Actually that’s my problem with the Minories plan. Watching a series of short passenger trains going backwards and forwards is just not entertaining enough for me....from an operational point of view.

 

I prefer this urban layout - it’s worth a look: http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/83030-train-spotting-at-finsbury-square/

 

Best, Pete.

I agree about Finsbury Square Pete, the thread is well worth reading, and the need for a bit more variety. A few years ago Bryan Thomas invited me to operate his excellent "Newford" 0 scale layout at Watford Fine Scale. Newford was closely based on the original Minories and I did feel the need for some goods facilities to add variety. OTOH if you operate with loco hauled trains and try to run a fairly intensive service I'm told it can be quite challenging. I believe that's how the MRC team ran their EM gauge tribute layout.

The original goods version of Minories did seem a bit awkward as all goods trains had to shunt in and out of platform three and the goods shed would rather hide the passenger station.

I got to discuss Minories with CJF at one of the Chatham shows. He was rightly proud of the plan but for goods far preferred his later version with a kick back yard occupying the empty space in front of the throat.

The short central siding in the goods yard was a new addition by him to the published versions and was to hold the brake van or vans while the train was being shunted. That's not something I'd have considered but maybe it was a feature of British goods yards?

Post 213 in this thread incorporated y points

http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/60091-00-minories-track-plan-wanted/page-9

Hi fegguk

213 was also from me but I was interested in the approach arrangement you came up with and wondered if you'd taken it further.

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I've now laid out the approach for the modified version of Minories I posted in 213 on a spare piece of ply and have been trying it out with various combinations of stock. So far I'm finding that the excess throwover is no greater for any route than for a simple junction with a medium length (3ft radius) set of points. The pointwork is exactly three feet long so it'll fit comfortable onto my planned metre length board

Despite replacing one of the back to backs with a Y I think this is still a legitimate Minories as the same principle separates most of what would otherwise be S curves on crossovers.

This arrangement is growing on me. It has a less pronounced overall S curve than the original Minories and to my eyes that looks a bit more natural, the curve through the platforms is a simple one not an S and, most important,  the critical route from the "up" (inbound) line to platform one (at the top) no longer has an excessive overthrow to the point of buffer locking.

For a main lne terminus I'm up against it for length with only four metres available including a fiddle yard but I think a couple of scenic breaks, especially Cyril Freezer's idea of a road bridge, will conceal the fact of grand expresses with only "four and a fourgon" (four coaches and a four wheel baggage car) or possibly five coaches with shorter locos. That's at home but lengths of both platforms and fiddle yard could be extended if it goes out.