Theory of General Minories

[RJS1977]

I suppose the track spacing is only an issue if you are driving two trains through the station throat at once.

 

As the layout is end-to-end and intended for single person operation it would take a great deal of concentration to be able to drive one train out of the station while another train is coming in. 

 

If you definitely are not going to ever drive more than one train at once, you may be able to get away with the spacing.

[Harlequin]

1 hour ago, RJS1977 said:

I suppose the track spacing is only an issue if you are driving two trains through the station throat at once.

 

As the layout is end-to-end and intended for single person operation it would take a great deal of concentration to be able to drive one train out of the station while another train is coming in. 

 

If you definitely are not going to ever drive more than one train at once, you may be able to get away with the spacing.

This is Minories...

 

Parallel movements should be taken as read because that's what it's designed for.

 

[Pacific231G]

On 31/05/2024 at 14:12, Matloughe said:

So at the weekend just passed I had some free time and started to wishlist what I would like in a new project, I knew I wanted an urban station, and I wanted it to be in broad keeping with my current established LBSCR Pre-Grouping timeperiod and it needed to be fairly small - my existing layout is 80cm x 20cm so positively minute! Then I hit upon a fantastic idea - why not draw up a Minories layout:


So I set out some ground rules and then approached AnyRail, I wanted a train length of A Terrier + 4 Hornby Stroudley coaches, which gave me a measurement of 575mm in length - or the Orange Line on my plan; knowing this was longer than a 2-Car EMU I also measured that up to see the difference and that is the green line on the plan. Lastly the grey line measuring 503mm is the 'straight length'  of the track from the buffers to where it starts to curve.

 

Working from this I knew my woodworking skills weren't great, so I went to the supplier I got my existing boards from and have found out that he supplies 80cm x 30cm boards... hmmm, could I fit a Minories into a total length of 160cm long... as I've done a folding board before so know how to make that work. Using Peco Streamline Short-Radius points (which I have a set from my previous minories layout surprisingly...) the answer is yes! The entire station throad is contained within about 75cm of length on the right-hand board. If you use Medium Radius points it throws the pointwork across the join which isn't ideal.

So I printed the plan out at full-scale and during some down-time at work today I stuck it together to get a 'feel' for how it all fits. Surprisingly it feels rather cramped and I quite like it! The platform Pieces are placeholders from the Hornby Skaledale Range - I will make custom platforms using Scalescenes kits I have - interestingly enough over the past few years I have bought Scalescenes kits of the Station with Overall Roof, Arched Retaining Walls, Plate Girder Bride, Arched Bridge & Platforms... its almost as if subconsiously I was planning to make a Minories layout again!
The medium Grey band across the top of the plan is supposed to represent a street above the station - its only 5cm deep so I think it will be ultra-low relief! The street scene will most likely shrink as invariably the actual model will require slightly more clearance than the precision of a computer design. You can see the track ends under the overall roof - which makes me think of similar stations on the London Underground, like West Brompton, Fulham Broadway, Paddington Praed Street etc. I think I would make the front of the overall roof open between the roof supports so you can 'look inside', but I quite like the cramped feeling of platforms open for a bit then a bridge etc.

 

Next step is to take this plan, plonk some stock on it and get a feel for how it feels.
A mini-LBSCR-Minories!

Kind Regards,
Gary
 

Hi Gary 

I'm not convinced about using two foot radius points (e.g. Peco Streamline small radius) for a Minories throat. The whole point of the plan is to avoid almost all the lurching through buffer locking reverse curves that you get with conventional crossovers when using the far sharper than prototype pointwork that most of us are forced, by lack of space, to use. Minories does instead give more of a snaking movement with a point length of straight track between all but one of the six routes between the three platforms and the two main line tracks. With passenger stock, I found that the movement over even a single two foot radius point to be a lurch. 

I have a box of Peco points that have seen better days so not really suitable for building a layout with, but ideal for trying out formations with real rolling stock. I've tried a number of permutations with this and found that the basic Minories design looks OK with medium (3ft radius) points though you do get apparent buffer locking on the one useparated reverse curve when passing from the inbound line to platform 1 (the non island platform) I did also try it with small radius points and to my eyes it just looked trainset toylike with buffers half way across the next vehicle's buffer beam and in the worst case with the right hand buffer of one vehicle lining up with the opposite buffer of the other. That was with quite long coaches and it might be less unattractive with short pre-grouping coaches 

 

It's obviously up to you what you consider to be visually acceptable and there is an example of a well built Minories layout using small radous points built by Clive Bennett here .

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s6BrN_QFOe4&ab_channel=CliveBennett

I should also say that I've seen Geoof Pitt's Horn Lane a couple of times. His Underground terminus (based on the Underground termini of Ealing Brodway) was essentially Minories with an extra platform and his small radius pointwork looked OK with Underground stock though that doesn't have buffers and the real thing has some very sharp pointwork. 

 

[Matloughe]

7 hours ago, Pacific231G said:

Hi Gary 

I'm not convinced about using two foot radius points (e.g. Peco Streamline small radius) for a Minories throat. The whole point of the plan is to avoid almost all the lurching through buffer locking reverse curves that you get with conventional crossovers when using the far sharper than prototype pointwork that most of us are forced, by lack of space, to use. Minories does instead give more of a snaking movement with a point length of straight track between all but one of the six routes between the three platforms and the two main line tracks. With passenger stock, I found that the movement over even a single two foot radius point to be a lurch. 

 

Hello David,

 

I'm a bit of a limbo at the moment; the Minories idea of using small radius point work was originally a paper excercise to see what I could fit in a similar storage footprint to my current micro layout Rusper Road - originally I drew it using Medium Radius points and then dropped back to Small Radius because I couldn't fit in the station throat into the 80cm dimensions set by the MDF board - obviously I could go larger (and possibly will) but that defeated the brief of fitting in the same space as the Rusper Road for storage.
I quite like Clive Bennet's Minories layout. I don't think that the short radius pointwork would look that out of place using small Pre-Grouping stock snaking through it. Rusper Road is Hornby Settrack just because thats what I had to hand and am a tightwad! thrifty. 😁

What I think I am going to do is draw up a fresh plan - for my 210cm x30cm boards in the garage that are already built, primered and awaiting re-use. Most likely using Medium Radius Bullhead trackwork, try and shift the trackwork back a little so only the rear retaining wall is between the layout and backscene and see if I can squeeze a siding at the front below P3 that can kick-back into a small goods facility of sorts. I am quite interested in @Harlequin's plan of Seiroim - although outside the scope of our discussions here. If I use the board in the garage it will be a Mirror Minories with the track arriving from the top left and P3 on the bottom right.

I could live with the incorrect spacing and just run one train at a time, however as @Harlequin said ideally multiple trains should be running if possible - as I am running DC currently this will be an case of designing some form of Cab Control which is something I've not done before... if we're doing Cab Control perhaps I should look at some sort of Electrical Interlocking for the pointwork and signalling as well!!! Posibilities are endless.

Kind Regards,
Gary

[RobinofLoxley]

Its a question of proportions isnt it. A long modern coach (which arguably shouldn't be anywhere near a Minories plan anyway) at 30cm long compared to something pre-grouping or even Big Four at 22cm is going to look different on a 19cm long turnout.

[Chimer]

On 03/06/2024 at 09:58, Matloughe said:

I could live with the incorrect spacing and just run one train at a time ....

 

I'll bet you couldn't - it will be obvious that trains can't safely pass one another, which they'd always be able to do in a station throat on the real railway, and just look too horribly wrong.

[Pacific231G]

23 hours ago, RobinofLoxley said:

Its a question of proportions isnt it. A long modern coach (which arguably shouldn't be anywhere near a Minories plan anyway) at 30cm long compared to something pre-grouping or even Big Four at 22cm is going to look different on a 19cm long turnout.

I see no reason not to use long modern coaches on a Minories plan, the turnover suburban service is only one way of working it, but I'd only do it with medium radius or longer pointwork. That's the problem I've found with trying to use Peco's Streamline slips to get a shorter throat because they are about the same radius as their short turnouts.  In principle, the straight track between two reverse curves should be the length of the longest vehicle* but we often have to compromise with that. The virtue of Cyril Freezer's plan is that it does put a length of straight track between all but one of the reverse curves that are unavoidable with the two crossovers needed to connect mutiple platforms to both sides of a double track approach aligned with the platforms (As we know, it's fairly straightforward to eliminate all reverse curves if the approach is angled by double the turnout crossing angle)    

[Pacific231G]

On 03/06/2024 at 09:58, Matloughe said:

Hve with the incorrect spacing and just run one train at a time, however as @Harlequin said ideally multiple trains should be running if possible - as I am running DC currently this will be an case of designing some form of Cab Control which is something I've not done before... if we're doing Cab Control perhaps I should look at some sort of Electrical Interlocking for the pointwork and signalling as well!!! Posibilities are endless.

Kind Regards,
Gary

Hi Gary 

You don't need to go as far as cab control.  If you have an up and a down controller then you just need two way (or centre off) section switches to connect the platform and approach sections to the relevant controller for each movement. Looking at Cyril Freezer's basic feed and section plan for Minories (which is in his PSL Model Railway Wiring book)  I think you could probably do all that by using the position of each of the two crossovers to switch two of the four feeds. 

I think Brian Thomas' 0 gaug Southern Electric Newford ( A basic Minories with the addition of a stock siding betwwn platforms 1 & 2 and the loco siding used as a bay for parcels) must have been wired that way because I don't remember ever having to use any section switches while operating it. 

David 

 

Edited June 4 by Pacific231G

[St Enodoc]

44 minutes ago, Pacific231G said:

In principle, the straight track between two reverse curves should be the length of the longest vehicle* but we often have to compromise with that.

Yes but in practice even a couple of inches is better than nothing.

[Clive Mortimore]

26 minutes ago, St Enodoc said:

Yes but in practice even a couple of inches is better than nothing.

As this modelling forum is also viewable to young people I won't comment on what past girlfriends might have said to you. 😉

[St Enodoc]

Just now, Clive Mortimore said:

As this modelling forum is also viewable to young people I won't comment on what past girlfriends might have said to you. 😉

Since I am a gentleman of honour, nor shall I.

[tom s]

Is 3cm of extra track at the leftmost point foot going to break the printed out plan? That is as little as needed to get the track width spacing right as far as I see in anyrail.

[Bittern]

On 03/06/2024 at 18:28, Matloughe said:

I could live with the incorrect spacing and just run one train at a time, however as @Harlequin said ideally multiple trains should be running if possible - as I am running DC currently this will be an case of designing some form of Cab Control which is something I've not done before...

That's the easy bit (and it really is easy) - where it gets tricky if you're operating alone is manually stopping the trains accurately at both ends of the layout at the same time.

 

If you always have the loco at the fiddle yard end when departing the station, the last pickup is far enough from the other end of the train, and your trains can cope with an abrupt stop, you can use a push-button or diode to isolate the last few inches, but if you need to propel some trains out you'll need sensors and  switching (there are cheap-ish off the shelf units for that), or dedicated tracks for those trains. The many variants of this problem have been solved for decades, but it's worth thinking about it at the planning stage.

[Pacific231G]

5 hours ago, St Enodoc said:

Yes but in practice even a couple of inches is better than nothing.

It depends 

In my experiments I found that two medium radius back to back points (the central pair in minories) gave better results than two small radius with a straight between them to make the same total length.  Pointwork of similar length but with a smaller crossing angle would also give a better result. Peco's 12 degrees is rather large and I notice that their 0 gauge medium radius turnouts have an 8 degree crossing but the equivalent radius (1828 mm or 6 ft) and slightly less than twice the length (416 against 219 mm) of their three foot (914 mm) radius Streamline medium points in H0/00.   I suspect that the shallower angle would give a smoother flow through the same length of pointwork. 

For me, the key is how much lateral displacement there is between the ends of coaches. If the buffers stay in contact with their opposite numbers (or would if we weren't using couplings that push as well as pull) then that should be OK but if a buffersof one coach ends up half way between the buffers of the next then it looks positively toy like. 

[Chimer]

8 hours ago, Pacific231G said:

Hi Gary 

You don't need to go as far as cab control.  If you have an up and a down controller then you just need two way (or centre off) section switches to connect the platform and approach sections to the relevant controller for each movement. Looking at Cyril Freezer's basic feed and section plan for Minories (which is in his PSL Model Railway Wiring book)  I think you could probably do all that by using the position of each of the two crossovers to switch two of the four feeds. 

I think Brian Thomas' 0 gaug Southern Electric Newford ( A basic Minories with the addition of a stock siding betwwn platforms 1 & 2 and the loco siding used as a bay for parcels) must have been wired that way because I don't remember ever having to use any section switches while operating it. 

David 

 

 

But that's all cab control is, surely?  Except that the up and down mains would also be switchable sections, so either controller could do everything.

[Matloughe]

11 hours ago, Chimer said:

 

I'll bet you couldn't - it will be obvious that trains can't safely pass one another, which they'd always be able to do in a station throat on the real railway, and just look too horribly wrong.

I'll take that bet, because the older version of Bishops Park existed in an operational condition for about two years with the exact same track in the exact same configurion - I believe the modelling phrase is: "And now I claim my five pounds." 😁

A glorious display of BR(S) Green Electric units!

11 hours ago, Pacific231G said:

Hi Gary 

You don't need to go as far as cab control.  If you have an up and a down controller then you just need two way (or centre off) section switches to connect the platform and approach sections to the relevant controller for each movement. Looking at Cyril Freezer's basic feed and section plan for Minories (which is in his PSL Model Railway Wiring book)  I think you could probably do all that by using the position of each of the two crossovers to switch two of the four feeds. 

I think Brian Thomas' 0 gaug Southern Electric Newford ( A basic Minories with the addition of a stock siding betwwn platforms 1 & 2 and the loco siding used as a bay for parcels) must have been wired that way because I don't remember ever having to use any section switches while operating it. 

David

Yeah, you're right David that is what I was planning in my mind for 'cab control' effectively an up and down section switch with centre off linked to either Controller 1 or Controller 2 - I've operated DCC using two locomotives at once at an exhibition it required a large amount of concentration. I can't imagine my layout would be going anywhere so operating sessions at home would be mostly a laid back affair rather than the entire operations of London Victoria in 4mm scale!
I like Newford, I'm sure I remember it being in British Railway Modelling in the late 1990's/early 2000's but I'm sure it was called something else - the centre road does look like an operationally interesting addition, could be used for a carriage siding etc.

 

9 hours ago, tom s said:

Is 3cm of extra track at the leftmost point foot going to break the printed out plan? That is as little as needed to get the track width spacing right as far as I see in anyrail.

Yes, so by adjusting the trackwork it pushes the offending point across the board join and introduces the extra alignment issues and I just don't want to cut up a point. It would be far easier to use the slightly larger boards in the Garage and have Medium Radius pointwork throughout.

So currently my carriages are 12cm in length, compared to a standard Mark I length of around 25cm length so the coaches are much shorter when it comes to traversing the pointwork - I also use Kadees which have been fairly faultless in their operation so both of these factors may affect the 'throw' of the coaches as they negotiate the pointwork.

Kind Regards,
Gary

[Pacific231G]

On 04/06/2024 at 22:41, Matloughe said:

A glorious display of BR(S) Green Electric units!

Yeah, you're right David that is what I was planning in my mind for 'cab control' effectively an up and down section switch with centre off linked to either Controller 1 or Controller 2 - I've operated DCC using two locomotives at once at an exhibition it required a large amount of concentration. I can't imagine my layout would be going anywhere so operating sessions at home would be mostly a laid back affair rather than the entire operations of London Victoria in 4mm scale!
I like Newford, I'm sure I remember it being in British Railway Modelling in the late 1990's/early 2000's but I'm sure it was called something else - the centre road does look like an operationally interesting addition, could be used for a carriage siding etc.

 

 

Brian Thomas sold it and it became Littleton with a couple of extra boards added to provide a Depot and better off-stage storage. The fourteen visible feet of the original layout were left more of less unchanged. The problem Brian always had with it was the single six foot long by I think twenty inches board that held all the pointwork (apart from the one accessing the centre road from platform one) The other two station boards were four feet long so the fourteen foot length (plus the fiddle yard) was equivalent to eight foot in 4mm scale. 

 

I printed off a couple of Peco templates for their 0 gauge medium points (8 degree crossing angle) reduced for 16.5mm gauge track and  joined them to form a straight crossover. So far as I could tell, a couple of fairly long coaches (10 inch long H0 "OCEMS") could traverse a straight crossover without apparent buffer locking (just) which isn't the case with the same coaches usng a pair of Streamline medium points so the 8 degree crossing angle is an improvement over the Streamline 12 degree points with roughly the same length . The lateral displacement is relatively greater in H0 because of the smaller end cross section  (buffer heights and position are the same in Great Britain as in Continental Europe) so they should avoid buffer locking altogether in 00. It would be nice if Peco offered that geometry for 16.5 mm gauge. 

Edited June 8 by Pacific231G

[St Enodoc]

2 hours ago, Matloughe said:

I've operated DCC using two locomotives at once at an exhibition it required a large amount of concentration.

As Cyril Freezer once wrote, you can run as many locomotives at a time as you like but you can only control one of them.

[Pacific231G]

On 04/06/2024 at 19:01, Chimer said:

 

But that's all cab control is, surely?  Except that the up and down mains would also be switchable sections, so either controller could do everything.

There isn't a precise definition and inevitably a grey area, but I've always taken cab-control to mean being able to control a train throughout its complete run, probably through more than one station.

It originated AFAIK in America where, even on a relatively small layout, it was far more common to have multiple, often very simple stations with the emphasis being on a train crew taking their train along its route with switching (in the case of freight trains) on the way* , whereas the British habit has been to focus on operating stations with the "ideal" for a muiltiple station layout being to hand trains from one to the next using bell codes and block instruments. so each operator handles a series of trains passing through "their" section of line.  

 

With a double track terminus to fiddle yard arrangement it might make sense for the station operator to control shunting within station limits and the bringing in of trains from the yard but for the yard operator to handle departures by driving them towards them to the fiddle yard. In practice you might well make every section switchable to the station controller and some or all of them switchable to the fiddle yard operator. For a fully fledged cab control system you might have say three controllers with all sectiions switchable to any of them, probably using rotary switches. 

Operating section switches is clearly a non-railway like activity so if you can arrange things so that operating points and perhaps signals takes care of most of that then so much the better. 

 

*As an example of the American approach  I 've always rather liked this one designed in 1951 for a space of  9x5 (i.e. a ping pong table) 

Though I don't think cab-control had been developed in 1951, you can see how, even on this small layout, but with no less than five stations and a branch,  it would enable , two or even three operators to  each take charge of a train and run it from end to end with intermediate switching along the route. Nowadays of course one would probably simply use DCC. 

Edited June 7 by Pacific231G
punctuation

[Clive Mortimore]

On 05/06/2024 at 01:03, St Enodoc said:

As Cyril Freezer once wrote, you can run as many locomotives at a time as you like but you can only control one of them.

And some of us have problems achieving that. 😉

[Foulounoux]

Well why have one Minories arrangement when you can have two or three 

 

So option one was 6 platform terminus and further down the line a junction with either main and branch or two similar mains   between the junction and the terminus a 3 track section 

 

Option two shortened the 3 track section removes the junction and removes one of the extra Minories 

 

I laid option one out on the boards and just didn't look right 

 

So option 2 is being checked 

 

Long radius points and so far mkIII coaches seem to be ok 

[RJS1977]

21 hours ago, Pacific231G said:

 

Operating section switches is clearly a non-railway like activity so if you can arrange things so that operating points and perhaps signals takes care of most of that then so much the better. 

 

 

Which of course was how "Buckingham" was wired.

[Lacathedrale]

I'm sure if Peter had access to DCC at the point Buckingham was coming together he would have jumped all over it - he did not seem like someone who was sentimental about technology?  It does seem a little mad in this day and age to be worried about section toggles. I tried the Buckingham signal-to-section method with my 4mm Minories+ and fell at the first hurdle: Peco bullhead is unifrog only - so you end up needing to modify each turnout, to say nothing of the wiring and toggles required. I did enjoy that part of it as a mental exercise, though :)

 

 

[Pacific231G]

On 06/06/2024 at 10:05, Clive Mortimore said:

And some of us have problems achieving that. 😉

So true! There is a phenomenon known as regression to first learned behaviour (It is why it can be a bad idea for airline pilots to occasionally fly weight-shift microlights on their days off !) When I first started railway modelling, controllers (such as Kirdon and H&M) were almost all centre off, and I've noticed, particularly when engaged in a particularly involved shunting operation , that when I need to stop a loco going from right to left,  I sometimes turn the knob of my Gaugemaster controller clockwise which of course has the reverse effect.  Ergonomically, a centre off controller is actually far better (so long as there is a defintie off position) but it was far easier for manufacturers to use a potentiometer and a separate DPDT once they stopped using resistance mats with wipers. 

Edited June 7 by Pacific231G

[t-b-g]

10 hours ago, Lacathedrale said:

I'm sure if Peter had access to DCC at the point Buckingham was coming together he would have jumped all over it - he did not seem like someone who was sentimental about technology?  It does seem a little mad in this day and age to be worried about section toggles. I tried the Buckingham signal-to-section method with my 4mm Minories+ and fell at the first hurdle: Peco bullhead is unifrog only - so you end up needing to modify each turnout, to say nothing of the wiring and toggles required. I did enjoy that part of it as a mental exercise, though :)

 

 

 

No he wouldn't. He would have much preferred something he could do for himself, preferably made from scrap materials. If he could do a job with some wire and blocks of wood, or with a microprocessor, there would only ever have been one choice.

 

His wiring method has nothing to do with the way the crossing noses are wired, so if that was a problem for you, then you weren't doing it how Peter Denny wired Buckingham. His was based on the signals being linked to isolating sections. Pull the signal lever and the track is live to the required controller.

 

If you have a feed to the track and it needs a switch, then having that switch working together with the operation of the signal doesn't add much wiring at all.

 

I have wired my new layout using the Buckingham method and found it easy and logical.

 

I spent a few hours operating Buckingham this morning and as a control system, it is still the best I have seen. I had been considering trying DCC for some of my own modelling but once I saw how Buckingham works, I much prefer the Buckingham way. 

 

The operation is so simple and logical. Set the points, pull the signals and turn the controller for the vast majority of moves.

 

If any system can beat that for intuitive and realistic operation, I have yet to see it.