crossover on the single slip to allow the engine to cross to to Up line. The single slip crossover was then reset and the siding turnout set allowing the banker engine to return to the siding.
I might post a video later.

Robin

[barrowroad]

Latest Oscar nomination............
'The return of the Fishponds Banker'

[triumph3]

Robin,
Nice to some prototype operation and a banker in P4. DCC makes this possible using Consist, so well done.
How many trains were banked past the station on a daily basis?
We all tend to think of banking as a rare occurrence, with the Lickey being the best example, but all over the rail network banking engines put in long shifts, I know in the Birmingham area there was a banker for freight trains and on the trans Pennine line there was a banker for freights at Copy Pit.

David

[jim s-w]

Thanks Robin

Thats kinda what i thought would happen based on the track layout.

Plenty of it went on around Brum. Trains from Saltley heading over the camp hill line were still banked in the 80s. In the 50s they would often couple 2 trains together on this stretch and then bank it to save a path. There was also banking at old hill on the Stourbridge line and of course Hatton. Although being GWR i think they might have added locos to the front not pushed from the back.

[Noel]

There was also banking at old hill on the Stourbridge line and of course Hatton. Although being GWR i think they might have added locos to the front not pushed from the back.

There is a photo in Chris Leigh's "Western Steam in Colour" p57 taken at Old Hill in 1964, which shows a large prairie, 4172, working bunker first banking, according to the caption, a freight from Wolverhampton headed by 9F 92118.

When I was a teenager in Torquay in the mid-1960s, there were always at least two bankers working Torquay to just beyond Torre on summer Saturday holiday passenger trains, banking uncoupled and returning wrong line to Torre. If needed, Newton Abbot provided pilots for passenger trains on the Plymouth line, which worked through to Plymouth, but freights were banked to Dainton, collecting the banker in the goods loop at Aller Junction, and were then banked again from Totnes.

[John Donnelly]

On the EM gauge version of South Pelaw, we bank the iron ore trains up the hill to Consett and have found that, even when driving solo, it is easier to use two controllers but, of course, to each his own...

[Winander]

Latest Oscar nomination............
'The return of the Fishponds Banker'

Gets my vote , thanks for taking the trouble to make these and share them with us.

[Terry Bendall]

We all tend to think of banking as a rare occurrence,

Some of the best known examples of banking of trains in the staem era are of course on the West Coast main line at Shap and Bettock but out of interest I looked up via the web and there are examples in a lot of other places. On the West Coast line banking locos were available at Oxenholme and Tebay. For trains needing assistance at both Grayrigg and Shap the assisting loco was coupled to the front of the train at Oxenholme but for Shap the banker came on the rear at Tebay.

I had gained the impression that the banking loco came up to the train from the rear and caught up and pushed so I was surprised that in the video the train came to a stand so some further checking was needed. Since Bettock was on the Caledonian main line I looked out my copy of Operating the Caldonian Railway written by Jim Summers of this parish to check what was actually done there. It seems than in LNWR days that was the practice at Tebay until the time the train engine failed suddenly and there was a collision. The Caley practice (and elsewhere) appears to have varied over the years and with different locations but coupling was often used, including the use of a slip coupling operated by a rope from the footplate of the banking loco.

For the modeller of course the challenge is to get the operating practice correct for the period and location we are modelling and then find a way of replicating it with a track layout and the correct signalling togther with whatever control system we choose to use.

Terry Bendall

[John Donnelly]

I had gained the impression that the banking loco came up to the train from the rear and caught up and pushed so I was surprised that in the video the train came to a stand so some further checking was needed.

On the Consett Iron Ore trains, the train came to a halt before the banking loco was coupled to the rear. When the train approached Consett and the banker was no longer needed it was uncoupled whilst still on the move.

[allanferguson]

There were individual rules covering every situation, but I think that in most cases with passenger trains the banker had to be attached. One such was the Cowlairs Bank out of Queen St in Glasgow where all trains were banked. The bankers were equipped with slip couplings so the train wouldn't have to stop at the top. I once went up the bank in an observation car attached (of course) at the rear of the train. When we got to the top there were frantic tuggings on the slip coupling rope, but it didn't work. We stopped pretty smartly and the coupling was undone manually. I have wondered whether there was an instruction requiring train drivers to look behind to check that the banker was detached. Would that have been signalled as "Train running away on right line"?

Allan F

[bécasse]

Would that have been signalled as "Train running away on right line"?

"Stop and examine" I strongly suspect, although in practice a box might well have time to throw its starting signal back depending on the layout.

[John Palmer]

A ruling gradient of 1 in 50 on both sides of the climb to the Mendip summit at Masbury required the employment of assisting engines on many trains, 3-car local sets probably being the principal exception.

From Radstock, southbound freight trains would be banked in rear, the bank engine dropping off at the summit and returning bang road to Binegar, a practice made possible by the assisting engine picking up a bank engine staff at Binegar by means of the Whitaker apparatus. The staff was interlocked with the block to prevent admission of a further train to the section before the staff's return.

The Radstock bankers were coupled to the trains they were assisting, and conventionally the hook required for uncoupling the banker whilst in motion was slung from the grabrail on the smokebox door. Straightforward enough for the guard to retrieve this in order to carry out the uncoupling manouevre if his van's veranda was immediately adjacent to the end of the underframe, but I have sometimes wondered how inconvenient the practice became when extended brake van underframes left the veranda well short of the vehicle end – e.g. the LNER/BR Toad D design or the Southern's Pillbox. Perhaps Bath was under instruction to marshal a suitable brake at the rear?

<Edited to add that there are enough shots of banked southbound freights with Pillbox or BR Standard brake vans to suggest that there was no such marshalling instruction, but leaving open the question of how the banker would be uncoupled from these brake vans - unless, if such a van was encountered, the practice was to leave the banker uncoupled from the train.>

[barrowroad]

Robin,

How many trains were banked past the station on a daily basis?

David

David,

Looking at the timetables around eight passenger, three parcels and five freights although the latter started from the ex Midland St. Philips freight depot. Locals to Gloucester, Birmingham New Street and Bath Green Park where lightly loaded and didn't require a banker.