Theory of General Minories

[Pacific231G]

6 hours ago, Peter Kazmierczak said:

Clive (and others) make interesting points about turnaround times. 

The pace and tempo of station working in the 1950s/60s is, in many cases, completely different to what we see today. Train frequencies have increased markedly on many lines, and the loss of loco-hauled trains means that today it's basically train arrives / train departs.

Today:
1. Inter-City stuff: Train arrives (might be ECS if earliest of the day), train quickly serviced in platform (cleaned/tanked), then departs. Might be set changes if stuff running late, but basically in and out.

2. Local stuff: Train arrives/train departs.

3. Additional peak hour locals - arrives then off to sdgs until return evening peak.

Yesterday:

1. Express stuff: Departures arrive ECS from sdgs with pilot loco (or just reversed into station by train engine or pilot). Train engine backs on; then away. Arrivals - train engine uncoupled, pilot attached to rear and off to sdgs. Loco the follows to shed or sdgs. Trains later in the day might be serviced in the platform to await later departure - varied from location to location.

2. Local stuff and additional peaks: As per today, but with (depending on size of terminus/local arrangements) loco either running round or fresh loco attached for departure.

3. Parcels traffic: A not inconsiderable flow. Often neglected in model form. The trains would be found in the passenger WTT , rather than the freight one, illustrating their importance.

4. Also usually a pilot engine fussing around (if station large enough), toying with stock.

Note - as always with railways, there would be exceptions and different arrangements depending on local/regional operating procedures.

Edited for typos...
 

 

My experience of operating a pure Minories entirely with EMUs  is that it got very old very quickly and it would have been the same with DMUs. The loco hauled turnover operation is rather more challenging but again, in its pure form,  is a repetitive cycle. I came to the conclusion that I needed more than that for my own layout so concluded that probably the best solution is a reversing terminus (e.g. Fort William, Plymouth Millbay or Littlehampton ) especially those where changes are made to train formations (adding or subtracting vehicles) before they depart along with some goods and parcels operation  (Littlehampton even had a docks branch off it to give added variety.)

 

Though on a smaller scale than the sort of main line terminus we're considering I always rather liked Max Pyrke's Berrow branch where the subsidiary terminus East Brent was in front of the fiddle yard and the operating pattern was, for a fairly simple layout, particularly interesting (you don't of course need to actually model the subsidiary terminus). For a long time though I assumed that Berrow's formula of a branch terminus with a twig  to a second terminus was rather contrived but have since discovered several real world examples  such as Deauville-Trouville for a main line or some of the lines in northern Scotland. This could work particularly well if the terminus is a busy main line one with a branch kicking back from it and possibly  taking through coaches from the main trains along with local  services (Deauville with the branch to Cabourg was like this) . For a Minories equivalent terminus  you could either assume that the junction was a little way up the line (as with Deauville) or treat the double track as two parallel single lines (as at Tulle).

If you can arrange things such that the "fiddle yard" works as storage sidings with all the trains you need for an operating session set up in it so that you don't have to handle them during the session, then hiding them behind a scenic feature is more feasible and this would anyway be far more suitable for one operator operation . Maybank- the great grandfather of all main line terminus to sidings layouts- had a four road motorised traverser hidden beneath a high level MPD so was simply charged with trains before each operating session. Unfortunately, I've never seen exactly what a typical operating sequence consisted of but I'd guess that it started with a couple of sets of coaches parked in the platforms  and four trains loaded onto the traverser. Then the first train would be a down arrival coming from the first siding followed by a departure to the now empty siding moved over one place over to line up with up line (the traverser required a single button push to advance it one place with an automatic alignment) followed by another down train and so on. With locos coming on and off shed and shunting of goods wagons this could give a great deal of operation with the operators (Bill Banwell and Frank Applegate) doing all their work on stage.  

 

NB On your point 3, classifying parcels trains with passenger rather than goods trains seems to have been common internationally. SNCF also classed trains messageries)  alongside passenger trains.  Trains marchandises formed a second main category and machines HLP  (light engines or trains of them) a third. The classification of mixed trains (marchandises voyageurs) was though different from Britain as these were classified as goods trains. Passenger trains could though include a number of suitable goods wagons fitted with passenger as well as goods Westinghouse braking systems)  It all makes for some interesting potential operations.

Edited 11 hours ago by Pacific231G
clarity

[Lacathedrale]

I imagine that a multiple unit oriented ‘Minories would be perfect for a computer control system that you just set then forget, but I imagine as you have testified that being a biological shuttle unit would be terribly dull…

 

[Nearholmer]

And yet, “Ripper Street” was a great layout.

 

Just depends what you’re trying to achieve.

[Lacathedrale]

54 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

And yet, “Ripper Street” was a great layout.

 

Just depends what you’re trying to achieve.

Didn’t say it would be dull to watch, to be clear!

[Nearholmer]

I think operating RS would involve long periods of reminiscing about railways in London at their nadir, interspersed with the odd train movement!
 

If it was sound-fitted, you could have the cooing of pigeons attempting to woo one another, plus the very distant “hum of the city”, with the occasional police/ambulance siren.

[Pacific231G]

1 hour ago, Lacathedrale said:

Didn’t say it would be dull to watch, to be clear!

Indeed not. Anyone who's followed this thread knows of my fascination with Paris Bastille, a very compact and, during the rush hours, hectically busy five platform terminus serving a single commuter line that stayed faithful to steam and mechanical signalling till it closed at the end of 1969. Until push-pull  operation came in its final years it also had an elaborate turnover operation and an incredibly well thought out operating pattern. I would love to have seen it in action and deeply regret not discovering it until about a year after it closed.

In many ways Bastille was a larger version of CJF's conception of Minories as an inner city terminus handling a steady flow of tank-loco hauled suburban trains (an ideal project to use Tri-ang's first TT-3 offering of 3Fs and suburban stock and to break the GWR branch line cliché)

Nevertheless, despite writing several articles about Bastille and its operation, including for the French RMF magazine, I have absolutely no desire to model it.  More or less identical trains hauled by identical locos coming and going in a five-train cycle that simply repeated itself several times during every rush hour with a few paths left empty as things got quieter would simply not appeal to me as a layout to operate.

However, a French enthusiast Daniel Combrexelle who knew the line as a child and who wrote two excellent books about it did build a layout based on a very good model of Bastille. He even fitted DCC to a  small fleet of Hornby-Acho 131TBs  (the Prairie tanks designed for the line that operated it from 1925 until replaced by auto-fitted Mikado tanks in about 1963)

Edited 11 hours ago by Pacific231G

[t-b-g]

The enjoyment of operating a layout is where the fictional approach can score over the accurate modelling of a real prototype.

 

If the real station had a simple repeating pattern of almost identical trains leaving and arriving, a fictionalised version of the same place can have a much greater variety.

 

I have had a visitor playing trains on Buckingham for a big part of the day. The session highlighted the pleasures of working a well thought out sequence at a terminus station. Whenever a train arrives at Buckingham, you have to check carefully with the sequence/timetable as each train is very likely not dealt with in the same way as the preceding one and may not be dealt with in the same way that the same set of carriages was dealt with last time it came into the station. It completely removes any ideas about the moves being repetitive.

 

Sometimes there is a simple loco change and a quick turnaround. Sometimes the stock is shunted to another platform to release the loco. Sometimes the train reverses onto the main line to run round. Sometimes a horse box is added or removed. Sometimes the train is re-marshalled to get the slip coach at the correct end for the return journey. Sometimes the locos go to shed for turning/servicing or to be changed. Sometimes the same loco goes straight back onto the train once it has been released.

 

The possible variations are many and add greatly to the fun of running the layout.

[D9020 Nimbus]

When I first encountered King's Cross in 1971 each of the trains due to depart had a class 31 at the buffer stops — clearly having brought in the empty stock. That sort of thing doesn't happen anymore. When using Newcastle Central in recent (pre-COVID) times I've noticed that terminating trains are, more often than not, cleaned at the platform before they depart once again. If running late, they might not be properly cleaned at all, but the litter would be collected on the move at the start of the return journey.

[woodenhead]

4 hours ago, Pacific231G said:

 

My experience of operating a pure Minories entirely with EMUs  is that it got very old very quickly and it would have been the same with DMUs. The loco hauled turnover operation is rather more challenging but again, in its pure form,  is a repetitive cycle. I came to the conclusion that I needed more than that for my own layout so concluded that probably the best solution is a reversing terminus (e.g. Fort William, Plymouth Millbay or Littlehampton ) especially those where changes are made to train formations (adding or subtracting vehicles) before they depart along with some goods and parcels operation  (Littlehampton even had a docks branch off it to give added variety.)

 

 

During my buying madness I decided it would be fun to play with two eras on my layout and bought a load of cheap Southern EMUs.

 

The excitement wore off very quickly, even with some stabling sidings which meant a little shunting it soon became very tedious.

 

Others of course may be fine with this, everyone has their own wants, needs and desires when it comes to a model railway so I am not putting anyone down, but it didn't work for me.  My current terminal, and the one I will be building soon operates in the 1960s so there is more variety, some loco swaps and some shunting.  I have a lot of DMUs but they reflect the location, but I have a lot more loco hauled services that I would have in a Minories in a modern period.

 

If you were to stretch the location a little and bring it up north for example and set it a couple of years ago, you could add Pendolino, Voyager, Trans Pennine Mk5s plus a wealth of Northern Rail/Welsh and East Midlands units.  Pop it back to the early 2000s and Virgin loco haul trains could be added into the mix sans the Mk5 services.  Take it back to pre 1990 and before DVT and you'd have fun with light engine movements of electrics and diesels onto MK1, Mk2 or Mk3 coaches plus a lot of parcels stock which would need a shunter.  You could even throw in some trans Pennine Mk2 services with Peaks or 47s.

Edited 11 hours ago by woodenhead

[tom s]

One of the draws of Minories for me was the variety of stuff that trundled up it's basis the Widened Lines in the late 50s early 60s. mk 1 suburban & quadart, every pilot scheme type 2 diesel electric, and the n2 and fowler 2-6-2t condenser tanks, cravens units... and back pre grouping the line was served by 3 companies

[Nearholmer]

IMO, there’s a great deal of difference between what makes an interesting railway, and what makes an interesting model railway, and for that reason I’ve never actually completed a layout that was based very closely on a real railway (the one really solid attempt I made only got as far as track-laying, as I gradually fathomed how tedious it would be to operate!), and have gradually departed into the realms of shamelessly rather toy-like layouts, pretty much abandoning any pretence of realism in the process.

 

Narrow gauge railways, which are one of the sorts I really like in reality, are a particular challenge in model form, I think, because most were either glorified conveyor-belts (the industrial ones), or ran very few trains, using very little rolling stock (the common carrier ones). The Ffestiniog in its C19th heyday might just cut it as an operationally interesting model, and maybe Douglas station, but I can’t readily think of anywhere else in Britain or Ireland which was operationally intense enough to work as a model. Yet in reality even a simple “three vee-skips hauled by a lawnmower engine on four bits of angle-iron” industrial is usually utterly fascinating. Documentary models are a bit different, with those the lack of operational intensity is part of the documentation, they aren’t meant to be interesting to play with!

 

The thing is, a lot of what makes a real railway interesting isn’t the movement of trains, it’s the “stage set”, whatever that might be. Rapidly-fading Victorian grandeur in the case of Broad Street, caught so well on Ripper Street; vast skies and distant horizons on an Irish bog railway; rampant weed-growth and scrapyard-challenge track on many industrials; all sorts of different things that constitute “atmosphere”.

[Pacific231G]

41 minutes ago, woodenhead said:

During my buying madness I decided it would be fun to play with two eras on my layout and bought a load of cheap Southern EMUs.

 

The excitement wore off very quickly, even with some stabling sidings which meant a little shunting it soon became very tedious.

 

Others of course may be fine with this, everyone has their own wants, needs and desires when it comes to a model railway so I am not putting anyone down, but it didn't work for me. 

 

The Minories in question was Brian Thomas' excellent 0 gauge Newford (later sold and incorporated into the larger  Littleton layout).

 

I can appreciate, without sharing,  Brian's enthusiasm for Southern Railway Electric stock so what were to me almost identical trains (apart from the Brighton Belle) were a good cross section of the fleet with its  HALs, NOLs, SUBs*etc. I was quite fascinated to watch it at a couple of shows so Brian very generously allowed me to operate if for half a day at Watford Finescale- remembering always to fire the photo flash that imitated sparking from the pick up shoes. Brian did have a loco hauled parcels train and used the loco spur as a small goods road so there was some shunting involved but I did operate parcels services far more frequently than was strictly prototypical. Operating it was really useful as it told me what I would need to add to a basic Minories for a layout of my own. I must also say that the "heft" and presence of his stock in 0 was also quite alluring though that is one rabbit hole I have no intention of going down!

 

*I'm quite sure that the subtle differences between OCEMs (FL and RA)  including Sanitaires , DEVs (Inox & AO), Bacalans, Est and "Bastilles"  etc. would be as meaningless to most of you as the distinctions of Southern Railway EMUs are to me.

Edited 10 hours ago by Pacific231G

[woodenhead]

@Pacific231G And that layout looks attractive right now and I'd love to have a play, but I know I'd become bored.

 

Little secret, I become bored with my own layout too quite easily, perhaps it says more about me and my relationship with model railways than about Minories.

[RobinofLoxley]

The fastest train turnarounds i can recall were from the central platform at Cockfosters, 1960's, train arrives discharged passengers to one side, close doors asap, open doors to departing passengers. Driver waiting, close doors and away. Probably done in less than a minute, rush hours only. No doubt similar at other termini with the same pattern. It was quite remarkable to see.

[2E Sub Shed]

6 hours ago, Pacific231G said:

 

For a Minories equivalent terminus  you could either assume that the junction was a little way up the line (as with Deauville) or treat the double track as two parallel single lines (as at Tulle).

 

Exmouth - Not a Minories, (4 platform faces) but serving two lines,  one to Exeter via Topsham and one to Seaton Junction via Tipton St John.

 

1960's Summer timetable included SO trains from the North via Tipton avoiding Exeter , and an engine shed with limited facilities

 

[Clive Mortimore]

Operating a Minories type layout either all multiple units or all loco hauled or better still mixed is great fun. As I have said before I use to pop out to the garage to do some scenery on Sheffield Exchange Mk1, running one train won't hurt. Next thing I knew the clock would be saying "You were suppose to be in bed an hour ago."

"I'll do the scenery tomorrow." 

 

 

Edited 8 hours ago by Clive Mortimore

[RobinofLoxley]

30 minutes ago, Clive Mortimore said:

Operating a Minories type layout either all multiple units or all loco hauled or better still mixed is great fun. As I have said before I use to pop out to the garage to do some scenery on Sheffield Exchange Mk1, running one train won't hurt. Next thing I knew the clock would be saying "You were suppose to be in bed an hour ago."

"I'll do the scenery tomorrow." 

 

 

First you need to paint the rust onto the headshunt rails

[Clive Mortimore]

1 hour ago, RobinofLoxley said:

First you need to paint the rust onto the headshunt rails

Ah! A slight problem, the layout was dismantled just over 7 years ago and replaced with Sheffield Exchange Mk2 when we moved house. It is a tad bigger than a Minories layout, just as much fun.

 

 

 

[St Enodoc]

7 hours ago, t-b-g said:

The possible variations are many and add greatly to the fun of running the layout.

Not just fun but challenge too (in a good way!).

 

7 hours ago, Pacific231G said:

the photo flash that imitated sparking from the pick up shoes

First done, unless anyone knows better, on Terry Onslow's "Witton" back in the 1980s.