Theory of General Minories

[Pacific231G]

14 hours ago, Lacathedrale said:

I know we spoke about this before, but I've completely lost track of what page in the thread it was - for the minimum stock requirements for a steam-hauled minories? If I remember correctly the conversation broadly went that:

 

1) Suburban trains would most likely dominate in real life, but being similar in look and organiation could be represented by a couple of loco + coach sets

2) A posh 'chairman's' train

3) A couple of regional trains (cheap and fast, and a prestigious one)

4) (part of?) a named express with top link stock

5) A goods loco and some NPCS: newspaper vans, horseboxes, carriage trucks, etc.

 

Is that about right?

 

 

That looks like a good and achievable range of trains and seems not disimilar to the services at Danstercivicman's  Birmingham Hope Street (Dan's a topic that started in December 2016 is well worth looking through again) based on an imagined but well thought through GCR spur into Brum. It was Dan's layout complete with fully worked out timetable and shorter than Bradfield Gloucester Square that really inspired me to look again at actually building a Minories inspired layout. (I was about to buy the timber for baseboards but am now in Tier 4)   

 

What you actually run obviously depends on length, taste and era. and what if any goods facilities you decide to add to the basic scheme.

If you're happy to focus on suburban trains serving a great city (e.g. London, Birmingham, as in Moor Street or Glasgow) then even the original short version of Minories is absolutely fine as proved in EM by Tom Cunnington and colleagues' Minories (GN) or Geoff Ashhdown's Tower Pier (not exactly Minories but operationally equivalent and only two metres long plus fiddle)

 

Unfortunately, pure suburban services don't really float my boat nor yours by the sound of it. Most of the passenger stockl I want to run is main line and includes posh stock like CIWL sleepers, dining cars and even a Pullman that would look daft on my rural BLT. 

For those, the range of trains you suggest is pretty close and I think my equivalent of your 'Chairman's' train would be an occasional special train, including my DZH sleeping car, bringing delegates to an international conference .

 

The four main line coaches plus a four wheel brake van I can just about squeeze in is a bit short for a Grand Express so I'm looking at a situation that I don't think was all that common in Britain where a "city" station- possibly the original terminus of a main line that went on to become longer-  is a spur off a longer principal main line (possibly said main line's original terminus) whose route took it a bit too far into the outskirts. That gives me an excuse for it being rather short with only sections- the most interesting sections naturally- of principal expresses using it along with local trains and complete but short cross country trains. 

 

There were termini a bit like that in Biarritz (until 1980) and Boulogne (next to the fish quay ! until 1963) and still are in Tours and Orleans. None of them were/are actually that short but a tight urban environment has good scope for view blocking with overbridges and foreground buildings to hide just how short the trains really are .

 

Plymouth Millbay was a bit like the situation I'm describing, though I think more a reversing terminus for trains going on to Cornwall, and for a short time Oxford's original and long forgotten terminus close to Folly Bridge had a junction, that I think may have been a triangle, near Hinksey with the lines built later to Worcester and Banbury.   Had the University forced those lines to be built a bit further west you might have had a very interesting albeit inconvenient) situation. Oxford also came within shouting distance of having a Metropolitan Railway/GC  terminus near Magdalen Bridge. Services from there in competition with the GWR  would have been interesting.

 

Edited December 21, 2020 by Pacific231G

[Lacathedrale]

I've read in many places that for uneven numbers are very effective at making something seem both natural and more numerous (vis-a-vis scenic components in a diorama)  - I can definitely see that just comparing four and five-coach sets. In the below shot I've put together our notional rakes of NPCS, four and six wheelers and pre-group bogie coaches and all looks train-like in my opinion:

 

 

This is in 1/64 rather than 1/76 or 1/152 so is a little unusual in terms of space-occupied.  The only real functional change is the inclusion of an outer track for running around goods for shunting into the headshunt area.  I probably wouldn't build this in to the first phase of construction, but oriented such that there is capacity to add it if desired at a later date. Beyond that, the only other amendment is a stylistic one, the use of a double slip rather than back to back regular turnouts - doens't really save any space but I like them.

 

I guess the challenge of a layout like this in pre-group is that unless you're modelling in 4mm, there's just SO MUCH scratchbuilding! I guess both Buckingham and Maybank both just took that in their stride!

 

I did make a version of Minories which fairly closely matches the pre-WW1 'greatest hits' from Holborn Viaduct, i.e. the Belle Sauvage yard, the street underneath and cab ramp, the wooden platform extension, the carriage dock, the signalbox on stilts over the met. extension as a view break and the loco shed and watertank. The 1874 plan had no runarounds, so very Minories-alike :

 

I used the same cheat as last time by using a double-slip instead of a single slip, but rather than a goods headshunt, there's a threeway (here symmetrical, in reality probably asymmetrical) for a 2+2 platform arrangement.

Edited December 20, 2020 by Lacathedrale

[Flying Pig]

1 hour ago, Lacathedrale said:

I used the same cheat as last time by using a double-slip instead of a single slip,

 

What does using a double rather than single slip gain you in these plans? It appears only to create a duplicate route out of the topmost platform that blocks arrivals.  Note that by compressing the throat with a slip you reintroduce some of the reverse curves that CJF avoided in the original Minories, though that may be of less importance if you are using more acute crossings in the pointwork.

 

That said, I do like the Holborn Viaduct-inspired plan.  There was another such recently - possibly in the signalling forum I think but set in a much more recent period.   I think the pre-group station has more character.

[t-b-g]

2 minutes ago, Flying Pig said:

 

What does using a double rather than single slip gain you in these plans? It appears only to create a duplicate route out of the topmost platform that blocks arrivals.  Note that by compressing the throat with a slip you reintroduce some of the reverse curves that CJF avoided in the original Minories, though that may be of less importance if you are using more acute crossings in the pointwork.

 

That said, I do like the Holborn Viaduct-inspired plan.  There was another such recently - possibly in the signalling forum I think but set in a much more recent period.   I think the pre-group station has more character.

 

I can see some merit in replacing 4 short points if you can do it with 3 longer, larger radius ones. That would minimise problems with reverse curves and look better.

 

Somehow a station with a slip and a tandem 3 way looks more imposing than one made up from standard LH and RH points, which is a bonus too.

[Lacathedrale]

Simon, that may well have been my forum - it's a topic that I've been doing lots of research over (that is, the prototype station) but come to realise that in my desired scale/gauge/era combinations just totally impractical as a verbatim copy of the real world, so a Minories-alike will have to do

 

As for duplicate routes, I'm not sure - in the S-scale plan there's an additional line at the bottom which isn't on the normal plan, while it may give that impression -  in the N-scale/2mm plan, the routes are exactly as per the original, aren't they? I think the only S-curve which is added back in is from the up main into the platform adjacent where the train is depicted - but with as you said, acute (#8) turnouts maybe make this less of a problem.

 

Aesthetically I like the use of the double slip, but in N it may be better to keep things slightly more straightforward?

 

Edited December 20, 2020 by Lacathedrale

[Flying Pig]

1 hour ago, t-b-g said:

Somehow a station with a slip and a tandem 3 way looks more imposing than one made up from standard LH and RH points, which is a bonus too.

 

I completely agree, but it only needs,to be a single slip.

 

1 hour ago, Lacathedrale said:

As for duplicate routes, I'm not sure - in the S-scale plan there's an additional line at the bottom which isn't on the normal plan,

 

What I was alluding to is that a single slip (with the slip road at the bottom on the plans) will give all the connectivity that's needed.  Using a double slip merely duplicates the route out of the topmost platform, but in a way that blocks arrivals.   The same route notionally exists in the standard Minories throat, via the back to back points, but again it blocks arrivals and probably wouldn't be a signalled route in real life.

 

Two points and a single slip is actually quite a common compactification of Minories and has cropped up several times before on this and similar threads.

[t-b-g]

1 hour ago, Flying Pig said:

 

I completely agree, but it only needs,to be a single slip.

 

 

What I was alluding to is that a single slip (with the slip road at the bottom on the plans) will give all the connectivity that's needed.  Using a double slip merely duplicates the route out of the topmost platform, but in a way that blocks arrivals.   The same route notionally exists in the standard Minories throat, via the back to back points, but again it blocks arrivals and probably wouldn't be a signalled route in real life.

 

Two points and a single slip is actually quite a common compactification of Minories and has cropped up several times before on this and similar threads.

 

I may have missed your point (bad trackwork pun!). I thought you were querying what advantage a slip gave over two points and the answer is just the length.

 

You are quite right. A single slip there is all that is needed and would look more realistic in that position. The real railway would be unlikely to add the complication, signalling, interlocking etc. of a double for no operational gain.

[RJS1977]

At one time it used to be cheaper to buy a double slip than a single slip, however Peco appear to have resolved that anomaly now.

Edited December 20, 2020 by RJS1977

[Pacific231G]

8 hours ago, Lacathedrale said:

I've read in many places that for uneven numbers are very effective at making something seem both natural and more numerous (vis-a-vis scenic components in a diorama)  - I can definitely see that just comparing four and five-coach sets.

 

That is a very good point William and perhaps quite significant in making a layout satisfying.  It is borne out by research and, though most commonly applied to the rule of three, does seem to hold for five and seven. Certainly, when putting together title or film sequences I always found that three or five shots worked far better than four and that applied to script writing as well. The psychological explanation seems to be that the asymmetry of odd numbers forces us to look for a pattern and the extra attention that requires makes things more interesting. Even numbers create symmetry but odd numbers create interest.

It's perhaps not insignificant that Alan Wright's classic Inglenook sidings uses siding lengths of  five, three and three wagons and I've found that shunting a five wagon goods train is far more interesting than four but six wagons doesn't add anything like as much extra interest over five. Three cars also always seemed far more "right" for a DMU than  two or four. The two car unit that operates on my local branch does just seem a bit too short to be a proper train.

At the moment I'm frustrated at not quite, by a matters of a foot, or so having room for five coach trains in my current Minories based plan. A five coach train isn't in theory much more of a grand express  than one with four coaches but the extra coach does seem to make a far more significant difference than that between five and six coaches. I think this may be because we see at a glance that a train has four coaches but it takes a moment longer to see five.  In principle the locomotive should bring the number to five but somehow that doesn't seem to work so I think we separate that into a different category.  Using view blockers so that only three carriages can be seen at a time may provide an answer.

 

I wonder if  having three platform faces rather than four also makes Minories more pleasing? Layout plans for main line termini by the likes of Edward Beal always seemed to have four platforms and they somehow always seemed a bit dull. I thought that was because they were based on two island platforms but I think the symmetry may have had something to do with it.

Edited December 21, 2020 by Pacific231G

[woodenhead]

4 minutes ago, Pacific231G said:

At the moment I'm frustrated at not quite, by a matters of a foot, having room for five coach trains in my current Minories based plan. A five coach train isn't in theory much more of a grand express  than one with four coaches but the extra coach does seem to make a far more significant difference than that between five and six coaches. I think this may be because we see at a glance that a trian has four coaches but it takes a moment longer to see five.  In principle the locomotive should bring the number to five but somehow that doesn't seem to work so I think we separate that into a different category.  Using view blockers so that only three carriages can be seen at a time may provide an answer.

 

 

Trains with odd numbers of carriages have a definite centre whereas even numbers mean the train is split in half by a connection.  I agree with your view that a 5 coach train looks more of an express than a four coach train and the smaller a DMU the less it looks like a train.

[St Enodoc]

2 hours ago, Pacific231G said:

I think this may be because we see at a glance that a train has four coaches but it takes a moment longer to see five.

I've held that opinion ever since I was a schoolboy but never known why. Good to see that someone else shares it (even if neither of us knows why!).

[Keith Addenbrooke]

10 hours ago, Pacific231G said:

That is a very good point William and perhaps quite significant in making a layout satisfying.  It is borne out by research and, though most commonly applied to the rule of three, does seem to hold for five and seven. Certainly, when putting together title or film sequences I always found that three or five shots worked far better than four and that applied to script writing as well. The psychological explanation seems to be that the asymmetry of odd numbers forces us to look for a pattern and the extra attention that requires makes things more interesting. Even numbers create symmetry but odd numbers create interest.

It's perhaps not insignificant that Alan Wright's classic Inglenook sidings uses siding lengths of  five, three and three wagons and I've found that shunting a five wagon goods train is far more interesting than four but six wagons doesn't add anything like as much extra interest over five. Three cars also always seemed far more "right" for a DMU than  two or four. The two car unit that operates on my local branch does just seem a bit too short to be a proper train.

At the moment I'm frustrated at not quite, by a matters of a foot, or so having room for five coach trains in my current Minories based plan. A five coach train isn't in theory much more of a grand express  than one with four coaches but the extra coach does seem to make a far more significant difference than that between five and six coaches. I think this may be because we see at a glance that a train has four coaches but it takes a moment longer to see five.  In principle the locomotive should bring the number to five but somehow that doesn't seem to work so I think we separate that into a different category.  Using view blockers so that only three carriages can be seen at a time may provide an answer.

 

I wonder if  having three platform faces rather than four also makes Minories more pleasing? Layout plans for main line termini by the likes of Edward Beal always seemed to have four platforms and they somehow always seemed a bit dull. I thought that was because they were based on two island platforms but I think the symmetry may have had something to do with it.

Really interesting - it probably explains why I prefer to run a three coach train to a four coach train: appears totally counterintuitive, but maybe this is the explanation (I’m talking about secondary routes, not mainlines).  I did once have a five-coach set, and I agree it looked much more like an express than a four coach set I also had.

[t-b-g]

The main express on Buckingham has 5 carriages and a couple of others have 4, (One is sometimes 3 when the slip coach is detached).

 

The 2 shorter suburban trains of 6 wheelers have 4 and 5 carriages. 

 

People are quite right.

 

The ones with the odd numbers of carriages are more pleasing to the eye.

 

It doesn't have to be carriages either. Adding a horse box to the 4 coach train of  6 wheelers makes it look much better!

 

 

[Lacathedrale]

This thread still giving nuggets of wisdom 77 pages later, huh?

 

With regard to layout size, it would appear that TT is a perfect fit in terms of being a tabletop terminus, and obviously N/2mm make things very easy. In 4mm the bifold-across-platform-ends is also seen as a realistic option. In S and O however, the pointwork ends up being larger than the suggested maximum board size. By my calculations about 5' as a bare minimum from heel to toe across the formation, and about 5'6" with a reasonable lead-in either side of the pointwork.

 

Below shows S-scale:

 

S7 is even worse, with about 8' of continuous overlapping pointwork:

 

I think I can see one spot where you might split the formation as drawn, here:

 

The timbers aren't adjusted at all, they would be full length across the formation - so a pair of solid block of copper clad PCB runners either side of the joint could keep things in adjustment - but it's four rail joins in quite a crucial spot -  would that even work? It would bisect the length to permit a pair of reasonably sized boards. It might even be worth rotating the whole formation to make that joint perpendicular rather than angled?

 

Edited December 21, 2020 by Lacathedrale

[Pacific231G]

1 hour ago, Keith Addenbrooke said:

Really interesting - it probably explains why I prefer to run a three coach train to a four coach train: appears totally counterintuitive, but maybe this is the explanation (I’m talking about secondary routes, not mainlines).  I did once have a five-coach set, and I agree it looked much more like an express than a four coach set I also had.

This is proving to be something of a revelation.  Unfortunately it also makes me think that if I do build my planned Minories based layout which, in the room avaialable would only be long enough to take a four coach train , I may never be happy with it. This apparently aesthetic question may explain why I've found it so difficult to accept that and its been bugging me for years while I got on with other layouts.

 

Certainly, on my existing branch line layout I always seem to put together goods trains  five wagons long, passenger trains always seem better with three four wheel carriages though two would be prefectly prototypical and mixed trains generally have a single carriage plus three or five wagons. Five wagons plus a carriage involves some tricky shunting as it's longer than the run round but I never seem to put four on -which would fit.

 

Maybe it is time to look again at a single track throat perhaps something not a million miles from E.A.Beet's O gauge layout from 1948 . 

 

 

Note the five coach express and the three coaches  plus a couple of vans in the bay.

 

I've thought that a layout in which a departing train passes over two or three sets of points then promptly disappears into the fiddle yard would be a bit silly and not "urban" enough whereas Minories' four point throat does seem a credible run out over main line looking pointwork. Does being able to run a five coach "express" trump that?  I'm not sure but having laid out my modified Minories it might now, while we're all locked down here in London, be worth using the battered ol code 100 points to try it out.

 

I'm also looking again at Giles Barnabe's Puerto Paseo, an On30 layout that I've enjoyed operating several times. That has a single track throat with a kickback line to the "docks" three plattform faces and a two track goods yard. As with Minories there are no run rounds. Could a plan loosely based on this become a convincing  terminus at some imaginary French resort and port.

 

 

 

Edited December 21, 2020 by Pacific231G
further thoughts

[Lacathedrale]

Certainly the use of  additional approaches leading in from off-scene, as well as the use of arrival-only and departure-only platforms is a great stimulus for creativity.

 

Looking at the original 1874 Holborn Viaduct plan it was really quite bizarre in that respect:

 

And zoomed into the throat:

 

This isn't an artistic license, this is the chief engineer responsible for construction!

 

The bottom platform (no. 1) is arrival only, xcept by wrong-line running up to the next station on the line and using a crossover there.

The next platform (no. 2) is departure only, but the only way to shunt to it is via the other higher numbered platforms and is equipped with a carriage dock

Nos. 3, 4 and 5 are bidirectional, No 3 having a bizarelly obtuse crossover onto the engine shed ashpit.

No 6. is departure only

Neither the engine shed or pilot siding can access platform 1 except by running up to the next station on the line and using a crossover there.

 

[t-b-g]

My new "mini minories" has only a two point long throat but I have used really long points and I prefer that to four small radius points but each of us has our own ideas as to what looks good to us.

 

I can just see a 5 carriage train of Clerestory stock with a Midland 2-4-0 or a Single on the front gently snaking through the crossover in my minds eye and I have no concerns at using the imagination to create more trackwork, including access to a large goods facility and a junction to a passing double track line  just off scene.

 

Many real stations, especially those approached through a restriction like a bridge or a tunnel, often had complex pointwork to save length between the restriction and the platform so if I was going for the full Minories, I would be very happy with the single slip to make it a three point approach.

 

Does the visual appeal of odd numbers extend to trackwork too?

[Zomboid]

Personally I found a 4 vehicle train to be very pleasing, but that was a BSK, CK, BSK, CCT formation, so only the 3 passenger carriages, and the CCT having 4 wheels and being a lot shorter than the carriages broke up any symmetry.

 

A single track approach is clearly not Minories in any form, but you could still have a fairly significant "urban" station with that. It just needs to be in a part of the world where long single line routes are found. I don't know about France, but it's certainly something you'd expect in Ireland, parts of Scotland, Scandinavia and the far reaches of the LSWR and GWR. It doesn't really scream suburban, but a medium sized town that has a portion from the main express.

 

Limerick for example is a fairly grand station at the end of 3 single track approaches. And Galway and Sligo are along similar lines.

[Lacathedrale]

Zomboid, do you have any more info about Sligo? I can't find much online and that's where my mother's family is from.

 

Just an addendum to the Holborn Viaduct plan above, it was clearly not fit for requirements as the next available plan (albeit 20 years later) shows a crossover between 1 and 2 to make them both bidirectional, and the amendment of the final turnout on the down main into a slip connecting to the up main - so all the other platforms are also bidirectional. And the removal of that bizarre diagonal route to the ash pit.

[KingEdwardII]

29 minutes ago, Zomboid said:

A single track approach is clearly not Minories in any form, but you could still have a fairly significant "urban" station with that.

 

Indeed. Aberystwyth until the Beeching axe in the 1960s was a substantial 5 platform terminus serving 2 single lines - most certainly qualifying as "the far reaches of the GWR"! Summer services were quite extensive, given the holiday resort nature of the place.

 

Mike.

[Clive Mortimore]

14 hours ago, woodenhead said:

Trains with odd numbers of carriages have a definite centre whereas even numbers mean the train is split in half by a connection.  I agree with your view that a 5 coach train looks more of an express than a four coach train and the smaller a DMU the less it looks like a train.

Hi Woody

 

I run six coach ordinary passenger trains and to me they look like proper suburban trains shifting a lot of bodies in one go. I also run shorter ones at less busy times. My express trains are also six coach, sometimes seven, more fitting for the cross-country nature of the services that emanate from Sheffield Exchange.

 

As for DMUs, an eight coach train snaking across the point work.......lovely.

[Pacific231G]

3 hours ago, Zomboid said:

Personally I found a 4 vehicle train to be very pleasing, but that was a BSK, CK, BSK, CCT formation, so only the 3 passenger carriages, and the CCT having 4 wheels and being a lot shorter than the carriages broke up any symmetry.

 

A single track approach is clearly not Minories in any form, but you could still have a fairly significant "urban" station with that. It just needs to be in a part of the world where long single line routes are found. I don't know about France, but it's certainly something you'd expect in Ireland, parts of Scotland, Scandinavia and the far reaches of the LSWR and GWR. It doesn't really scream suburban, but a medium sized town that has a portion from the main express.

 

Limerick for example is a fairly grand station at the end of 3 single track approaches. And Galway and Sligo are along similar lines.

There were and are plenty of single track termini in France including many handling expresses and even TGVs. The catch for me is that they were normally quite spread out and the usual scenic breaks of overbridges etc. just woudn't look convincing. They were also generally quite self contained with loco sheds and carriage sidings very much on site. Urban termini seem to have almost invariably been double track and a lot of the single track termini came from what were branch lines gaining a fairly heavy "resort" traffic as more people started to take holidays. 

[Lacathedrale]

 I think when you > four large bogie coaches that have prototypical hallmarks the effect (or lack thereof) of the odd-numbers-as-pleasing effect is over-awed.

 

What about Bournemouth West - no runarounds , just a scissors and a turnout leading to each platform road.

https://maps.nls.uk/view/106011336

 

if you strip out the goods yard and carriage siding either side, it seems very utilitarian indeed!

[Flying Pig]

3 hours ago, Lacathedrale said:

What about Bournemouth West

 

Signal plan here.  The early incarnation as the terminus of a single line from Poole is interesting.

[john new]

Modern Weymouth drops from the double track main approach, including points off the UP line for the Jubilee Sidings. The final section including the junction for the Harbour stub is a short bi-directional single track approach section over the last 100-200 yards or so. Then it re splits and feeds into three platforms. Loco release crossover no longer used.

 

link to my image - 

 

Edited December 21, 2020 by john new
Corrected a factual error and added the photo.