Minories are made of this

[Harlequin]

The connector for the DCC controller arrived in the post. Testing resulted in having to swap a couple of wires around and add one new dropper to overcome a dry joint on one of the turnouts.

 

I trigged up a temporary headshunt stub, with a safety block at the end so that I could run locos past the final clearance point.

And...

 

It's alive!

 

Not a twitch as locos cross the baseboard joint!

 

Edited April 9, 2021 by Harlequin

[Harlequin]

Setting

You might have guessed from the video that my Minories will be an Edwardian SE&CR affair.

 

I'm normally a GWR man but it didn't seem to be a good fit for a small London terminus. The SE&CR feels more appropriate for that kind of station and has the advantage that there are some great period RTR SE&CR locos in wonderful liveries to bring the place to life.

 

The Hattons SE&CR 4 and 6 wheel coaches will provide perfect commuter rolling stock - making trains look longer and pass through the pointwork more comfortably than the bogey Birdcage stock I've got. The latter will still make occasional appearances for special trains. Some LB&SCR stock might also visit.

 

I know next to nothing about the SE&CR at the moment but I will learn as I go and all input will be gratefully received!

 

Next steps

To finalise the electrics I need to setup the point motors but there's not much point (oh dear) doing that until I can control them. I'm awaiting a Pi SPROG 3 v2, which are not available quite yet.

 

I also need to replace the broken Small Left turnout. They are not in stock anywhere at the moment.

 

The first scenic job will be to add the typical Victorian brick retaining walls but none of the products I've found so far are tall enough or are too thick. They need to be about 120mm tall and no more than 12mm deep. The ones @halsey has used on Hawkesbury look like they might fit but they don't appear to be sold any more...

 

So just at the moment, I'm blocked on all fronts!

 

[Nearholmer]

You might want to swot-up on the Greenwich Park branch as a an example, and look at the Crystal Palace HL branch. I’m thinking here of service patterns, and maybe turning your Minories into their city terminus.

Edited April 11, 2021 by Nearholmer

[Pacific231G]

On 11/04/2021 at 09:42, Harlequin said:

Setting

You might have guessed from the video that my Minories will be an Edwardian SE&CR affair.

 

I'm normally a GWR man but it didn't seem to be a good fit for a small London terminus. The SE&CR feels more appropriate for that kind of station and has the advantage that there are some great period RTR SE&CR locos in wonderful liveries to bring the place to life.

 

The Hattons SE&CR 4 and 6 wheel coaches will provide perfect commuter rolling stock - making trains look longer and pass through the pointwork more comfortably than the bogey Birdcage stock I've got. The latter will still make occasional appearances for special trains. Some LB&SCR stock might also visit.

 

I know next to nothing about the SE&CR at the moment but I will learn as I go and all input will be gratefully received!

 

Next steps

To finalise the electrics I need to setup the point motors but there's not much point (oh dear) doing that until I can control them. I'm awaiting a Pi SPROG 3 v2, which are not available quite yet.

 

I also need to replace the broken Small Left turnout. They are not in stock anywhere at the moment.

 

The first scenic job will be to add the typical Victorian brick retaining walls but none of the products I've found so far are tall enough or are too thick. They need to be about 120mm tall and no more than 12mm deep. The ones @halsey has used on Hawkesbury look like they might fit but they don't appear to be sold any more...

 

So just at the moment, I'm blocked on all fronts!

 

Hi Phil

You don't have abandon the GWR! They did plan a second London terminus at Shepherds Bush close to and with  a subway connection to the Central London Railway's then terminus. This would have been the terminus of the Ealing and Shepherds Bush Railway and was in the GWR's 1905 New Railways Act. The idea was to have a better connection with the City than was available at Paddington and it would presumably have handled suburban trains from Maidenhead, Uxbridge etc. and possibly semi-fasts from Reading or even Oxford.  In the end the GWR decided that it could achieve a more convenient connection to the City and West End by giving running powers to the CLR to run over the E&SBR from a connection north of White City to new platforms at Ealing Broadway though that didn't open till 1920. That was of course the basis for the current western end of the Central Line.

The late Colin Cook built a 3mm scale layout based on Shepherd's Bush (GWR) (6ft scenic+ 3ft sector plate fiddle yard)  This was based on Minories though a miscalculation of turnout lengths led to it having only a single track throat. However, that proposed terminus seems very ripe for further attention. Its proposed location was in the act so it could be surrounded by authentic buildings.  

Edited June 6, 2021 by Pacific231G
typos

[Nearholmer]

I've always imagined the GWR penetrating all the way to The City, independent of the Met, by adopting one of the Regent's Canal Railway schemes, having its goods yard at City Road Basin, and its Minories-esque passenger terminus somewhere down near Whitecross Street, just north of the Met.. 

 

I was impressed to see a map showing pretty much exactly that, displayed at The Museum of London!

[JohnR]

My personal Minories story, is for the LSWR to have built an extension into the City of London, instead of the Waterloo & City line, and it handling some suburban traffic from the Main Line. 

 

Still havnt managed to work out exactly how it would have done this, given the geography, let alone the money!

[Chris116]

21 minutes ago, JohnR said:

My personal Minories story, is for the LSWR to have built an extension into the City of London, instead of the Waterloo & City line, and it handling some suburban traffic from the Main Line. 

 

Still havnt managed to work out exactly how it would have done this, given the geography, let alone the money!

The LSWR had a plan to build a terminus in the High St Kensington which was the reason for building Putney bridge and adding two extra platforms to Putney Bridge station. In the end the treminus idea was dropped Putney Bridge was built but only used by the District Railway and only one extra platform was completed which was recently taken out of use by London Underground.

[Harlequin]

The layout has a built-in Pi-Sprog DCC controller that will allow wired or WiFi connections to any JMRI compatible throttles for driving. This makes it a self contained unit, needing only an external PSU to be connected. (The old Gaugemaster Prodigy controller I used earlier to test the track wiring is now back in the loft.)

 

The Pi-Sprog and the Megapoints MTB controller need 15V but the Pi only needs 5V. I didn't want to have to carry multiple PSUs around with the layout so I bought a 15V 4Amp PSU from Rapid to power the whole system and I'm using a 7805 voltage regulator to get the 5V supply from that. The PSU just plugs into a socket on the back of the layout box, just like any consumer electronic device, and the power is routed around inside the box.

 

To fit the power socket, and allow for other external plugs and sockets in future, I have cut a slot in the box and mounted an aluminium panel behind it. The alu sheet is folded to give it some strength of it's own and to make it easier to fix. It also serves as the heatsink for the 7805.

I found a couple of redundant PSUs with the right kinds of plugs and chopped the leads off to use  to connect the power panel to the devices under the layout.

 

The panel is top right in this photo with the white 5V cable going directly into the Pi (bottom left under the Pi-Sprog) and the black 15V cable going into a chocolate block then breaking out into the Sprog (bottom left) and the Megapoints MTB controller (bottom right).

 

I'll tidy up the cables later, honest. It looks a bit neater on the outside:

 

After all that cutting, folding, screwing and soldering - and after triple checking that everything was connected correctly - the crunch time arrived when I had to plug it in and turn it on...

 

 

It booted up fine. No problems!

 

The 7805 voltage regulator does get quite warm so I might swap it for a more efficient device in the long run.

 

The Pi and Pi-Sprog seemed to be talking to each other properly and I could turn the DCC signal on and off OK - but I haven't tried running a loco yet...

 

The keyboard, mouse and monitor are temporary of course, for setting the system up. Once it's all configured it'll only need simple WiFi throttle devices to operate.

 

Edited May 7, 2021 by Harlequin

[TravisM]

I was talking with a friend last night who was bemoaning that he didn’t really have the space in his house to build a halfway decent layout unless it’s portable, so I suggested Minories to him.  He had to admit that he’d dismissed Minories because he wanted to use OHLE and he felt the layout needed to be permanent so the contact wires were held in place.

 

 I simply pointed out that the over bridge where the hinges are, was the natural break for the OHLE.  He could use a simple mast with the wire support and registration arms in all four corners under the bridge, so when the layout is folded, the catenary remains in place.  
 

If you felt more adventurous, you could build two sturdy cross span masts, place them at the end of the layout so they are anchored to the baseboard and attached to the bridge support walls.  If you do it at each end and close enough to each other, you have hidden the layout joint and OHLE break in plain sight.

 

What does anyone else think?

[lezz01]

It sounds like a good plan although he'll have to put in the extra crossing or shunt ECS which isn't very OHL. Shunting ECS is far more steam era than OHL era. Minories is without doubt the best of dear old CJF's plans. The only problem is where is he going to get stock. Unless he's going ultra modern 85s-87s are going to look silly with only 3 coaches. He'll need 501 type EMUs which means either Southern Pride or scratch build.

Regards Lez.

[TravisM]

5 minutes ago, lezz01 said:

It sounds like a good plan although he'll have to put in the extra crossing or shunt ECS which isn't very OHL. Shunting ECS is far more steam era than OHL era. Minories is without doubt the best of dear old CJF's plans. The only problem is where is he going to get stock. Unless he's going ultra modern 85s-87s are going to look silly with only 3 coaches. He'll need 501 type EMUs which means either Southern Pride or scratch build.

Regards Lez.

I know he’s got several Bachmann 350’s and looking for some more.  I think he considering the Bratchell kits also.

[Pacific231G]

8 hours ago, jools1959 said:

I was talking with a friend last night who was bemoaning that he didn’t really have the space in his house to build a halfway decent layout unless it’s portable, so I suggested Minories to him.  He had to admit that he’d dismissed Minories because he wanted to use OHLE and he felt the layout needed to be permanent so the contact wires were held in place.

 

 I simply pointed out that the over bridge where the hinges are, was the natural break for the OHLE.  He could use a simple mast with the wire support and registration arms in all four corners under the bridge, so when the layout is folded, the catenary remains in place.  
 

If you felt more adventurous, you could build two sturdy cross span masts, place them at the end of the layout so they are anchored to the baseboard and attached to the bridge support walls.  If you do it at each end and close enough to each other, you have hidden the layout joint and OHLE break in plain sight.

 

What does anyone else think?

Hi Jools

I think your idea makes perfect sense.

I assume the OHLE is cosmetic rather than practical. I've never used OHLE but, based on the experience of friends who do, it seems that the trick (usually at the entrances to fiddle yards) is to make sure that the pantos can't ever rise high enough to get fouled and to avoid them crossing any discontinuities or gaps Setting up the catenary across board joints seems to take much of the time involved in setting up exhibtion layouts with OHLE and that's exactly what you don't want with a portable layout for personal use. I think the overbridge in CJF's original plan could make that far more trouble free (as well as efficiently disguising just how short the terminus is) .

As an exercise for the little grey cells  I had a go at figuring out how it might be engineered. 

My idea is to fit the removable bridge span itself with solid guides above each of the three tracks that pass under it set slightly higher than the normal height of the contact wire. The contact wire (which is a permananent fixture attached to each baseboard) then rises  till it is well clear of the height of the solid guide but that rise would be hidden by the bridge. With this arrangment there should be no discontinuity for the pantos to snag on. 

 

This diagram should explain the basic idea while also illustrating why technical drawing was the one subject in my Marine Engineering OND I only got a pass for!

 

The removable bridge span and everything attached to it is shown in red whle the permanent contact wire and masts are shown in blue  (I haven't bothered to show the messenger wire, droppers or the rest of the OHLE knitting)  The guides attached to the bridge span will be hidden by it so could just be rail or brass bar (some railways have used an overhead "third rail" in tunnels etc.) and would need to be mounted close enough to each rising contact wire for the pantos to move effortlessly from wire to guide and back again. Obviously, each contact wire would be supported from the side away from the guide. The gradient of the rising contact wire would need some experimentation: not so steep that the pantos move up and down  too suddenly but not so shallow that the contact wire doesn't rise well clear of the rubbing surface of the guide.  The ideal gradient and clearance would obviously affect the width or the bridge roadway. 

This could also be made to work if the OHLE is live though the bridge span would then need to be plugged in electrically.

 

There are probably other ways of doing this based on how full size railways handle lifting bridges but this arrangement doesn't need there to be anything too fiddly or fancy at the board joint.

 

In terms of length, the original 6ft 8ins* Minories would be rather short for loco hauled trains (or frankly for any others) apart from pre-grouping. However,  with medium/ no, 5 crossing /3 ft radius points the Minories throat  fits comfortable onto a 1m (39") long baseboard so a seven foot long version (plus fiddle yard) should be able to accomodate four car EMUs quite easily and with eight foot total you should be able to accomodate a five car EMU or a loco hauled four car. In either case the overbridge would tend to disguise their short length. 

 

*6ft 8ins was the length given for 00 in the first three editions of 60 plans. It was actually 6ft 6ins (2 metres) in the original article but I think that may have been a misprint. It grew to 7 ft in CJF's plan in 60 plans for small locations (1989) and most of his later versions quoted 8 ft.

 

Edited June 6, 2021 by Pacific231G
clarifying a couple of points.

[TravisM]

I’ve spoken to him earlier this evening and he’s going to use his Bachmann 4-car Class 350’s individually as two sets would fit, though it’s more prototypical.  He’s not only having the 350’s on the layout but 150’s, 153’s and maybe 158’s or 170’s. I did suggest a Cross Country 220 Voyager but he loathes them, both prototype and model.

[Siberian Snooper]

As an exercise yesterday afternoon, due to the miserable weather I drew up the Minories track plan in Templot using the new make Y turnout function that Martin has introduced in the latest iteration of Templot.

 

The radii through the Y turnouts is a fraction over 8 foot and the overall length over the turnout work is a fraction over 3 feet, excluding the catch point for the loco spur.

 

 

It flows very well I think.

 

[St Enodoc]

36 minutes ago, Siberian Snooper said:

As an exercise yesterday afternoon, due to the miserable weather I drew up the Minories track plan in Templot using the new make Y turnout function that Martin has introduced in the latest iteration of Templot.

 

The radii through the Y turnouts is a fraction over 8 foot and the overall length over the turnout work is a fraction over 3 feet, excluding the catch point for the loco spur.

 

 

It flows very well I think.

 

It does, and it's an interesting exercise, but you've introduced a lot of reverse curves.

[t-b-g]

 

1 hour ago, Siberian Snooper said:

As an exercise yesterday afternoon, due to the miserable weather I drew up the Minories track plan in Templot using the new make Y turnout function that Martin has introduced in the latest iteration of Templot.

 

The radii through the Y turnouts is a fraction over 8 foot and the overall length over the turnout work is a fraction over 3 feet, excluding the catch point for the loco spur.

 

 

It flows very well I think.

 

 

52 minutes ago, St Enodoc said:

It does, and it's an interesting exercise, but you've introduced a lot of reverse curves.

 

Yes but they are very gentle reverse curves. If your stock can't handle an 8ft radius reverse curve easily, you are doing something wrong.

 

A train snaking through curves looks really good but is only practical if the radius is big enough.

 

I could see that working really well.

 

 

[St Enodoc]

1 hour ago, t-b-g said:

 

 

 

Yes but they are very gentle reverse curves. If your stock can't handle an 8ft radius reverse curve easily, you are doing something wrong.

 

A train snaking through curves looks really good but is only practical if the radius is big enough.

 

I could see that working really well.

 

 

I agree Tony, but with all those reverse curves it ain't Minories in my book.

[t-b-g]

11 minutes ago, St Enodoc said:

I agree Tony, but with all those reverse curves it ain't Minories in my book.

 

I can see that. It is perhaps a development of it, or inspired by it, rather like some of my own designs. 

[Pacific231G]

42 minutes ago, St Enodoc said:

I agree Tony, but with all those reverse curves it ain't Minories in my book.

I tried this arrangement using Peco medium and Y points but found the double reverse curves to look very unnatural when I actually ran sets of coaches through them and I did get more buffer-locking. Peco Ys are nominal 5ft radius so the degree of twisting is probably greater but the overall throat length is about the same.

With  a sequence of points like this it's not just the radius that matters but the movement of coupled vehicles through the whole set up.

For me, the best compromise was to replace the outermost of the back to back points  with a Y and to then have  a very shallow curve through the platforms to bring the lines back to parallel with the baseboard (to allow for extension)  I won't go into more detail here as this topic is about Phil's own "pure" Minories layout, and how to build it. I'd also just be repeating what  I've described in great detail with images on the General Theory of Minories topic. It's not for me to say of course, this is Phil's topic, but maybe that's where theoretical discussions about developments from Minories as opposed to actually building them belong. 

 

 

Edited June 6, 2021 by Pacific231G

[Pacific231G]

I have a question for Phil and others. 

I'm getting quite serious about building my version of Minories (see General Theory of Minories for the track plan) but I don't have Phil's carpentry skills.  I can probably get ply cut to rectangular sizes by a local supplier  but  all my past and existing layouts have been based on traditional timber frames and I've not had particular problems with bending. I actually suspect that 3x 0.5  inch (75x15mm)  section PSE would be more resistant to bending than 2x1 (and my current layout uses hardwood rather than PSE) but if I do finally go down the plywood route I'm wondering what depth of framing would be desirable for metre long boards to get good stability. I 've long assumed that ply construction is more stable than PSE framing but I discussed his layout with the builder of a portable folding Minories (sadly no longer with us)  and he had built it from ply but had suffered from bending of his three metre long baseboards. I also want to keep the weight down.

Any thoughts? 

 

  

Edited June 6, 2021 by Pacific231G

[lezz01]

You could use a double skin of 6mm ply with evenly spaced wood spacer blocks between the two layers of ply to make the frame. That way you can get away with a frame depth of 100mm/4". Make the frame the same way as you would using 2x1 or 3x1 it will be stronger than solid wood and less prone to warping. You can lose a bit of weight by cutting reliving holes in the internal crossmembers. I'm planning to have the "frame" on my Tewkesbury shed layout from 150mm deep 18mm ply the boards will be approximately 1m long with 2 crossmembers on each board. It will not be light as I'm not a fan of lightweight base boards as they seem to cause more trouble than they are worth but then I do tend to overengineer everything. To my mind it's far better to overengineer things than under engineer them and have to go back and build things properly later on. If you are hell bent on lightweight baseboards you could build them with just a 6mm ply skin glued to a foam core. How long they will last is the question.

Regards Lez.       

[D-A-T]

Never in the field of layout building,

Has so much been written, by so many, about so little a layout.

With apologies to WSC. 

[t-b-g]

3 hours ago, Pacific231G said:

I have a question for Phil and others. 

I'm getting quite serious about building my version of Minories (see General Theory of Minories for the track plan) but I don't have Phil's carpentry skills.  I can probably get ply cut to rectangular sizes by a local supplier  but  all my past and existing layouts have been based on traditional timber frames and I've not had particular problems with bending. I actually suspect that 3x 0.5  inch (75x15mm)  section PSE would be more resistant to bending than 2x1 (and my current layout uses hardwood rather than PSE) but if I do finally go down the plywood route I'm wondering what depth of framing would be desirable for metre long boards to get good stability. I 've long assumed that ply construction is more stable than PSE framing but I discussed his layout with the builder of a portable folding Minories (sadly no longer with us)  and he had built it from ply but had suffered from bending of his three metre long baseboards. I also want to keep the weight down.

Any thoughts? 

 

  

 

Strangely enough I have just been reading an article in an old magazine by Iain Rice where he puts forward his thoughts on the matter.

 

He was advocating 4" x 1/2" timber as it weighs the same as 2"x1" but has the strength in the bigger dimension where it is needed most.

[lezz01]

9 minutes ago, t-b-g said:

 

Strangely enough I have just been reading an article in an old magazine by Iain Rice where he puts forward his thoughts on the matter.

 

He was advocating 4" x 1/2" timber as it weighs the same as 2"x1" but has the strength in the bigger dimension where it is needed most.

Taking that a step further 12mm x 100mm ply  would be the same dimensions but even stronger than timber and if you also screwed and glued a length of 12mm x 50mm ply on to the 12x100 you would have an L section girder which would be almost indestructible. Overengineering again! I just can't help myself!   

Regards Lez.

[Pacific231G]

54 minutes ago, t-b-g said:

 

Strangely enough I have just been reading an article in an old magazine by Iain Rice where he puts forward his thoughts on the matter.

 

He was advocating 4" x 1/2" timber as it weighs the same as 2"x1" but has the strength in the bigger dimension where it is needed most.

Indeed 

From memory I think the relationship between bending resistance and depth of a simple beam is roughly a square cube function  so doubling its depth would make it eight times as resistant while doubling its width would only double its strength. That would make a 4 x 0.5 beam four times as resistant to bending as a 2x1.*  The actual calculation requires  a lot of integral calculus I forgot how to do decades ago. 

 

In a beam, most of the bending forces are also acting towards the top and bottom hence the shape of I girders  (including rails) and the ability to use lightening holes without  significant weakening . 

 

I've also seen suggestions of using  a monocoque baseboars with a bottom as well as a top surface to resist twisting forces. That certainly works for wooden aircraft wings which are  long cantilevers that deal with rather high forces, need to be very strong but also very light.  

 

*This also suggests that code  100 rail is over twice as strong vertically as code  75 rail 

Edited June 6, 2021 by Pacific231G