Great Western Railway 44' 6" Rail Panels

By Stuart Hince

Prototype information for standard GWR 44' 6" rail panels and how to apply this
information to Templot plain track templates.

From the beginning of the 20th century, the Great Western Railway adopted a standard rail length of 44½
feet. Bullhead rail weighing 97½ lb per yard was typically used although, after 1921, this was gradually
replaced by 95 lb/yard rail. Beginning in 1929, 60-foot panels were also made available to the Permanent
Way Department, although the shorter lengths remained in widespread use for many more years.

Sleepers were made from heavily creosoted softwood, nominally 10 inches wide and 5 inches deep.
Originally 9 feet in length, these were shortened to 8' 6" starting during the First World War and by the
1930s most of the original, longer sleepers had been replaced. There were typically 18 sleepers per rail
length, although these were not evenly spaced. The gap between adjacent sleepers was adjusted at each
rail joint to provide additional support in this critical area, as shown below.

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These dimensions indicate a gap of just over quarter of an inch (9/32") between adjacent rails and are
those reported by C.J. Allen in Modern British Permanent Way (1915) and reproduced by Jack Slinn in
Great Western Way (1978). It must be noted that in Great Western Branch Line Modelling, Part One by
Stephen Williams, an alternate sleeper spacing is presented and attributed to a series of articles from the
1920s by F.T. Bowler entitled The Great Western Railway Permanent Railway Practice. Unfortunately the
numbers given by Williams in his book do not add up; the cumulative total of the sleeper spacing falling
more than six inches short of the associated rail length.

Additional sleepers were inserted, and the standard spacing reduced accordingly, as circumstances
demanded. For plain track, this might include rail laid on tight curves, on soft formations, at water troughs,
in tunnels, or on bridges and viaducts. A standard pattern for 19 sleepers within a 44' 6" panel is shown
below.

Templot will automatically make these sleeper adjustments for you when generating plain track
templates. By default, the program includes definitions for a variety of rail lengths and sleeper spacing,
but not the 44' 6" panels favoured by the GWR. This is no problem, as Templot also offers the ability to
define custom rail lengths and sleeper spacing—settings which may then be applied to any plain track
template.

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To enter the required information into Templot (as of version 0.78.e), select the following menu options:
real > plain track options > rail lengths and sleeper spacings

For earlier versions (up to 0.74.b) the equivalent menu options are:
geometry > plain track lengths

Next, select any of the six custom slots and click the custom settings button. You may then enter a
meaningful name for your custom settings, the length of the prototype rail in inches, and the spacing
between each pair of sleepers. You start by defining the distance between the end of the rail and the
centreline of the first sleeper, and then the distance to each subsequent sleeper. Entering a distance of 0
tells the program that you have reached the final sleeper; it will then automatically calculate the remaining
distance to the end of the rail.

The values required for 18- and 19-sleeper panels, with a rail length of 44' 6" (534 inches), are shown
below.

18 sleeper panel 19 sleeper panel

Values Length Values Length
Entered Remaining Entered Remaining
custom rail length in full-size INCHES 534.0 44' 6" 534.0 44' 6"
spacing from rail joint to first sleeper 12.375 43' 5 " 12.5 43' 5½"
spacing to next sleeper: number 2 25.875 41' 3¾" 24.5 41' 5"
spacing to next sleeper: number 3 30.5 38' 9¼" 28.75 39' 0¼"
spacing to next sleeper: number 4 30.5 36' 2¾" 28.75 36' 7½"
spacing to next sleeper: number 5 30.5 33' 8¼" 28.75 34' 2¾"
spacing to next sleeper: number 6 30.5 31' 1¾" 28.75 31' 10"
spacing to next sleeper: number 7 30.5 28' 7¼" 28.75 29' 5¼"
spacing to next sleeper: number 8 30.5 26' 0¾" 28.75 27' 0½"
spacing to next sleeper: number 9 30.5 23' 6¼" 28.75 24' 7¾"
spacing to next sleeper: number 10 30.5 20' 11¾" 28.75 22' 3"
spacing to next sleeper: number 11 30.5 18' 5¼" 28.75 19' 10¼"
spacing to next sleeper: number 12 30.5 15' 10¾" 28.75 17' 5½"
spacing to next sleeper: number 13 30.5 13' 4¼" 28.75 15' 0¾"
spacing to next sleeper: number 14 30.5 10' 9¾" 28.75 12' 8"
spacing to next sleeper: number 15 30.5 8' 3¼" 28.75 10' 3¼"
spacing to next sleeper: number 16 30.5 5' 8¾" 28.75 7' 10½"
spacing to next sleeper: number 17 30.5 3' 2¼" 28.75 5' 5¾"
spacing to next sleeper: number 18 25.875 1' 0 " 28.75 3' 1"
spacing to next sleeper: number 19 0 24.5 1' 0½"
spacing to next sleeper: number 20 0

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In the above examples, no allowance has been made for the rail gap. If you want to go to that level of
detail in Templot, you will need to increase the rail length by one expansion gap (about ¼") and extend
the first spacing by half of this amount.

Note also that the templates generated by Templot will strictly be accurate only for straight track. When
track is laid on a curve, the distance covered by the outside rail is necessary greater than that covered by
the inside rail. The GWR maintained the 44' 6" length for the outside rail. Shorter lengths, measuring 44'
3", were also available. When the gap in the inside rail had crept forward 1½ inches relative to that in the
outside rail, a shorter length would be inserted and the excess eliminated. The alignment of rail gaps on
curves was therefore only ±1½ inches. As a result, the gap in the inner rail was not always centered
between two sleepers. This approach reduced the frequency with which rail had to be cut while laying
plain track. Templot, it should be noted, measures the length along the track centreline and always places
the rail gaps directly opposite each other.

Finally, one other interesting GWR track detail: The fishplates attached at the rail gaps were not the same
on either side of the rail. The inner plate typically measured 20 inches long and fitted snugly between the
jaws of the rail chairs on either side, helping to minimize rail-creep. The outer plate (secured using four
fishbolts, nuts on the outside) was some 2 inches shorter, presumably to allow room for driving the
wooden keys that secured the rail in the adjacent chairs.

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