Mechanical Marshalling of Railway Wagons in Works Sidings

Abstract

The methods employed for the movement of railway wagons in works sidings have changed very little in 50 years, probably because appliances lending themselves to mechanization were not available. Locomotives, capstans, and winches are unsuitable for combination under centralized or automatic control, owing to their need for men on the locomotives and also on the sidings to handle towing ropes and to work the wagon brakes. Free-running gradients have, owing to the greatly varying running characteristics of wagons, been too uncertain to give sufficiently consistent results.

In recent years a number of new appliances for the remote propulsion, braking, and general control of wagon movements have been developed, suitable for employment separately or in combination according to the needs of the problem. The new devices may be broadly classified as mules, track brakes, arresters, traversers, and remotely controlled locomotives.

The development of these devices has made possible, and in fact has brought about, new techniques and simpler systems of sidings layout, with economy in cost and great economy in space occupied. In this paper, these recent developments are first described separately, and examples are then given showing how they can be, and have been, applied in combination under centralized control.

Wagon marshalling as dealt with by this paper means the remote control or automatic control of a succession of wagon movements in works sidings without the need for application of the wagon brakes at any stage. The main railway marshalling yards are excluded from this review as the problems are, in their case, different.