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Minories Prototypes


johnofwessex
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CJ Freezers 'Minories' is often mentioned, but what was the inspiration/how many such stations existed?

 

I am taking it to mean a small terminus, BUT which isnt a 'Branch Line'

 

The obvious one that springs to mind is Bath Green Park which is fairly compact at the 'passenger' end but has an overall roof, turning facilities etc

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The plan itself is based on London Transport’s Circle and Met lines of Liverpool St station even though the prototype is a through station.  I think the joy of the plan and it’s longevity is it’s simple, could be used in more or less any location or region.

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I originally thought it was based on the real 'Minories' which is the roadway under the end of Fenchurch St Station.

 

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/dir//Online+Chem+House,+105a+Minories,+Tower,+London+EC3N+1LA/@51.5109787,-0.0751767,77m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m8!4m7!1m0!1m5!1m1!1s0x4876034bec940001:0xcd0342976b22318e!2m2!1d-0.0752623!2d51.5109388

 

And not far from the 4D model shop 

 

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The problem with Minories is the small urban terminus where suburban services terminated was quite a rare beastie outside the London Underground network.   There is Birmingham Moor St cramped (and only about 12 coaches long)  but I can't really think of anywhere else.  

The outstanding terminus was Moorgate st where LNER had one platform and the LMS another alongside London Transport lines and both LMS and LNER ran intensive services as CJF intended for Minories, train in, new loco on back train departs and loco to loco spur ready for next train, probably around 3 minutes from arrival to departure.   Even some major termini needed quick work to remove trains, Euston apparently had only two decent full length arrival platforms but swift work cleared empty stock away up Camden Bank to the carriage sidings so they could terminate several trains per platform/ hour.  

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34 minutes ago, DavidCBroad said:

The problem with Minories is the small urban terminus where suburban services terminated was quite a rare beastie outside the London Underground network.   There is Birmingham Moor St cramped (and only about 12 coaches long)  but I can't really think of anywhere else.  

The outstanding terminus was Moorgate st where LNER had one platform and the LMS another alongside London Transport lines and both LMS and LNER ran intensive services as CJF intended for Minories, train in, new loco on back train departs and loco to loco spur ready for next train, probably around 3 minutes from arrival to departure.   Even some major termini needed quick work to remove trains, Euston apparently had only two decent full length arrival platforms but swift work cleared empty stock away up Camden Bank to the carriage sidings so they could terminate several trains per platform/ hour.  

Of course it is a rare beast. London was one of the few places that had extensive existing infrastructure that preventing them from building large extensive stations. Euston was in the sticks when first built, but such was the huge growth of traffic, that it became very cramped and add on after add on occurred.

Birmingham New Street ended up entirely different as a replacement for Curzon Street (too small again), where basically the whole LNWR station (and the Midland expansion), were largely UNDER the city centre - this needed and got approval from the city authorities.

 

Fenchurch Street was another compact shared station with high traffic, but it is not anything like Minories, because it uses standard straight track and crossovers.

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9 hours ago, jools1959 said:

The plan itself is based on London Transport’s Circle and Met lines of Liverpool St station even though the prototype is a through station.

 

"Inspired by" rather than "based on" would be more accurate.  CJF seems to have been quite taken with the operation of the terminating trains at Liverpool Street (Met), but the actual track layout was, as you say, a through station - and it didn't have the key Minories arrangement of the crossovers in the station throat.  That element of Minories was pretty much down to a pure CJF lightbulb moment.  There's a basic explanation of the above from the man himself in his "60 Plans for Small Layouts" book.  And, as CKPR says, there's much, much more discussion of the origins of the track plan - including old maps of the prototype referenced by CJF - buried in amongst all the other ramblings in that lengthy thread.

 

CJF did publish a track plan based directly on the actual Liverpool Street (Met) station in his PSL Book of Model Railway Track Plans.  This post in (yet) another Minories thread has more info.

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Minories was the original terminus of the London and Blackwall Railway and I always assumed that was the Minories referred to by CJF. But to me Minories is the bus station on Minories (street) from where the Green Line coaches to the East of London (Romford and the like) departed from.

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On 15/10/2020 at 04:06, DavidCBroad said:

The problem with Minories is the small urban terminus where suburban services terminated was quite a rare beastie outside the London Underground network

There's loads I can name off the top of my head that broadly fit the description around London. Tattenham Corner, Caterham, Windsor (both), Reading Southern, Henley... Further out there's Southampton Terminus, Bournemouth West, Weymouth, Littlehampton, Bognor, Eastbourne, Clacton, Southend Victoria, Oxford LNW, the pre-1930s stations at Ramsgate and Margate...

 

They're not much like CJFs Minories and I'm sure some could be debated, but I don't think there's any shortage of fairly small main line termini around the South of England at least.

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5 hours ago, Zomboid said:

There's loads I can name off the top of my head that broadly fit the description around London. Tattenham Corner, Caterham, Windsor (both), Reading Southern, Henley... Further out there's Southampton Terminus, Bournemouth West, Weymouth, Littlehampton, Bognor, Eastbourne, Clacton, Southend Victoria, Oxford LNW, the pre-1930s stations at Ramsgate and Margate...

 

They're not much like CJFs Minories and I'm sure some could be debated, but I don't think there's any shortage of fairly small main line termini around the South of England at least.

My point was that small urban termini where (Only) Suburban services terminated were rare.  All those quoted above had long distance trains terminating, with tender engines, ECS workings,  Most had separate arrival and departure platforms Not suburban trains being turned around rapidly with turn back locos arriving and departing from the same platform.     In an early edition of "60 plans" CJF said he designed Minories  for the suburban tank locos recently introduced, which would have been Triang's Jinty and BR 3MT 2-6-2T and Hornby Dublos 0-6-2T and 4MT 2-6-4

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I've always tended to think that, to make Minories "work" outside London, it's necessary to do a bit of might-have-been/alternative reality thinking. If it is postulated that the great expansion of the suburbs around most major cities that occurred in the 1930s to 1960s actually started, in your chosen area, maybe 30-40 years earlier you can sort of get away with it. Not a totally outrageous bit of speculation by freelance model railway standards.

 

There are probably still only a limited number of places that could justify it though. Birmingham, the Manchester conurbation, maybe one of the West Riding centres. Bristol would be marginal. I can't think of anywhere in the North East that would really work, but I keep trying to mentally expand the development to the west of Newcastle to justify something around Gallowgate, where the trains would need to depart up the fearsome (and entirely fictional and impractical) Westgate Bank. 

 

North of the Border, the Glasgow area could probably be justified. Edinburgh is less promising but Rule 1 applies. 

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In principle, rather than track plan, Bath Green Park. Lots of local services to Bristol and branch services down the old S&D. There were only 2 platform faces but 4 tracks between them. I understand turn around times were tight and some trains had locos attached at the rear for reversal, although these may have been the longer distance though services between the midlands and Bournemouth. Turn around times were perhaps not as tight as the 3-4 mins mentioned here though.

 

After about 1962 reduced longer distance trains, but probably also a less intense timetable.

 

A possible Minories (ish) model using rule 1 if local services had remained into the station after '66?!

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6 hours ago, ejstubbs said:

 

How about Corstorphine?

 

637237407_Screenshot2020-10-18at09_20_15.png.4663700be2459abd30f27953bc0332ce.png

 

Or Barnton?

 

342561688_Screenshot2020-10-18at09_24_50.png.232a64aa0d937741094a19089419212c.png

 

Edinburgh had quite an extensive suburban rail network between the wars.

I quite like the Barnston plan. Central loco release road, and even a scissors on the approach, for that "busy" look to the trackwork. Indeed, in a number of ways, including the surrounding scenery, it's quite model like. 

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The scissors is the wrong side of the bridge for a model, but otherwise it would fit nicely onto a rectangular baseboard.

 

Doesn't look like a central release road though, I don't think there's a platform on the north side of that set of tracks.

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2 hours ago, Zomboid said:

Doesn't look like a central release road though, I don't think there's a platform on the north side of that set of tracks.

 

Correct.  It's an island platform, with a run-round loop on each side and a carriage siding beyond the loop on the north side.  It's described in the Railscot article I linked in my previous post.

 

It all seems a bit OTT for what was really a fairly minor suburban terminus with just one train each hour in each direction on weekdays, according to my Ian Allen facsimile of the 1910 Bradshaw's.  (Corstorphine was slightly busier, but on a less regular schedule.)  This might have been largely due to the ambitions of the local landowner, who seems to have had visions of turning Davidson's Mains and Barnton in to a sort of Edinburgh Metroland.

 

Shortly after the Barnton branch opened in 1894 the Caledonian apparently toyed with the idea of extending it, by a rather circuitous route, to Corstorphine.  That fell through, probably in part because of the unreasonably long journey time that passengers would have faced getting from Corstorphine to Princes Street.  The North British built their much more direct branch to Corstorphine in the early 1900s.

Edited by ejstubbs
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On 17/10/2020 at 22:16, 62613 said:

Adding to that, up North, I suppose you could start by adding, say Bacup )which someone has already done) and Royton

 

Manchester Mayfield would be another Northern example, and a city centre one too! However old OS maps seem to show a somewhat peculiar and conflicting throat arrangement.

 

The MS&L side of Manchester London Road could perhaps also be considered as another example.

 

 

 

 

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3 hours ago, Zomboid said:

Edinburgh's railways look pretty fascinating in general. How little remains is a little surprising considering the maximum extent was pretty huge.

 

A great many of the old railway routes around Edinburgh are now shared use foot/cycle paths.  It's a real shame that so much was wiped off the map in the 1950s and 60s.  Lothian Buses does a decent job in the circumstances but modern rail services from the suburbs in to the city centre would probably help keep cars off the roads at peak times, and reduce congestion on the main road corridors (and their rat-runs).

 

Pretty much the only remaining bit of genuine suburban rail in Edinburgh (as opposed to stations on longer-distance main lines, like Slateford or Wester Hailes) is the South Sub, which isn't much use as a passenger route since it doesn't really link places that large numbers of people need to travel between, and there's little to no capacity on the main lines at each end of the line to get people in to Haymarket or Waverley.  It's only retained these days as a freight route, and as a diversion route for passenger trains (and even in that latter role it's limited by the fact that it's never been electrified).

 

Elsewhere, the story goes that the line from Waverley to Leith Central was an opportunistic move by the NBR in the early 1900s to take advantage of the fact that, if going by tram between the centre of Edinburgh and Leith, you had to change half way down Leith Walk.  Through trams only started running in the 1920s when the City of Edinburgh and the Burgh of Leith (which had actually only existed as a separate administrative area since 1833) were amalgamated, despite a plebiscite in which Leithers voted overwhelmingly against the merger.

 

Edited to add: Come to think, one might even put forward a case for Leith Central being a Minories-like urban terminus.  The station throat arrangement looks quite interesting - if not particularly compact - with two scissors crossovers and a single slip:

 

510117197_Screenshot2020-10-19at13_29_12.png.550c30608b40b25ad41a346f7bac61ea.png

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