Theory of General Minories

[Nearholmer]

Morden.

 

Its a Minories-Plus, in that the track layout allows more parallel arrival-departure combinations, which you can see better here  

 

Also, rather strangely, the fiddle-yard is at the wrong end.

 

 

Edited August 18, 2023 by Nearholmer

[RJS1977]

I don't recognise that station, but obviously it's one I've been to.

 

Morden?

[Metropolitan H]

Would you also want to model the SR line running through Morden South on the embankment across the buffer stops end of the local big fiddle yard?

 

Regards

Chris H

[Pacific231G]

Mordor's throat is Minories plus but the effect is rather spoiled by it not being an actual terminus as the tracks continue past the station to the car sheds (fiddle yard?) beyond. Mind you, I'm probably biased as the only time I've ever been there, was for a rather dull meeting with the local council. It seemed an awfully long way down the Misery Line and when you got there you were in Morden.

 

I think the closest in overall feel  to a real Minories that I've come across, certainly in London, is Hammersmith on the H&C.

It has a short throat running onto  a viaduct, is surrounded by urban buildings and has three platforms with still a Metropolitan/GWR  steam age feel. 

This was especially so when it had actual loco hauled trains as it it did during Steam on the Met in 2014 (alright it was only one train!) but, with its GWR platform seat and valances, it still holds that impression when it's ony handling modern stock. It even used to have a goods yard (albeit a coal yard)

 

It's a funny thing that while main line termini rarely seem to have just three platforms, they're quite common at UndergrounD termini. Ealing Broadway (District), and High Barnet come immediately to mind though the first lost its Minories like status by abandoning its real station building above and beyond the buffers (were they thinking of extending the line to Greenford Broadway etc?) and High Barnet is just a BLT with tube acretions.

 

Though it would have bu**ered up most of my own commuting journeys, the one I've long fancied was the GWR's planned and authorised (in 1905) terminus at Shepherd's Bush of the Ealing and Shepherd's Bush Extension  Railway. Looking at the site it was planned to occupy with a presumed subway connection to the then terminus of the Central Railway (which at that time was planning to loop south and then back into Central London to the discomfiture of the District Railway) I guess it might have been quite similar to their joint station at Hammersmith but with proper trains with GW locos on the front (OK probably prairie tanks rather than Halls and Castles) terminating there from west of London and maybe further afield. It was reckoned, with the CLR, to give a better connection for commuters and to the W. End than that terminus near Paddington Basin but in the end they decided that connection would be even better on the GWML at Ealing Broadway  so gave the CLR running powers on the E&SB from a connection to its later Wood Lane terminus i.e the Ealig branch of the Central Line. 

Edited August 18, 2023 by Pacific231G

[Peter Kazmierczak]

Billy no mates in the "fiddle yard" at Morden...

[St Enodoc]

50 minutes ago, Pacific231G said:

I think the closest in overall feel  to a real Minories that I've come across, certainly in London, is Hammersmith on the H&C.

Edgware LT?

[RobinofLoxley]

Cockfosters also has three platforms and as I mentioned before, the central platform was often worked as rhs (looking from the ticket office) out lhs in at busy times.  Of course the depot tracks cross the running lines and Ive no memory of the pattern for that; I dont recall a crossover arrangement like Morden for the operating lines.

[Clive Mortimore]

11 hours ago, Pacific231G said:

 

I think the closest in overall feel  to a real Minories that I've come across, certainly in London, is Hammersmith on the H&C.

Hi David

 

How about Liverpool Street Metropolitan Station when it still had its bay platform?

[Pacific231G]

5 hours ago, Clive Mortimore said:

Hi David

 

How about Liverpool Street Metropolitan Station when it still had its bay platform?

Hi Clive

Hmm, for me a true Minories needs to end with buffers and use CJF's neat crossover arrangement (though other arrangements can have a Minories feel- like Hammersmith) So, as far as I'm concerned, Tom Cunnington's Minories (GN) is no longer a true Minories in its current format with through platforms and goods trains charging through. It's still a perfectly good layout but only when it's exhibited as a terminus (which I understand it still can be)  is it properly Minories.

Despite the fourth platform and its three way point this (Geoff Pitt's Horn Lane LT) to my mind IS a true Minories

and about the only situaton where using small radius points for the characteristic throat doesn't look silly (the whole point of CJF's neat crossover arrangement being to avoid immediate reverse curves an advantage that gets lost when the points are too small relative to the length of coaches.)

Edited August 19, 2023 by Pacific231G

[Nearholmer]

I think Clive is making a quip about CJF’s original inspiration for Minories, which was …….

[Pacific231G]

On 19/08/2023 at 16:47, Nearholmer said:

I think Clive is making a quip about CJF’s original inspiration for Minories, which was …….

Yes, sort of. I think watching things at Liverpool St. Met (while waiting for trains?) provided CJF's inspiration for the turnover loco schema (Also used by Geoff Pitt on Horn Lane though only on one platform AFAIK) but it was some later doodling that led to the particular crossover arrangement.

Edited August 22, 2023 by Pacific231G

[Clive Mortimore]

Hi David

 

Had I not moved to where I could build a bigger layout and finished Sheffield Exchange Mk1 it might have been in the running for a true Minories type layout.

 

[simon b]

2 hours ago, Clive Mortimore said:

Hi David

 

Had I not moved to where I could build a bigger layout and finished Sheffield Exchange Mk1 it might have been in the running for a true Minories type layout.

 

 

I remember following the progress on SE mk1, had the makings of a fabulously grotty urban terminus. The design of the throat pointwork being a great space saver.

[roythebus1]

Remember Hammersmith was built dual-gauge and operated by the GWR from opening day as the Met didn't have any stock at the time! There was also the "bypass" station of Grove Road across the road which branched off the West London Line just north of Olympia , done a U turn diving under shepherds Bush Road, under the Met on the site of the bus garage at Wells Road, and up hill alongside the Met before curving west onto the disused viaduct you see west of Hammersmith District/Picc station, then on to Gunnersbury and Richmond!  That line closed in about 1913, but may make an interesting model brought up to date or in the steam era.

[Rugd1022]

On 19/08/2023 at 00:01, Pacific231G said:

Mordor's throat is Minories plus but the effect is rather spoiled by it not being an actual terminus as the tracks continue past the station to the car sheds (fiddle yard?) beyond. Mind you, I'm probably biased as the only time I've ever been there, was for a rather dull meeting with the local council. It seemed an awfully long way down the Misery Line and when you got there you were in Morden.

 

I think the closest in overall feel  to a real Minories that I've come across, certainly in London, is Hammersmith on the H&C.

It has a short throat running onto  a viaduct, is surrounded by urban buildings and has three platforms with still a Metropolitan/GWR  steam age feel. 

This was especially so when it had actual loco hauled trains as it it did during Steam on the Met in 2014 (alright it was only one train!) but, with its GWR platform seat and valances, it still holds that impression when it's ony handling modern stock. It even used to have a goods yard (albeit a coal yard)

 

It's a funny thing that while main line termini rarely seem to have just three platforms, they're quite common at UndergrounD termini. Ealing Broadway (District), and High Barnet come immediately to mind though the first lost its Minories like status by abandoning its real station building above and beyond the buffers (were they thinking of extending the line to Greenford Broadway etc?) and High Barnet is just a BLT with tube acretions.

 

Though it would have bu**ered up most of my own commuting journeys, the one I've long fancied was the GWR's planned and authorised (in 1905) terminus at Shepherd's Bush of the Ealing and Shepherd's Bush Extension  Railway. Looking at the site it was planned to occupy with a presumed subway connection to the then terminus of the Central Railway (which at that time was planning to loop south and then back into Central London to the discomfiture of the District Railway) I guess it might have been quite similar to their joint station at Hammersmith but with proper trains with GW locos on the front (OK probably prairie tanks rather than Halls and Castles) terminating there from west of London and maybe further afield. It was reckoned, with the CLR, to give a better connection for commuters and to the W. End than that terminus near Paddington Basin but in the end they decided that connection would be even better on the GWML at Ealing Broadway  so gave the CLR running powers on the E&SB from a connection to its later Wood Lane terminus i.e the Ealig branch of the Central Line. 

 

When I lived in Cromwell Avenue in Hammersmith from '83 to '85 I used to travel from this lovely old station  to Paddington most days en route to Old Oak (catching the workabus from Padd) and often thought about pilfering the track layout for a WR themed 'overspill terminus' set in the early '70s with Class 22s. Westerns, Hymeks and Warships working in and out on passenger and parcels traffic. It never came to anything but I reckon it could still make for a decent layout, in any scale. In my parallel WR universe it would have been connected with the West London line with a triangular junction allowing traffic to come down from Padd and off the Southern as via Latchmere Junction etc. 

Edited August 20, 2023 by Rugd1022

[roythebus1]

There was indeed traffic from the south, with services from Ludgate Hill via Latchmere, the WLL and the Grove Road line to Richmond and Hounslow, but these avoided the Met/GW station. but there were double junctions both ways between Goldhawk Road and Hammersmith, never say never.

 

[ruggedpeak]

On 18/08/2023 at 21:56, Nearholmer said:

Morden.

 

Its a Minories-Plus, in that the track layout allows more parallel arrival-departure combinations, which you can see better here  

 

Also, rather strangely, the fiddle-yard is at the wrong end.

 

 

Not sure if relevant, but Stratford LUL Jubilee line station has the same track layout as Morden but with different platform format more akin to Minories. The entry to the West Ham depot is just beyond the road bridge (alongside Stratford High Street DLR), not far from the end of the platforms. The light brown lines to the right are the DLR.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Lacathedrale]

As my Minories++ lumbers slowly onwards I took a picture of the throat to illustrate the timbering I've added back in and thought it would be prudent to share in this thread too:

 

 

I've always thought that the throat could be compacted down with the use of a single slip instead of two turnouts back-to-back (in the top-right of the picture) so that's what I did - but the bones of Cyril's plan are very much in evidence! Time will tell how interesting the layout is to operate. Layout build link is in my signature.

Edited September 16, 2023 by Lacathedrale

[tom s]

Slowly making progress on Minigate, after an initial flurry of assembly. Track is all glued down apart from the loco spur which will have an ashpit added to it before attaching. The 2 gaps in the platforms are where I plan to have some coin shaped magnets sliding to do uncoupling. The adjacent platforms were kept as close together as possible to follow how near the underground platforms at Moorgate were.
The 
The bright blue check rail is not glued down as it was printed 0.5mm too tall! I modelled the boards and trackwork in Blender to assist in 3D printing extra details such as some extended check rails to break up uniformity, a fake catchpoint, the missing sleepers... 
It was also used to plan out the point rodding with the switches and levers. It is probably a bit overkill but should allow for all the dowels to be uniformly spaced on the front, without using some kind of flexible rod.


Another thing I modelled and printed was a roller for the platform brickwork, to get the short alternating side-front-side-front arranged bricks in the right 0.6mm heights. A 50:50 mix of standard Milliput and generic Greenstuff was used, a couple of coffee stirrers glued to an offcut of wood being used to get it uniform thickness, and some cellotape to get the piece off after the bricks were rolled into it.
A lot of the layout will feature brickwork so I am encouraged by these results, although I need to change the depth of the pressing parts to get it more even!

Some of the brickwork around Moorgate (bottom) and Liverpool Street nearby (top)


Slowly edging forward every few weekends...

Edited September 30, 2023 by tom s

[Matloughe]

I really enjoy this thread, its a wealth of knowledge - and it takes me back because one of the first layouts I ever built (after the track on board oval) was actually a Minories layout.

I designed and built the boards, with softwood and MDF tops and figured out the hinging arrangements etc - I was very pleased with myself:

 

It progressed well enough, but I was injured at work and made redundant because of the said injury so I couldn't actually lift the layout to use it - so in frustration I allowed it to be dismantled and the wood re-used. But I often look back and thing about remaking it - possibly in N.

It was on here for a while, called Bishops Park - it was 8 feet long by 1 foot wide - Peco Code 100 throughout and using Insulfrog points, so I hadn't quite left the 'train set' mentality behind but it did work surprisingly well with few stoppages if I remember correctly. I did cheat and have an extra crossover between the two main platforms so I could push back and run-around a shorter train. 1960's BR (S) was the order of the day with steam & electric stock.

This is the last photo I took, I spent ages sorting out the third rail using Peco individulay components and then ballasting over the top!

I'd definately do it again... I just don't know if 00 is the way forwards or not.
I do still have most of the stock though so who knows!

I look forwards to seeing others projects - I hope my old humble attempt at Minories fits in here and adds to the flavour of it all. And who knows - I might plan a replacement for Bishops Park with some inspiration.

Kind Regards,

Gary

 

 

 

[Lacathedrale]

That's really lovely @Matloughe - particularly the shot with the Bulleid Pacific in there. I think the cropped look works very well, and rossover aside your resistance to adding 'just a bit more' is admirable.

 

I've got quite a large Minories++ sitting in my garage which is at the moment mostly unloved - a combination of disparate coupling types, the need for DCC (and lack of funds for it), etc. all mean it's laying in quiet repose for now.

 

Maybe it is a character flaw in me - but part of me thinks I should've gone N/2mmFS (and is my knee-jerk suggestion to you). I reckon those people who denigrate 2mm and 3mm as too small while modelling in 4mm themselves have their calibration of "what is too small?" off by at least an order of magnitude - IMO if you're going to go small (i.e. >Gauge 0) then you may as well go for the smallest practical rather than a halfway compromise. 

 

This is a somewhat rambling diatribe - but to bring it back around - if you pull back and look at the wood, rather than the tree then 00 and N are effectively the same choice and occupy adjacent slots on a much wider spectrum of scratch-building, model engineering, kit building, motorised toys, etc. and personally, I reckon I'd have had no less fun or enjoyment with my layout in N than I have done in 00 in a quarter of the space. I am my own proof that RTR stock (my own justification for 4mm at the time) is not the biggest obstacle in getting a finished layout together, even if it does help in those early stages.

 

EDIT: I should add that many people in the 2mmFS world are using high quality XPS foam or foamcore with a thin ply shell to keep things from being stove in, instead of softwood/MDF - maybe a good option if your strength and mobility are more limited?

Edited October 10, 2023 by Lacathedrale

[Pacific231G]

3 hours ago, Lacathedrale said:

..That's really lovely @Matloughe - particularly the shot with the Bulleid Pacific in there. I think the cropped look works very well, and rossover aside your resistance to adding 'just a bit more' is admirable.....

I reckon those people who denigrate 2mm and 3mm as too small while modelling in 4mm themselves have their calibration of "what is too small?" off by at least an order of magnitude - IMO if you're going to go small (i.e. >Gauge 0) then you may as well go for the smallest practical rather than a halfway compromise. 

 

This is a somewhat rambling diatribe - but to bring it back around - if you pull back and look at the wood, rather than the tree then 00 and N are effectively the same choice and occupy adjacent slots on a much wider spectrum of scratch-building, model engineering, kit building, motorised toys, etc. and personally, I reckon I'd have had no less fun or enjoyment with my layout in N than I have done in 00 in a quarter of the space

 

It's good to see Bishop's Park again as the photos of it from the earlier years of this thread were  lost

An interesting reflection but I do perceive 00/H0 (and TT) very differently from N. I think though that how you describe them may be how it looked to 0 gauge modellers in the 1920s - A R Walkley came up with a 2mm scale layout not that long after his 3.5mm scale proof of concept "00 Portable Goods Yard" in 1926.

 

However, this does seem to be a matter of personal perception. Personally, I model in H0 but find TT just about large enough and would use it if my choice of prototype (late steam era France) was adequately supported. N scale, even though it  does support that choice, is just too small for me to feel any relationship with the railway I'm modelling.

 

This clearly is going to be different for each individual but I've seen several 2mm scale layouts that I've really admired in photographs but which have left me cold when seen in a single glance in the flesh but I've almost never experienced that with larger scales . I also have friends with N scale layouts that I've operated at exhibtions but again, though they were very well modelled, and one is based on a line I particularly like, I just felt even when operating that I was seeing them from afar and didn't feel engaged with them. I don't feel that way with H0 or 00 and, when I had TT-3 as a youngster, didn't feel that way either but I always have with N or Z.

This has caused me something of a dilemma - which I've mentioned here before- I want to build a French MLT based more or less on Minories  and could easily do so in the space available in N but, in H0, the space is just not quite enough for the five coach trains which are the minimum I find credible as main line expresses. A few years ago at Ally Pally there was a Minories anniversary with I think one 0 scale example (Littleton - the former Newford which I had previously operated), two in 4mm scale and one each in 3mm scale and 2mm scale or N so it was possible to compare them. I found all of them engaging except the 2mm scale example even though it was a very well modelled layout. 

 

For some reason I've also always found the "intermediate" scales to have advantages with TT enjoying the virtues of both N and H0/00 (not so cramped in a smallish space as H0/00 but large enough to have presence as individual models) and S scale the benefits of both 0 and 00/H0.

Edited October 10, 2023 by Pacific231G

[Nearholmer]

This business of whether one can or can’t relate to particular scales is interesting.
 

I gradually went up the scales from H0e to 16mm/ft when I was modelling narrow gauge, always able to relate to the scale I was working in at any time, and now find it virtually impossible to relate to the smaller scales except at the level of admiring individual items as pieces of jewellery (I now think of H0e locos as the sort of earrings that some very out-there women wear). This isn’t about struggling to work with tiny component, although I now do, it’s that I can’t get a narrative going in my head about this being a real railway. 0 standard gauge I can relate to, whether it be coarse or fine, but H0, 00 etc I also struggle with a bit ….. it’s annoying, because I’d actually like to build a Minories, or something else compact, in 4mm scale, but every time I approach it, I find that I can’t get the suspension of disbelief to work, I just see the trains as small plastic things!

 

(Hidden confession in there: I’ve never built a Minories, despite how much I blather on about the concept. I’ve never even actually finished a 4mm standard gauge layout, having abandoned a few 00 and one EM at various stages. To save face a bit, I will mention that I finished what I thought was a very good H0 American layout.)

[Lacathedrale]

@Nearholmer I have blamed you already for my dalliance with Old Fashioned Gauge 0 and one of the most striking things was how much more railway like it was - the combination of sound (motor), momentum, weight, inertia, size, etc. all combined to make it much more like a train than the 00 equivalent - but I'm not sure if it was more railwaylike. 

[Pacific231G]

18 hours ago, Lacathedrale said:

@Nearholmer I have blamed you already for my dalliance with Old Fashioned Gauge 0 and one of the most striking things was how much more railway like it was - the combination of sound (motor), momentum, weight, inertia, size, etc. all combined to make it much more like a train than the 00 equivalent - but I'm not sure if it was more railwaylike. 

In that sense, I found that Brian Thomas' "Newford" did feel very railway like with plenty of weight and momentum and, when operating,  you felt the trains passing in front of you .

apart from the addition of a stock siding between the platform faces and turning the loco spur into a parcels road. Brian followed the original CJF plan very closely with all six main points (so not the additonal points to access the siding), which were 66 inch radius using Peco components, on a single six foot by 20 inch baseboard with the platfoms, including the concourse and station building, on two four foot long baseboards.

What photographs don't show is that in 0 gauge the fact that there was almost nothing beyond the railway fence seemed to matter less than in a smaller scale. Even without the overbridge scenic break of Cyril Freezer's original plan,  the four coach trains it was capable of handling simply didn't seem as short as in 00.  Newford could handle a four coach loco-hauled train, though AFAIR there were no five car electric sets, but I totally believed when running a single 4BEL set into the platform that it was the full Brighton Belle. 

I do think this is all to do with how much the eye takes in at a single glance and sort of wonder if this explains why scenery became far more of a thing with the smaller scales. A twenty inch wide baseboard fills the visual field in a way that the same scene ten inch wide in 00 or H0  doesn't and, though I like Tom Cunnington's EM Minories (GN), which followed CJF's plan as closely as possible, it doesn't work for me quite as well as Newford did.

The difference of "presences" is not though apparent in photos.

Having said earlier that it didn't engage me, it only seems fair to offer another clip of "Hallam Town" to emphasise that this is no reflection on Alan Whitehouse's very fine modelling but only on my response to its scale.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZDbrX8mfB4

this was it at Ally Pally in 2017 though my photo doesn't do it justice

 

Edited October 11, 2023 by Pacific231G
grammar