Is Minories operationally satisfying?

[kevinlms]

3 minutes ago, Blackvault said:

 

 It does beg the question what does platform 3 offer?  I will most likely have a goods arrival line below P3 and fan out the sidings into the space in front of the curve. 

 

Platform 3 gives an extra platform to use rather than just 2. It is of course impossible to have a mainline departure from P3, while a train is arriving at P1 or P2, as there is a conflict at the lower white dot, between the crossovers.

 

If the service is light (off peak), you could run all services from P1, it's only at busier times, you need to bring P2 into play and when really busy (peak), then you bring in P3. You could swap P2 & P3 around as both are operationally identical.

[Blackvault]

4 hours ago, kevinlms said:

Platform 3 gives an extra platform to use rather than just 2. It is of course impossible to have a mainline departure from P3, while a train is arriving at P1 or P2, as there is a conflict at the lower white dot, between the crossovers.

 

If the service is light (off peak), you could run all services from P1, it's only at busier times, you need to bring P2 into play and when really busy (peak), then you bring in P3. You could swap P2 & P3 around as both are operationally identical.

 

Thanks for the advice and following this, I've built these templates (red arriving/green departing) to represent the didn't stages of the day.  Knowing what I know now about minorities I don't think I'll get any engagements.  

 

[RJS1977]

5 hours ago, Blackvault said:

 

I've taken your suggestion of moving the loco spur to a more traditional place on the outbound tracks close to Platform 1.  I assume that a replacement loco, would travel as far as the last point before the outbound curve, and back down through the ladder to either Platforms 2 or 3, thus blocking arrivals, but at least allowing a departure from P1. 

 

Thanks for setting me straight, for some unknown reason thought that Minories allowed simultaneous arrival and departures on all platforms, rather than just 1 and 2. It does beg the question what does platform 3 offer?  I will most likely have a goods arrival line below P3 and fan out the sidings into the space in front of the curve. 

 

 

It is of course also possible to have a train arriving in 3 as a train departs from 1 (since 3 forks from 2).

 

If you want a train to be able to arrive in 3 whilst one departs from 2, you need a LH point where the "new" point is in the above plan, but facing the opposite way, creating a parallel line that connects on to the inbound line just beyond the trailing crossover.

[Harlequin]

22 hours ago, Pacific231G said:

I've heard this said before Harlequin but never understood why it would significantly change the station's operation. You surely have three platform faces all able to handle both arrivals and departures and all directly connected, by a pair of crossovers, to both sides of a double track main line. Unless you're operating with separate arrival and departure platforms I see no reason why the handedness would affect that unless there is a convention that the final crossover outbound should be  a trailing one. The double crossover could just as easily be a scissors crossover in which case it would be symmetrical but operationally equivalent. 

 

 

 

It affects the simultaneous moves that are possible. For example, in classic Minories with the outer crossover trailing and the subsequent crossover(s) facing:

Arriving trains can enter P2 or P3 while another is leaving P1. And note that departing trains from P2 & P3 need to use that outer crossover so departing moves from P2 and P3 block inbound moves to P1.

 

When the plan is mirrored (without changing handedness of the running lines), the outer crossover becomes facing and so inbound moves to P2 and P3 block outbound moves from P1. But note that now outbound moves from P2 and P3 can't block inbound moves to P1.

 

 

I guess in general, for any trackplan with directional in/out lines, simply mirroring it will invert the matrix of possible in/out simultaneous moves.

 

Edited July 2 by Harlequin

[RobinofLoxley]

14 hours ago, RJS1977 said:

 

It is of course also possible to have a train arriving in 3 as a train departs from 1 (since 3 forks from 2).

 

If you want a train to be able to arrive in 3 whilst one departs from 2, you need a LH point where the "new" point is in the above plan, but facing the opposite way, creating a parallel line that connects on to the inbound line just beyond the trailing crossover.

This can also be done using a slip in the position shown. The gap shown in Anyrail is real and would have to be fixed using short lengths of rail soldered to either turnout. In my opinion its neater to avoid the third track section in this position. Whether CJF would have wanted a slip in his formation I have no idea.

Edited July 2 by RobinofLoxley

[Pacific231G]

2 hours ago, Harlequin said:

 

It affects the simultaneous moves that are possible. For example, in classic Minories with the outer crossover trailing and the subsequent crossover(s) facing:

Arriving trains can enter P2 or P3 while another is leaving P1. And note that departing trains from P2 & P3 need to use that outer crossover so departing moves from P2 and P3 block inbound moves to P1.

 

When the plan is mirrored (without changing handedness of the running lines), the outer crossover becomes facing and so inbound moves to P2 and P3 block outbound moves from P1. But note that now outbound moves from P2 and P3 can't block inbound moves to P1.

 

 

I guess in general, for any trackplan with directional in/out lines, simply mirroring it will invert the matrix of possible in/out simultaneous moves.

 

Thanks Harlequin

As I assumed, mirroring Minories changes the balance of inbound and outbound movements but overall, the total number of possible parallel movements remains the same. If that wasn't so it would be a violation of symmetry (and we'd have to revise much of modern physics! 🤔) 

The main disadvantage I see of mirroring Minories is that my favoured idea of extending the loco spur to form a departures only bay that can also or perhaps primarily be used for parcels, mail or sleepers etc. while still providing somewhere for a pilot loco to lurk, without the shunting of it blocking inbound traffic to 2 & 3, wouldn't work. That's seeing a Minories like terminus as more of a general terminus than an intensively worked "Bastille" like operation.

Despite my well known fascination with Paris-Bastille (which I missed seeing in operation by a few months and about which I've published articles for CM, RMF and the FRS Journal). I wouldn't want to model it as it would be more or less identical trains hauled by identical locos (Est 131TBs then latterly 141TBs with push-pull stock) making the same repetitive moves. 

[Jeremy Cumberland]

Personally I reckon the loco spur in the original Minories is something of a red herring. If you are using all three platforms for an intensive service and doing turnarounds on every train, then a single loco spur isn't really enough since you can't match locomotives to types of train. A better solution in my opinion is to assume a loco servicing facility (perhaps just a couple of sidings with water) immediately beyond the bridge/scenic break on the departure side.

 

The main loco servicing ought to be on the departure side, but if you have this, then you might also have a loco spur on the arrival side, specifically for platform 3 (and maybe platform 2 as well). In terms of prototype, this is how Moorgate Widened Lines worked in all its guises up to the final one, with each platform having its own loco spur. In the model, it means that when you have a train about to arrive in platform 1, which ordinarily would be something of a dead period if you are more or less following prototypical practice, you can have a light engine movement in or out of platform 3.

 

Of course, a lot depends on what sort of operation you intend to run. How intensive do you want the service to be? Can you control more than one train simultaneously? Are all the trains the same or are they different (perhaps different operating companies, à la Moorgate Widened Lines, or Aldgate in steam days? What signalling do you assume for incoming trains (or perhaps you will ignore this entirely)? Then there are questions about goods, parcels, sleepers and other exotic services that I personally don't associate with Minories (fit in a cattle dock, why don't you). Are there carriage sidings, on or off-scene?

[Clive Mortimore]

2 hours ago, Pacific231G said:

Despite my well known fascination with Paris-Bastille (which I missed seeing in operation by a few months and about which I've published articles for CM, RMF and the FRS Journal). I wouldn't want to model it as it would be more or less identical trains hauled by identical locos (Est 131TBs then latterly 141TBs with push-pull stock) making the same repetitive moves. 

Hi David

 

Surely the repetitive type of train and locomotives are typical of all intensive suburban railways. As often cited the GNR and Midland trains into Moorgate, N2s with Quad-arts and Fowler class 3 tanks LMS non-gangway coaches. Only to be replaced with Brush type 2s with BR non-gangway coaches and Cravens 105s with Cravens 112s or later Derby 116s on the MR services, and ended up with only MR service formed of 317s.

[Dr Gerbil-Fritters]

33 minutes ago, Jeremy Cumberland said:

Personally I reckon the loco spur in the original Minories is something of a red herring. If you are using all three platforms for an intensive service and doing turnarounds on every train, then a single loco spur isn't really enough since you can't match locomotives to types of train. A better solution in my opinion is to assume a loco servicing facility (perhaps just a couple of sidings with water) immediately beyond the bridge/scenic break on the departure side.

 

I think that CJF had planned for that, thinking of the terminus as just one part of a set of modules which taken together deal with most of the issues caused by trying to warp Minories (ther terminus) to do things it can't within its restricted arrangements.

 

 

[Oldddudders]

50 minutes ago, Clive Mortimore said:

Surely the repetitive type of train and locomotives are typical of all intensive suburban railways. 

Precisely, Clive. Minories was conceived as a sort of mini-Fenchurch St, with rush-hour trains in a hurly-burly. If that sort of rinse-and-repeat operation appeals, it is a great layout, as no doubt are some of the more exotic developments in this thread. 

 

Having operated 1:1 London City Termini in the morning and evening peaks (Cannon St, Charing Cross, London Bridge Central), both from the signalbox and the station control room, the activity is intense and any perturbation can knacker things very quickly. But the sense of satisfaction when it all ran well was rather nice, too. Any intending Minories owner would need to be sure he'd get an equivalent buzz from running his own peak service, otherwise a more trad BLT, with wider facilities, and the infinitely greater variety of trains it could offer, might be a better choice. 

[woodenhead]

39 minutes ago, Oldddudders said:

otherwise a more trad BLT, with wider facilities, and the infinitely greater variety of trains it could offer, might be a better choice. 

A BLT with a choice of loco and a couple of ageing coaches doing a diagram plus 1 pick up goods a day.

 

Minories to me can be expanded to more than just an inner city terminus, it can represent many towns that saw trains from multiple locations even companies (pre-grouping).  The the loco spur becomes the shunter's siding between moving carriages from one platform to another to release the arriving loco to go away to off scene servicing facilities.

Edited July 2 by woodenhead
I should be able to spell Ageing at my age!!

[t-b-g]

Minories doesn't have to be identical trains performing identical moves all the time.

 

You could have an early morning newspaper train, or short sets of main line stock which works to a junction and gets attached to longer express trains.

 

In West Yorkshire, you could see tank locos working two or three car portions of Pullman trains.

 

To me, there are several opportunities to do different types of moves and the variety that gives makes a layout far more interesting than just repeating the same move again and again.

 

A regular suburban type service, with more intensive "rush hours" could be interspersed with longer distance trains, involving tender locos. These need to go to the fiddle yard (to the loco shed for turning and servicing). The pilot can work ECS to and from off scene carriage sidings. A pick up freight can deliver a coal wagon to the loco spur.

 

You just need to use a little imagination and it helps that you are modelling a fictional place, so you are not constrained by the "That never ran there" that you get if you want to build a model of a real place and work it as it was worked in real life.

 

Edit to add that I am fully in favour of the idea of different pre-grouping companies using the same station. Mine will have MR, GNR and GCR services. All of which ran in the area I am modelling.      

Edited July 2 by t-b-g
To add content

[Mike Buckner]

2 hours ago, woodenhead said:

I should be able to spell Ageing at my age!!

 

That's a bit ageist !

 

 

[Pacific231G]

4 hours ago, Clive Mortimore said:

Hi David

 

Surely the repetitive type of train and locomotives are typical of all intensive suburban railways. As often cited the GNR and Midland trains into Moorgate, N2s with Quad-arts and Fowler class 3 tanks LMS non-gangway coaches. Only to be replaced with Brush type 2s with BR non-gangway coaches and Cravens 105s with Cravens 112s or later Derby 116s on the MR services, and ended up with only MR service formed of 317s.

Indeed Clive, which is why such a layout operated as a pure commuter terminus wouldn't be my choice. In his original RM plan of the month article, CJF even suggested attaching it to a balloon loop since the trains would all be much the same anyway (originally, the Jinty and suburban coaches in Tri-ang's first TT-3 release) so a lone operator would have all the challenges of operating an intense suburban turnover service without needing to fiddle around with the fiddle yard.

I think my answer to the OP's question is that Minories can, as Tom suggests, be very operationally satisfying IF one adds something to the basic commuter terminus concept.

 

Tom Cunnington did let me operate his "Minories (GN)", which is a "pure" Minories, for a couple of cycles (with someone else on the traverser fiddle yard) at the LT Museum at a time when there weren't too many public around and it was an interesting challenge but I wouldn't have wanted to operate it for several hours. I did also get to operate Brian Thomas' 0 scale Southern Electric "Newford" for about half a day at Watford Fine Scale but I did tend to run the daily loco hauled parcels train rather more often among the EMUs than was strictly prototypical. It was that which convinced my that I'd want to add something (probably goods) to the basic plan and operate it in a way that involved more shunting (qv Fort William old)

However, there is more that can be got out such a terminus, even as a suburban "city" operation than immediately obvious as this movements sheet from the late Geoff Ashdown's "Tower Pier", operationally equivalent to Minories, shows.

Tower Pier was (and hopefully still is as I understand that Geoff's friends have taken it on) one of those layouts, like Borchester Market or Bradfield Gloucester Road, that could hold my attention for an hour or so at exhibitions. and is one of my personal favourites.  Geoff did though add a goods operation to Tower Pier with a separate shunting yard for the line supposedly going down to St. Catherine's dock and he operated it strictly prototypically with proper bell codes and block instruments which added enormously to the experience of watching, and I assume operating, it while the "cavalcade of trains" merchants just walked on!

 

Edited July 2 by Pacific231G

[Pacific231G]

On 01/07/2024 at 12:17, Blackvault said:

It is indeed normal left-hand British running. I thought the design was classic Minories, but maybe not. Should P3 be accessible when P1 is accepting or departing? How would I fix the issue in the track plan? 

 

I'm happy to take this to the correct thread if needed. Thanks 

Hi Blackvault,

I wouldn't get too hung up on the need for parallel moves with any two platforms. I've shown how it can be added to Minories but I've just been examining actual trackplans for Birmingham Moor Street (at various dates), which was about as busy a three platform suburban terminus as you could wish for and, while you can have parallel arrivals and departures with platform 3 and either of the others, you can't with platform 1 and 2. That is exactly the same situation as Minories so the routes through its approach are probably sufficient.   The same was and is true for Hammersmith (H&C).

With just three platforms (and those examples and others show that you can have  a credible three platform city commuter terminus) I don't think the total rate of trains would ever get high enough to necessitate complete parallelism whereas the number of trains handled by a five platform terminus  like Bastille might. 

FWIW, this was idealised scheme for a suburban inner terminus that the Est's traffic engineers (who rationalised Bastille) came up with to enable parallel inbound and outbound moves between any two platforms.

 

 

Edited July 2 by Pacific231G

[St Enodoc]

5 hours ago, Pacific231G said:

FWIW, this was idealised scheme for a suburban inner terminus that the Est's traffic engineers (who rationalised Bastille) came up with to enable parallel inbound and outbound moves between any two platforms.

I've highlighted "any" above because I don't think that's quite true. It only works if the timetable follows the strict "flighting" methodology as shown for Bastille. For example, you still can't have a simultaneous arrival at track I and departure for any other track.

 

The general rule seems to be that you can only have a simultaneous departure from track [X] and arrival at track [>X].

[Pacific231G]

On 03/07/2024 at 00:21, St Enodoc said:

I've highlighted "any" above because I don't think that's quite true. It only works if the timetable follows the strict "flighting" methodology as shown for Bastille. For example, you still can't have a simultaneous arrival at track I and departure for any other track.

 

The general rule seems to be that you can only have a simultaneous departure from track [X] and arrival at track [>X].

 

That is true and I should perhaps have said parallel moves involving any pair of platforms. For left hand running, It only works if a train arrives at any  higher numbered platform than a simultaneous departure (reading from left to right looking from the buffers) but, if trains have to cross one another's paths, then one of them will have to be held.  You don't though have to adopt the strict "flighting" in platform order of Bastille's revised 1925 timetable though, to maximise flow rate, that was probably the most efficient way of doing it. It also had the advantage that trains stopping at particular stations along the route (with some stopping short) would always depart from the same platform thus speeding the flow of commuters through a very cramped concourse.

 

Bastille was though something of a special case as it was operating virtually identical trains serving a single route hauled by one class of Prairie tank locos specifically developed for that line so completely interchangeable.   A more mixed economy  of local, semi fast and long distance trains would be far more complicated as trains would need different dwell and turn round times. Some would require a quick clean on the platform while others could be sent ECS to the carriage sidings for servicing as soon as they'd unloaded while others might need vehicles such as parcels or milk to be detached. 

 

i assume  that the complications of arriving and departing trains conflicting,  with fairly basic signalling, was one reason why early railways adopted separate arrivals and departures platforms.

 

Bastille was originally like that with an arrivals platform and one (possibly two) departure platforms either side of the train shed with a couple of carriage sidings between them and a couple more in a secondary shed alongside the departures side. However, it quickly got too busy for that so was soon changed to a five platform layout occupying both sheds (one with a roof notably grander than the other)

Sadly, nobody took much notice of Bastille, a scruffy commuter station, until a few years before it closed. It was only noticed, photographed and filmed by enthusiasts when it became one of the last bastions of steam and mechanical signalling in Paris*. By then though the loco hauled trains had been replaced with push-pull sets with Mikado tank locos cascaded down from other commuter lines that had been electrified. As a result, nobody recorded the  intense ballet of rapid turnover operations that every rush hour involved and it was quite by chance that I got hold of the conference paper describing it.

 

*Bastille was something of a living museum as it was, since the end of the war, going to be replaced by the first line of the Paris RER which used most of its route so was never modernised. That project was though endlessly delayed and didn't open till the end of 1969 which was when Bastille closed.  

Edited July 4 by Pacific231G