LOCO LOAD LIMITS

Trains, diesel, electric or srteam which fail in section are an operational nightmare. There was the infamous Exeter fiasco and recently a Black 5 stalling on a train near Pool. There was much discussion rgarding the load which was being hauled.

Reading old books and magazines reference is often made to load limits. The Midland was a railway which had strict limits a loco was allowed to take before assistance was required, probably essential with their small engine policy.

When steam was in regular use there must have been line load tables e.g between A & B a class 5 can take X tons. What happened to these type of tables. Did they get into Railwayana collections or simply disapeared. Perhaps the loadings limits would give rise to short trains which would not return a profit.

I used Pool station ocasionaly back in 60s and from memory 6 bogies was the usual train consist, probably a fixed set. This would be joined by 6 attached at Bournemouth Central which had started at West. Thus on a normal day only a light load would be taken up the bank out of Pool.

Does anyone out there have a copy of these load tables?

 

Load limits are still used for train planning purposes.
Especially for Engineering trains.
I used to submit Ballast train requests and found that some of them got returned due to being Overweight for the route or too long for run rounds.
Managed to get hold of a list of routes and weight limits which solved that problem for me at least.
Do not have that list now though, but it was aimed at 37, 56, 60 and 66 haulage.

 

That's what I gather from the owner's comments elsewhere.