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Theory of General Minories


Mike W2
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9 hours ago, Pacific231G said:

Thanks Tony. No I don't need to swap; Metros and trams apart, French trains  (except in the formerly German Alsace) run on the left as do a surprising number of other European countries.

I think the trains Cyril had in mind were the TT-3 Jinty and suburban coaches that were launched with the new "scale" by Tri-ang the month before. I've just dug out the MRC Bulletin for 9/10 2006 where, in his "Origin of Minories"  introduction to Tom Cunnington's EM plan for Minories (GN), Cyril says that "The original scheme was for TT gauge, but most copies have been in 4mm or 7mm scale. I've lost count of the number of people who have come up to me at shows and thanked me for the design"  

From my experinments today (Saturday), these are the throwovers in the worst case, the back to back points where I've used a Y and a right hand medium.

This is probably as good as I can get in the available length without opting for a single track throat.

 

Rivarossi DEV Inox longue (11.5" OB)

581241033_LesMinoriestest06-06-202Up-1DEVINOX11.5inches.jpg.092dd065c892f4f82edddb2af8c64c28.jpg27002183_LesMinoriestest06-06-203Up-1DEVINOX11.5inches.jpg.838924f8642eca534fdc82d4d54cafa4.jpg

 

Lima DEV AO court (short) (10.5" OB)

2147306532_LesMinoriestest06-06-204Up-1DEVAO10.5inches.jpg.58b954b56fcf84485e0aa65eed675f97.jpg389052313_LesMinoriestest06-06-205Up-1DEVAO10.5inches.jpg.07f79bda0992cc00a429f7d84c9f270f.jpg

 

Rivarossi CIWL Pullman and Wagon Restaurant (10.5" OB)

 

359967917_LesMinoriestest06-06-206Up-1CIWL10.5inches.jpg.8975994ffc874d4afd5dfd0bdc0ed719.jpg

1207445781_LesMinoriestest06-06-207Up-1CIWL10.5inches.jpg.ea0b4272a84afb9c121b574da747fcb6.jpg

 

Modified Minories throat

1227182212_LesMinoriestest06-06-201a.jpg.9e0e923564472bdd76c65d5edc81ad2f.jpg

 

I shall leave this lot up overnight and see what I think of it in the morning!

 

Interesting stuff! The "throw over" is better than some I have seen and when viewed from the side, rather than from above, doesn't look bad. There used to be some rather tight points coming into Doncaster Station from the Sheffield line and any experienced passengers knew not to stand up too soon as you would be literally "thrown over" as you went through them. I don't think you are far off that.

 

Very few models are viewed from directly above, so although it looks slightly worse from that angle, I don't see that as a visual problem as long as the couplings work and it doesn't cause derailments.

 

With all these things, there needs to be a time to stop tinkering and get building and you may well be there!

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2 hours ago, Harlequin said:

No matter how final you think a plan is, if you leave it long enough you'll be able to find improvements!

 

This was my previous SP35 Minories essay (V19):

358847828_MinoriesSP3519.png.d7e2886f04be0797896f1ac3b306accc.png

 

But, as highlighted, the top elbow curve seems a bit too sharp and there's a small radius turnout in the reverse curve into P1. I'm sure this was pointed out before but for whatever reason it remained in the design. :rolleyes_mini:

 


With regards to the elbow curve on the down line for departures from platform 1 (I’m assuming it’s a London terminus), I think this is only traversed by either light engines in and out of the stabling siding or said departures (again, I’m assuming conventional up / down line operation beyond the crossovers).  As such, if I had to put up with a tighter elbow curve on that piece of track in order to save space elsewhere it might be a compromise worth living with - it’s also at the back and partially hidden by the signal box too.  Just a thought, Keith.

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5 hours ago, Harlequin said:

No matter how final you think a plan is, if you leave it long enough you'll be able to find improvements!

 

This was my previous SP35 Minories essay (V19):

358847828_MinoriesSP3519.png.d7e2886f04be0797896f1ac3b306accc.png

 

But, as highlighted, the top elbow curve seems a bit too sharp and there's a small radius turnout in the reverse curve into P1. I'm sure this was pointed out before but for whatever reason it remained in the design. :rolleyes_mini:

 

I realised that I could fix these problems and one or two other minor details like this (V20a):

1987611304_MinoriesSP3520a.png.b14a2d08bfa7f08f3d19e813fc6ea84d.png

 

The elbow is smoother, the crossovers are all Medium (although this is still not ideal for bogie stock as David has demonstrated) and I have banished one Small turnout from the design. The angles and small curves needed to achieve this are quite subtle!

 

Then I realised that the straight Medium at the end of P1 looked rather ugly amongst the curves all around it and wondered if a curved turnout might improve the flow (V20b):

1039840125_MinoriesSP3520b.png.9ba5ad2e2ffde25ae7d62c45c5ddddbc.png

 

The angles and curves in this one are fiendish and the elbow curve is a bit tighter again but I feel the inbound and outbound tracks flow together much better.

 

Hi Phil

I think the catch with using Peco curved turnouts is that the quoted inner radius is 762mm so somewhere between a small (610mm) and medium (914mm) but the total length is the same as a large radius turnout. So, you'd be lengthening the throat without any gain in avoiding excessive throwover.  The position of the toe of that turnout is fairly crucial as it determines the available length of platform 1. With my current  experiments I'm finding that every inch is critical in terms of what trains I can accomodate - I've decided that it must accomodate at least a small Pacific, four express coaches and a shorter brakevan but that's tight in the space I have.  

The alternative to avoid the elbow curve being quite so tight would be to use a large radius Y to access the loco siding with an equivalent curve (nominal 5ft R) between its toe and the heel of the the outermost point to swing it through the extra six degrees.  I find designing the track connecting the down line with platform 1 with the loco siding access point somewhere along it (It doesn't have to be at one end or the other) fiendishly difficult for track planning software but a lot easier by eye with actual track.  

Edited by Pacific231G
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1 hour ago, Pacific231G said:

The alternative to avoid the elbow curve being quite so tight would be to use a large radius Y to access the loco siding with an equivalent curve (nominal 5ft R) between its toe and the heel of the the outermost point to swing it through the extra six degrees. 

 

There's an awful lot of repetition in this thread, but it's just possible that this is an original suggestion.  Y points have been included on several occasions, but as far as I can see always used in at least one of the crossovers.

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On 06/06/2020 at 16:09, Izzy said:

I'm a great believer in the less is more way of thinking with a lot of things in life, but particularly with regard to layouts. The video link t-b-g posted really sums it up for me. All a bigger layout would provide is greater amounts of stock being moved around, the actual moves would be mostly just the same. And I think I would be correct in saying that it was this kind of situation that Minories was originally meant for, a time when stock was not so easily obtained for many with regard to both cost and availability, factors that don't have such an impact these days, well not at present, although times could well be changing again with current circumstances.

 

With regard to the reverse curve look of Minories I did look at flipping the exit section when I was searching for a town/city terminus to make in 2mm/2FS and a crude copy is below. It's not to any scale as regards the platform lengths etc, just a proof of concept, and that all the points were B6's. A6's would help loose some length as would other adjustments. Platform one was considered to be just an arrival or parcels road, with the headshunt being used to move the stock to 2 for exit. It might give someone thoughts with no particular reverse curves just the larger radius entry/exit lines.

 

another_minories_like_plan.jpg.bb71ef57ddd4327966f06eb1fddeba26.jpg

 

Izzy

 

While scanning through the thread, I noticed that you have hit upon the same curvature as @HAB in his P4 version, albeit with the crossovers separate rather than compressed into a scissors:

 

 

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6 hours ago, Harlequin said:

 

It might be nice but there's not enough room I'm afraid. There's a baseboard joint at 3ft 6in, indicated by the thin white line.

 

 

Oops, forgot that constraint :rolleyes:

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23 minutes ago, Flying Pig said:

 

There's an awful lot of repetition in this thread, but it's just possible that this is an original suggestion.  Y points have been included on several occasions, but as far as I can see always used in at least one of the crossovers.


I went back to the beginning and looked through the first 15 pages the other day (it was as much as I had time for).  The thought did cross my mind that there are moments when we have a roundy-roundy conversation here :rofl: but I didn’t dare say it.
 

If anyone’s not yet seen the Bastille plan part of the thread from the early pages it’s worth checking out in it’s own right.

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I think we have done well to get to 34 pages discussion on a fairly simple track plan. Some repeat comments or observations are likely especially if you don't read the first 33 pages before you post your pearls of wisdom.

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Hi David,

3 hours ago, Pacific231G said:

Hi Phil

I think the catch with using Peco curved turnouts is that the quoted inner radius is 762mm so somewhere between a small (610mm) and medium (914mm) but the total length is the same as a large radius turnout. So, you'd be lengthening the throat without any gain in avoiding excessive throwover. 

I measure the inner radius of curved points as 28in, 711mm. If you look at the drawing you'll see that it doesn't lengthen the throat. It's not intended to with help throwover - it just replaces a curve-straight-curve route with a continuous curve.

 

Quote

The position of the toe of that turnout is fairly crucial as it determines the available length of platform 1. With my current  experiments I'm finding that every inch is critical in terms of what trains I can accomodate - I've decided that it must accomodate at least a small Pacific, four express coaches and a shorter brakevan but that's tight in the space I have.

The curved point does make a small difference to the length of Platform 1. You can see exactly what difference by comparing the three drawings in my post. For my purposes it's not a problem and the platform ramp starts near the toe anyway so moving it further out wouldn't make any real difference.

 

Quote

The alternative to avoid the elbow curve being quite so tight would be to use a large radius Y to access the loco siding with an equivalent curve (nominal 5ft R) between its toe and the heel of the the outermost point to swing it through the extra six degrees.

Yes indeed! I used exactly that trick in Pacific Terminus but here I'm keen to keep the inbound and outbound tracks parallel until the final crossover and I think the greater radius of the LargeY would make that difficult in the space available.

 

Quote

  I find designing the track connecting the down line with platform 1 with the loco siding access point somewhere along it (It doesn't have to be at one end or the other) fiendishly difficult for track planning software but a lot easier by eye with actual track.  

This is another advantage of using a drawing program rather than track planning software because I'm effectively doing the same as you but on the computer screen. I sometimes lay a turnout down where it looks like it might fit and then adjust the trackwork around it.

 

 

For those readers who might be bored by all this virtual planning, you should know that I have started building!

 

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18 minutes ago, t-b-g said:

I think we have done well to get to 34 pages discussion on a fairly simple track plan. Some repeat comments or observations are likely especially if you don't read the first 33 pages before you post your pearls of wisdom.


The Hornby Dublo video you posted is a recent highlight, a real gem.  As others have said (possibly your good self), the short trains really capture the atmosphere of modelling from that era (when the plan was drawn), but for me the demonstration of an intensive and meaningful service being operated is what stood out - it brings the plan to life.

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I felt inspired from some of the stuff thats been on here in the last few pages and thought I'd try my hand at coming up with some island variations on minories and some variations while working with streamline points ( despite not owning any yet )

From top to bottom:
A stream line version of keiths' layout a few pages back, its almost a 1m long but still under 26cm wide so would fit on a billy bookcase shelf
Island with a pilot road in the middle using the peco 3 way points 
The middle pilot road somewhat reminds me of woking platform 3 somewhat, you could maybe run a autocoach/ 1 car dmu if you extended the platform around it 

Island minories without a pilot road

Added in a pilot road with a y point, I think that an emu would look rather nice curving across this trackwork from the top platform 
image.png.2d6d6692865e122d7e43876ecdce0870.png

 

I had some thoughts about interesting moves while making these, would this have ever happened?
Loco arrives in platform 2
Pilot brings coaches forward in to the throat, releasing the loco which then moves into the siding via the crossover
Coaches are pushed forward into the platform and pilot moves out of the way and loco runs round 

 

All of this could happen without effecting workings into platform 1, I dont see it happening in the prototype however as the coaches could have quite easily been moved into platform 1. Anyone have any example of this kind of move happening? it feels like it could have happened at a sleepy blt

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7 hours ago, Keith Addenbrooke said:


I went back to the beginning and looked through the first 15 pages the other day (it was as much as I had time for).  The thought did cross my mind that there are moments when we have a roundy-roundy conversation here :rofl: but I didn’t dare say it.
 

If anyone’s not yet seen the Bastille plan part of the thread from the early pages it’s worth checking out in it’s own right.

The plans for the actual Bastille terminus were mine so, to save you all from hunting for it, here it is again (I actually drew it in Xtrkcad -it must have taken me ages!)

399510863_Bastillefinaltrackplan(usingPecoLRpoints).jpg.d01953a3e710128e5dda9d5fbb65ce79.jpg

I drew the final arrangement of the real station for my articles about it in CM (and the French RMF) with Peco large radius points and, rather to my surprise,  it came out almost identical in size. Apart from one single slip at the end, the whole throat was laid out with tan 0.13 (#7.5) left and right hand points designated short and long (in a way reminiscent of Peco's small and medium radius points using the same crossing)  Those were the sharpest of SNCF's standard points and normally only used for sidings so it was essential to avoid any reverse curves and there were none.

 

I'm fascinated by Bastille and it's one of the reasons for my great interest in Minories.

 

Both were exercises in getting a complex multi platform throat into  a ridiculously short space. In Bastille's case that meant being able to connect any two of the five platfoms simultaneously to both up and down lines, something that can be done with Minories' three platforms by adding a track between the up line and platform three.

Like the original conception of Minories, Bastille was operated exclusively by tank locos hauling almost identical trains and,until its final six or seven years when push-pull trains were used, operation in the rush hours used turnover locos on a massive scale.  with locos arriving with trains or ECS workings from the carriage sidings a couple of miles down the line taking out the next train but three about twenty five minutes later. It was a relentless cycle where five trains departed from platforms 5 to1 in turn in the space of ten minutes. As each train left an incoming train would take their place within about five minutes while locos worked their way to the front of their next train and the whole cycle was then repeated. Push-pull working must have been a doddle in comparison!

The tightness of the pointwork did mean that the corridor connections were removed from the ex Reichsbahn bogie coaches used from soon after the war until the push-pull stock arrived in about 1963. The station closed at the end of 1969 when most of the line became part of the electrified RER. 

 

There was an even more length constrained commuter terminus in Lyon. St. Paul also had five platforms but also a goods yard (it's three or four and a bus park now)  but it was never as intensively worked as Bastille. In any case the PLM cheated by putting a scissors crossover inside the start of the long tunnel that constrained its lenth. It's not a bad prototype though.

Edited by Pacific231G
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30 minutes ago, Keith Addenbrooke said:


The Hornby Dublo video you posted is a recent highlight, a real gem.  As others have said (possibly your good self), the short trains really capture the atmosphere of modelling from that era (when the plan was drawn), but for me the demonstration of an intensive and meaningful service being operated is what stood out - it brings the plan to life.

 

Couldn't agree more. Not just intensive and meaningful but also varied. The video shows a number of different ways to deal with a train that has arrived. I think that if CJF had seen that, he would have been very happy to have seen his plan built and brought to life in that fashion.

 

I hope my efforts are as entertaining on the operational side.

 

Something I was thinking about. It seems that there are several of us either contemplating or actually building layouts either true Minories or inspired by Minories. How about a thread, either this one continued or a new one to follow the constructional side of things? We must be nearly exhausted in the theory and design side of things (or so I thought then we get new input apart from "IncorrectlySpelt"!) but there is still plenty to keep us amused if we move on to the various different ways of creating our Minories based layouts.

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It might as well be this one continued. I think we've almost exhausted the special and general theories of Minories throats and if anyone else comes up with a good new idea that will be excellent. Do we need to rename it?

 

To put all my attempts to minimise the throwover through a Minories throat into perspective, I've just laid out a straight crossover using a pair of Peco large radius turnouts and, lo and behold, with my longest coaches the throwover is no better (about 5-6mm) than it is through the version of Minories I tested yesterday with one of the back to backs replaced by a large radius Y.     Obviously a straight crossover made with medium radius turnouts is far worse so Cyril Freezer's moment of inspiration is still valid over fifty three years later!

 

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6 minutes ago, Pacific231G said:

It might as well be this one continued. I think we've almost exhausted the special and general theories of Minories throats and if anyone else comes up with a good new idea that will be excellent. Do we need to rename it?

 

To put all my attempts to minimise the throwover through a Minories throat into perspective, I've just laid out a straight crossover using a pair of Peco large radius turnouts and, lo and behold, with my longest coaches the throwover is no better (about 5-6mm) than it is through the version of Minories I tested yesterday with one of the back to backs replaced by a large radius Y.     Obviously a straight crossover made with medium radius turnouts is far worse so Cyril Freezer's moment of inspiration is still valid over fifty three years later!

 

 

Cyril's design with a point then a straight virtually halves the throwover compared to a conventional crossover, where you get one carriage going to one side and the next going the same amount in the opposite direction. To me, that is the really clever bit of the plan. So you would have to have a much larger radius to get the same throw. The fact that the Peco points all diverge at the same angle doesn't help either. A shallower divergence is one area where a home made point really does improve things.

 

I don't know how to rename a thread and recall that the person who created it might have to be the one who changes it. They haven't posted anything for 3 years so may not be around RMWeb any more to do it! It would be nice to call it "Minories theory and practice" or something like that but I have no idea how to change it.  

 

 

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1 hour ago, t-b-g said:

Something I was thinking about. It seems that there are several of us either contemplating or actually building layouts either true Minories or inspired by Minories. How about a thread, either this one continued or a new one to follow the constructional side of things? We must be nearly exhausted in the theory and design side of things (or so I thought then we get new input apart from "IncorrectlySpelt"!) but there is still plenty to keep us amused if we move on to the various different ways of creating our Minories based layouts.

It might get confusing if we all post updates about different layout builds in the same thread so my suggestion would be to create separate threads in Layout Topics for each layout. This is the normal way of doing things and layout topics often contain chat and links to other layouts by like-minded people. Perfect for a little Minories club.

 

Keep this topic for the design and the “Theory of General Minories”.

 

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1 minute ago, Joseph_Pestell said:

 

You can do that yourself.

 

Just go back to the first post and click on Edit.

You can only alter the title if you are the OP so neither you or I can do it.

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19 minutes ago, Harlequin said:

Keep this topic for the design and the “Theory of General Minories”.

 

I've applied that suggestion.

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I would just say that I am rubbish at keeping any constructional threads for my own modelling going and the thought of having to look at several different threads rather than one doesn't appeal to me.

 

I just thought a communal construction thread might be a bit more sociable, as well as being a bit unusual and likely to be updated more often but if that is not what others want, then I respect that.

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