Minories - steam or diesel

[TomJ]

What do the esteemed RMWeb panel think? I’ve got space to make a N gauge minories and always fancied such a classic plan. It makes a change from my usual rural backwaters

 

I’ve got stock for two distinct eras - BR (WR) in the early 60s, a mix of green diesels and ex GWR and SR steamies. Or 1980s blue diesel - again with a south western flavour - 31, 33, 37, 47 sand DMUs.

 

Do people think minories works best in the steam/early diesel era or the blue diesel with mostly DMUs and some loco hauled trains and parcels. Both appeal to me but can’t decide which fits the plan best.

 

Any suggestions?

[Ray H]

I suspect you'd have a bit more operational interest with more loco hauled trains. However, a mainly dmu base might enable you to run longer trains as you won't need to allow room for the loco that brings the train in or the loco that then takes the train out.

[34theletterbetweenB&D]

Why do you have to choose? An awful lot of BR infrastructure barely changed over that time. Some well chosen interchangeable parts like platform signage styles, comfortable benches / cruel and unusual punishment in perforated metal, and the like; and you can operate both.

[johnb]

Minories works well for both eras. I've seen variations on the theme with both eras and I like them. Using steam/green diesels suits the original plan, as will earlier blue period before the real world got in and the track plan would have been rationalised when renewals became due.

My own personal layout is a variation on the Minories theme set mid 60s to early 70s and largely uses EMUs both blue and green with the occasional parcels train. The scenic side is only 8ft lond and if needed for loco hauled stock something like 10ft/11ft would be better to allow for passable length trains.

 

John

[Clive Mortimore]

What do the esteemed RMWeb panel think? I’ve got space to make a N gauge minories and always fancied such a classic plan. It makes a change from my usual rural backwaters

 

I’ve got stock for two distinct eras - BR (WR) in the early 60s, a mix of green diesels and ex GWR and SR steamies. Or 1980s blue diesel - again with a south western flavour - 31, 33, 37, 47 sand DMUs.

 

Do people think minories works best in the steam/early diesel era or the blue diesel with mostly DMUs and some loco hauled trains and parcels. Both appeal to me but can’t decide which fits the plan best.

 

Any suggestions?

Just enjoy running trains on it, Minories works for both. See Sheffield Exchange

[bike2steam]

By the 1980's the line would've been rationalized, and singled.

[Steamport Southport]

Not necessarily.

 

I always thought that it represented a busy City Centre terminus with goods facilities. To make it a bit more modern then you could change the goods part to a Red Star Parcels or Royal Mail depot. You could run it with DMU/EMUs and smaller diesels with 3 or 4 coach trains. Plenty of opportunity to run various types of NPCCS and vans. Add in a shunter or two and you have the basis of an interesting "modern image" layout.

 

According to another thread there is a lack of those.

 

 

 

Jason

[Rivercider]

By the 1980's the line would've been rationalized, and singled.

On the contrary, Minories was still quite busy in the early 1980s.

It was the rival company station across town Majories that was closed and the land sold off for redevelopment,

all remaining train services were then diverted to Minories!

 

cheers

[DavidB-AU]

With some clever planning the same layout could run both eras at different times. If you have a main station building, making it removable and having two buildings that can sit on the same footprint makes it easy to change the era. Say a GWR design for the 1960s and a boring modern prefabricated design for the 1980s. Plus change any road vehicles to suit the era. It doesn't take much to change the overall look and feel.

It's quite reasonable to have a 3-4 platform station serving a big city (if only for local trains) without rationalisation into the blue era. Think of something like Fenchurch Street or the pre-1987 Birmingham Moor Street.

You could also take some inspiration from Ian Futers' Newcastle Haymarket.

Cheers
David

[Rivercider]

Earlier on I was trying to think of some locations in the south west where the Southern and Western met when I started to feel a bit

dizzy, like I was in some kind of parallel universe.

Anyway I was looking through my Bakerlike Rail Atlas 1978 edition for some terminal stations used by both WR and SR services, and found some possible locations.

 

There were several cramped urban termini on the former Somerset and Dorset route, which of course was now largely controlled by the WR.

The expanded former Midland station at Bristol St Phillips, Bath Midland, and Bournemouth Westish. 

 

At Weston-super-Mare I see the 1914 Locking Road Excursion station is still open, the 1884 Weston General station on the loop line is closed instead,

the council having used the trackbed for a relief road. Some of the Portsmouth-Cardiff trains now run to Locking Road.

 

Of course there is the joint GWR/SR station at Yeovil Pen Hill, where some of the Bristol - Weymouth trains call to reverse, and I believe

some of the Waterloo semi-fasts also terminate there.

 

Further west in 1861 the GWR successfully prevented the LSWR from extending their line to Exeter down the bank to St Davids,

Queen Street station remained as a terminus. Later the GWR realised the error and needed access to the city centre so a branch came

up to Queen Street arriving at the east end. 

 

The GWR/LSWR rivalry resulted in both companies gaining access into the other companies territory, there is a joint station at Barnstaple Victoria Road for example.

At Exmouth the GWR completed its proposed branch to rival the LSWR one, but after regional boundary changes in the 1960s only one combined station survives.

 

In Cornwall the LSWR managed to penetrate further west to Newquay, but the line could never really compete with the GWR route and the LSWR station in the town is now a car park, all trains use the GWR station.

 

and then I woke up....

 

cheers

Edited March 5, 2018 by Rivercider

[Karhedron]

I would go for both. A discrete change of details like platform furniture and station signs and you should be fine. It was only in the mid-80s when sectorisation started to take hold that a lot of older details really started to get swept away. You wouldn't even need to change the buildings as there are plenty of victorian buildings still in daily use across the network.

[IMG]

If you gave enough stock to model both periods then why restrict yourself to one? It potentially could keep your interest in the layout and track plan for longer as you build. If you ever get the opportunity to exhibit you could run one period on the first day and the other on the next.

 

Building on the themes others have suggested having the station terminus detachable is useful not only from the point of view of changing buildings but if you decide to extend the platforms for longer trains or encorporate into a bigger system then you can. Using the space in front of the points for a small warehouse or milk depot would then give you the option to build at a later date another extension (as Mr Freezer suggested himself in a later update of the plan) at the “entry” end for a steam engine shed and carriage sidings that when you move to blue would be a diesel shed and DEMU sidings

 

The Minories bug has hooked a lot of modellers over the years (myself included) and If you search RM Web there is plenty of inspiration out there to help. There is a great N finescale Minories based model in this Months Hornby Magazine to give you some blue ideas.

 

Hope this helps a little.

[DavidB-AU]

Building on the themes others have suggested having the station terminus detachable is useful not only from the point of view of changing buildings but if you decide to extend the platforms for longer trains or encorporate into a bigger system then you can.

CJF designed Minories to be modular and extensible. Reproductions of the original drawings are here and I have adapted one to show how the platform can be extended. It can be operated as a short layout at home and lengthened if taken to a public display.

 

 

Cheers

David

[Steven B]

There's no need to change much more than station signs and posters to switch eras. There are plenty of examples where original architecture survives, including buildings, benches, lighting etc; Take a look at Birmingham Moor Street, Hebden Bridge or Great Malvern for examples.

 

Steven B.

[Peter Kazmierczak]

Just add graffiti for that modern feel...................

[Hroth]

My Minories (when tracklaying is complete) will be used to run anything......

 

Ok, the stock for it has major strengths in Transition loco-hauled steam and diesel and Blue/Grey DMU, with a smattering of loco-hauled for added interest.  As suggested above, infrastructure will be slotted in to suit era and (to a certain extent) decay.

 

 

Though not to the extent of lifting track to model a scene such as this pic of Liverpool Central a few years before closure...

 

 

Image from:  http://www.8dassociation.btck.co.uk/TheCheshireLinesCommitteeCLC/TheCheshireLinesCommitteeCLCinPictures

 

 

edit:  A couple of typos!

Edited April 3, 2018 by Hroth

[Enterprisingwestern]

You could use and adapt Southampton Terminus in it's latter days in use as primarily a parcels depot allowing a goodly degree of arival/departing/shunting/LE moves, and maybe improvising a DEMU shuttle from somewhere, or imagine diversions from Central.

 

Mike.

[John_Hughes]

There's no need to change much more than station signs and posters to switch eras. There are plenty of examples where original architecture survives, including buildings, benches, lighting etc; Take a look at Birmingham Moor Street, Hebden Bridge or Great Malvern for examples.

 

Steven B.

 

Moor Street looks far more authentic GWR now than it ever did in the 1960s - they've done a wonderful job on it.

[DavidB-AU]

On the subject of similar arrangements, Baker Street (Metropolitan line) could be operated in a similar way either as a terminus or with the through lines to another traverser. The convenient tunnels at both ends could make for a very compact layout.

 

Cheers

David

[TomJ]

Thanks everyone for the comments and advice. Sorry about the delay replying and thanking you all - I’ve been on holiday.

 

I rather like the idea of the dual eras. The beauty of minories is that a lot of the infrastructure like engine servicing facilities/turntables/carriage sidings are off stage so the basic layout fits both eras. There are many examples of existing station buildings surviving (and it will be mostly low relief anyway) and the signal box and semaphores are straightforward.

 

The bit that I can’t work out how to make work for both eras are the platforms themselves, specifically the fittings and platform furniture. Things like running in boards and lamps. Could some 1950s totems conceivable have survived to the 70s? Or does anyone have some nifty tricks of how to swap round the fittings? Perhaps even make two seperate platforms that ‘drop in’?

[jonny777]

I suppose that you could have a mix of green diesels with occasional blue ones and have it late 60s when the old steam infrastructure would still be in place. 

 

This would allow you to go back 10-15 years and have early emblem steam with crimson/cream stock if you wanted with very little changes. 

[Nearholmer]

Broad Street looked as if it hadn’t had a lick of paint since the 1950s, let alone new signs, when it closed, and very many smallstations weren’t re-signed until the late 70s, and some the early 80s, so you are safe with blue trains and old signs.

 

A thought that struck me is that steam/diesel cutover was by area, but below that by route, so if your terminus serves more than one destination, for a period in the 60s it probably has dmus serving A, while steam serves B.

 

A nice operating sequence might be to start in 1955, then transition through liveries and train types to 1975. How you make the paintwork peel and the porters age I will leave to you.

[DavidB-AU]

A thought that struck me is that steam/diesel cutover was by area, but below that by route, so if your terminus serves more than one destination, for a period in the 60s it probably has dmus serving A, while steam serves B.

Worth noting that Broad Street had relief main line services to Cambridge until the 1950s. A WR Minories somewhere in London could have relief services to, say, Oxford or Bristol.

 

Cheers

David

[rockershovel]

Moor Street looks far more authentic GWR now than it ever did in the 1960s - they've done a wonderful job on it.

I spent several months working in Birmingham last year and the New Street / Moor Street area is quite fascinating - I can’t think of anywhere else which combines brand new development, refurbished historical architecture, slash-and-burn development like car parks on historic sites, mismatched businesses in old buildings, a few pubs hanging on and outright derelict wasteland in such a small area

[Nearholmer]

Having had to ‘sleep’ in a hotel in the middle of that lot for the past few nights, I can think of nowhere that is noisier at three o’clock in the morning.

 

You are right though. Even now there are small two-man workshop businesses in the undercrofts of the posh shops above. Very unusual indeed.