Theory of General Minories

[t-b-g]

10 minutes ago, Keith Addenbrooke said:

 

I think there is something to be said for the visual spectacle of having the train I am controlling being passed (in either direction) by another train that is also on the move.  The only time I’ve ever done that as a sole operator however was at home on a continuous run double track layout where one of the trains was intentionally left running as background while I operated the other.

 

Single line entrances are fine when run as suggested in the posts above: Train 1 comes in, then Train 2 is cleared to depart.  But I’ve seen the opposite: Train 1 leaves then Train 2 arrives impossibly soon afterwards.  This is done to keep things moving, and is difficult to avoid at a country branch line terminus on an exhibition layout (I have some sympathy with the operator on this point).
 

My own small BLT practice layout is being imagineered as a twig branch off a double track line, so I can minimise that time gap, as I only have capacity for one train at a time (I am making other operating compromises - variety of engines, intensity of service etc.)

So I think there is a case for a double track entrance running one train at a time, as it allows departures to precede imminent arrivals in the schedule, or a single track entrance when there is capacity for interesting things happening in the station between departures / arrivals (ie: not one engine in steam).

 

Sorry if I wasn't clear. I didn't mean for the double track to go single on the visible section. I was talking about it still looking like a double track but with the two tracks going down to one to simplify the pointwork in a fiddle yard, like the one I illustrated a while ago.

 

I agree 100% about a single track branch where one train departs ad another arrives immediately. You can get around it if you make it clear that you haven't included the 30 minute gap where nothing was happening in your sequence.

 

On Leighton Buzzard, the "gap" is emphasised by block bells. A train sets off  the fiddle yard and when it arrives, only a few seconds later, the block bells ring 2-1 for "Train out of section". Those few seconds represent several real minutes but they do tell the viewers that the train has reached the end of the single line section so another one can come back. It is a bit of a "mind trick" but it works.

Edited June 15, 2020 by t-b-g

[Lacathedrale]

One thing I also think that could enhance the typical Minories-style terminus is a 'finescale' approach to signalling and operation - not letting locos stay trapped/idle at the buffers of a terminus (they should move to the platform ends to be in clear sight of the signalman), as well as the correct observance of the (real or imaginary) signals - particularly shunt signals and their role in protecting running lines, etc. - it keeps movement and visual interest but doesn't require the trains to zoom in and out at a hundred miles an hour.

[t-b-g]

3 minutes ago, Lacathedrale said:

If we are digressing to non-minories MInories, I think that @t-b-g's / Buckingham's passenger throat takes a beating:

 

 

More complex trackwork than Minories, but flexible and interesting.

 

It certainly packs an operational punch into a small area! I think your version is probably a bit straighter than Buckingham so might bring back the buffer locking possibility but it certainly works as a throat for a busy little station. 

[t-b-g]

7 minutes ago, Lacathedrale said:

One thing I also think that could enhance the typical Minories-style terminus is a 'finescale' approach to signalling and operation - not letting locos stay trapped/idle at the buffers of a terminus (they should move to the platform ends to be in clear sight of the signalman), as well as the correct observance of the (real or imaginary) signals - particularly shunt signals and their role in protecting running lines, etc. - it keeps movement and visual interest but doesn't require the trains to zoom in and out at a hundred miles an hour.

 

Precisely my thinking. Full signalling and a few moments for a route to be set add much to the running of any layout.

 

When I watch an exhibition layout, I love seeing the points, then the signals show what is going to happen next. It really adds a sense of anticipation. 

Edited June 15, 2020 by t-b-g
Spelling

[Enterprisingwestern]

2 hours ago, Harlequin said:

On the other hand the whole point of the Minories throat is that it allows the parallel inbound and outbound traffic movements of a busy commuter terminus. If the fiddle yard makes that impossible then why have that design of throat at all???

 

 

 

Agreed.

It's either Minories or it isn't.

 

Mike.

[D-A-T]

Never in the field of railway modelling has so much been written by so many about so little a layout....

 

But I have to admit there are many good ideas being propounded on here that have given me pause for though over my little proposed layout. The lack of goods facilities being the main one. Oh well back to the drawing board. 

[mdvle]

3 hours ago, Harlequin said:

On the other hand the whole point of the Minories throat is that it allows the parallel inbound and outbound traffic movements of a busy commuter terminus. If the fiddle yard makes that impossible then why have that design of throat at all???

 

Because like most of this hobby it is about creating the illusion of the real thing even though we can't recreate the real thing.

 

Create a single track throat and nobody, not even a non-railway viewer, will believe it is a busy passenger terminus.

 

One can, if the confidence and ability exists, get around some of the limitations by using a traverser instead of a traditional fiddle yard - or by building a larger and more complicated fiddle yard.

 

But space / time / money / capabilities more often than not are going to result in the simple fiddle yard at the cost of simultaneous movements - a trade off many will find acceptable.

 

[Lacathedrale]

51 minutes ago, D-A-T said:

Never in the field of railway modelling has so much been written by so many about so little a layout....

 

But I have to admit there are many good ideas being propounded on here that have given me pause for though over my little proposed layout. The lack of goods facilities being the main one. Oh well back to the drawing board. 

 

One thing my research on Holborn Viaduct has shown me is that a 'goods yard' or 'goods headshunt' is not strictly required. HV was a dreary and ill-tided place as early as the turn of the century and was used as a newspaper and parcels hub not only for suburban traffic but also for boat trains - even cattle would be 'bounced' off HV between the South Eastern routes to those routes heading south and south-west - to say nothing of the exchange traffic that would happen between other pre-group railways, which could even be as simple as one company's train dropping a cut of coaches/express freight wagons off and another company's locomotive pulling it out again.

[Keith Addenbrooke]

10 minutes ago, mdvle said:

 

Because like most of this hobby it is about creating the illusion of the real thing even though we can't recreate the real thing.

 

Create a single track throat and nobody, not even a non-railway viewer, will believe it is a busy passenger terminus.

 

I kind of want to offer a different answer here, but I had a little doodle at lunchtime to see what I could come up with for a single track version based on this morning’s posts, and, try as I might, every single track version looked like a country branch line to me, even if I wouldn’t need the double track for operating (I didn’t try faux double tracks or parallel headshunts, to be fair).  It didn’t help visually that I was going round a curve to form an L shape, thinking of home use, not exhibition.
 

Going back to original Minories of course, the Platform 1 departure line isn’t actually used in 5/6 routes, but is part of the illusion.  In a weird way, perhaps the absence of any length of running line is part of the same illusion too - it’s straight in with the action?

 

[Zomboid]

37 minutes ago, mdvle said:

Create a single track throat and nobody, not even a non-railway viewer, will believe it is a busy passenger terminus.

Perhaps not if you're looking at it with a British focus, but in other parts of the world (and light rail for that matter) intensely worked single line termini can be found. Hakone-Yumoto has a single track approach and a train to/from Odawara every 20 minutes. Admittedly that's not exactly Victoria line, but it's pretty busy there. (It's a double ended terminus too, the line up the mountain is a similar story).

[Izzy]

3 hours ago, Harlequin said:

On the other hand the whole point of the Minories throat is that it allows the parallel inbound and outbound traffic movements of a busy commuter terminus. If the fiddle yard makes that impossible then why have that design of throat at all???

 

And on the control side, you can easily set an outbound train going which will stop automatically in the FY while you concentrate on driving the inbound realistically.

 

 

 

I think it was the visual impact as much as the practicalities of working it. That even with no stock it looks like a busy terminus as opposed to the rural idyll. And it's that throat pointwork that's the key and why we are still musing over it all these years later. Done of course to enable a small and compact layout, the purpose of which was to encourage those with limited space with it's small footprint and foldable storage capability. It seems to have worked............and for a lot of people lack of space is as much an issue now as it's ever been.

 

Izzy

[Keith Addenbrooke]

2 hours ago, t-b-g said:

 

Precisely my thinking. Full signalling and a few moments for a route to be set add much to the running of any layout.

 

When I watch an exhibition layout, I love seeing the points, then the signals show what is going to happen next. It really adds a sense of anticipation. 

As a punter with limited modelling skills rather than an exhibitor or an expert I’m happy to pay to see that at an exhibition: something I can enjoy that I won’t get on railway days at home.  It’s been noted elsewhere in this thread that CJF designs such as Minories could be set up for such operation - even if building them to plan could sometimes be a challenge.

 

(I’d suggest that a ‘good’ exhibition will have a variety of layouts operated in a variety of ways to cater for those not so inclined, but that’s at risk of veering sharply off topic, so I include this bracketed comment only as a qualifying statement).

 

 

[Keith Addenbrooke]

13 minutes ago, Izzy said:

 

I think it was the visual impact as much as the practicalities of working it. That even with no stock it looks like a busy terminus as opposed to the rural idyll. And it's that throat pointwork that's the key and why we are still musing over it all these years later. Done of course to enable a small and compact layout, the purpose of which was to encourage those with limited space with it's small footprint and foldable storage capability. It seems to have worked............and for a lot of people lack of space is as much an issue now as it's ever been.

 

Izzy

Having already posted on this today I’m at risk of both repeating and contradicting myself (apologies to all), but the thought has crossed the vacant space between my ears during afternoon coffee / tea break that one of the other aspects of Minories could also come back into play here, with judicious use of scenic divides being used to hide / mask sleight of pencil tricks such as a single track.  While the “hinge bridge” on the original is as much about hiding the hinge, it’s double use as a scenic divide has also been cited as a feature of Minories in it’s own right.  I suspect that, if I came up with something it wouldn’t qualify as Minories, but ‘inspired by’ (or ‘challenged by’) might be appropriate.  Thinking time...

Edited June 15, 2020 by Keith Addenbrooke

[Zomboid]

It probably doesn't count as a true Minories if you bend it round a corner, but since I've posted this in another thread today...

All the fun of a Minories layout, without any reverse curves at all on the running lines.

[Nearholmer]

Just to throw a spanner in the works, for the lone operator at home it is perfectly possible to keep oneself entertained with a "Mico-ries", a single-track, two-platform terminus ........ I know, because I do!

 

Last night, another train to be dealt with was one consisting of a tank engine, a brake third with passengers, a 6W van, and a full milk tank. The tank had to be put in the bottling-plant siding, and the 6W van had to be put at the rear of the train for departure. It took oodles of moves to achieve this, and kept my tiny mind happy for a good twenty minutes. The ballet for this gets even more complicated if there are empty milk tanks to be taken away from the bottling plant as well as full ones to deliver.

 

I think I might be saying that, if a goods/parcels or milk section is included, Minories is unnecessarily big/complicated for home use. which might be controversial.

Edited June 15, 2020 by Nearholmer

[Izzy]

1 hour ago, Keith Addenbrooke said:

Having already posted on this today I’m at risk of both repeating and contradicting myself (apologies to all), but the thought has crossed the vacant space between my ears during afternoon coffee / tea break that one of the other aspects of Minories could also come back into play here, with judicious use of scenic divides being used to hide / mask sleight of pencil tricks such as a single track.  While the “hinge bridge” on the original is as much about hiding the hinge, it’s double use as a scenic divide has also been cited as a feature of Minories in it’s own right.  I suspect that, if I came up with something it wouldn’t qualify as Minories, but ‘inspired by’ (or ‘challenged by’) might be appropriate.  Thinking time...

 

I have used various aspects of Minories in different ways for my two current layouts, one 2mm/2FS & one 4mm/P4, and neither have much else in common with it! I do think that is one of it's benefits, that somehow it encourages you to think about the different features. On the P4 there is an overbridge that is not only a scenic dividing break, but as the little layout is only 5' long also acts as a carry handle for moving it about (without it's cover on). And with the 2mm the two platform tracks divide and go off through separate bridges exits as two sides of a triangular junction,..... and then back to the same fiddle yard...

 

Izzy

 

Edited June 15, 2020 by Izzy

[Satan's Goldfish]

1 hour ago, Keith Addenbrooke said:

I kind of want to offer a different answer here, but I had a little doodle at lunchtime to see what I could come up with for a single track version based on this morning’s posts, and, try as I might, every single track version looked like a country branch line to me, even if I wouldn’t need the double track for operating (I didn’t try faux double tracks or parallel headshunts, to be fair).  It didn’t help visually that I was going round a curve to form an L shape, thinking of home use, not exhibition.
 

Going back to original Minories of course, the Platform 1 departure line isn’t actually used in 5/6 routes, but is part of the illusion.  In a weird way, perhaps the absence of any length of running line is part of the same illusion too - it’s straight in with the action?

 

 

I have a memory of single track terminus station in an old Railway Modeller, but rather than being a typical rural BLT, it was situated in a retaining wall lined cutting in an urban environment. The single track came on scene in a gap in the wall and there was sidings or headshunts each side that instantly made it look busier than just a standard single line terminus would. I can't remember the name or scale of the layout, but I think it had LNER stock on it.

[Satan's Goldfish]

43 minutes ago, Zomboid said:

It probably doesn't count as a true Minories if you bend it round a corner, but since I've posted this in another thread today...

All the fun of a Minories layout, without any reverse curves at all on the running lines.

 

Surely minories with the throat on a curve solves all the reverse curve issues, plus for the lone home operator it would position him/her next to both the scenic part and the FY.

[Nearholmer]

29 minutes ago, Satan's Goldfish said:

I have a memory of single track terminus station in an old Railway Modeller, but rather than being a typical rural BLT, it was situated in a retaining wall lined cutting in an urban environment.

 

Let alone old an Railway Modeller, exactly that format was last years Railway Modeller project, and is pictured on p581 of the current (July 2020) edition.

 

My coarse-0 small terminus is of the very urban kind, and that was largely inspired by a series of such layouts (although through not terminus) built by Henry Greenly in 1909-10, so the virtues of urbanity(!) have been appreciated from the start of our hobby.

[t-b-g]

1 hour ago, Keith Addenbrooke said:

As a punter with limited modelling skills rather than an exhibitor or an expert I’m happy to pay to see that at an exhibition: something I can enjoy that I won’t get on railway days at home.  It’s been noted elsewhere in this thread that CJF designs such as Minories could be set up for such operation - even if building them to plan could sometimes be a challenge.

 

(I’d suggest that a ‘good’ exhibition will have a variety of layouts operated in a variety of ways to cater for those not so inclined, but that’s at risk of veering sharply off topic, so I include this bracketed comment only as a qualifying statement).

 

 

 

I would certainly agree that any exhibiting needs a variety of types, regions and periods of layouts if it is have a good balance. Unless it is something like an EXPO EM or a Scaleforum, there should be everything from Thomas the Tank Engine for the youngsters (and not so young) through to the finest of finescale accurate models.

 

I am not sure that a lack of skill or experience should be a barrier to making a layout look more realistic if that is what somebody wants to achieve. I was about 14 years old with no skill or knowledge but I could look at magazines and decide what looked realistic and try to copy it. I could easily tell the "proper model railways" from the "train sets" even younger than that.

 

It is one of the great things about the internet and places like RMWeb. If you don't know what to do or how to do it, you can usually find it somewhere.

 

So if you want to build a layout with the sort of plan that the real railways might have used and with signalling in the right places, the information is out there. Yet there is no rule that says we must all follow the same path if that is not what somebody wants.   

 

 

[t-b-g]

1 hour ago, Zomboid said:

It probably doesn't count as a true Minories if you bend it round a corner, but since I've posted this in another thread today...

All the fun of a Minories layout, without any reverse curves at all on the running lines.

 

That looks like a decent plan to me. The approach on a curve to do away with the reverse curves is pure Peter Denny, so that is a big plus for me!

[Zomboid]

I can't claim originality for that (it's straight out of Bastille for a start, and curved terminus approaches are as old as the railways), but a curved Minories-based throat is something I'd be happy to use, for sure.

[Lacathedrale]

5 hours ago, t-b-g said:

 

Precisely my thinking. Full signalling and a few moments for a route to be set add much to the running of any layout.

 

When I watch an exhibition layout, I love seeing the points, then the signals show what is going to happen next. It really adds a sense of anticipation. 

 

It seems that Mr. Freezer felt the same way about Minories, it showed up in his book about model railway signalling!

[Pacific231G]

10 minutes ago, Zomboid said:

I can't claim originality for that (it's straight out of Bastille for a start, and curved terminus approaches are as old as the railways), but a curved Minories-based throat is something I'd be happy to use, for sure.

To be honest, as soon as you use a curved approach then the problem that Minories solved, which was how to connect three platforms to both sides of a mainline without a lot of S curves over very short crossovers, more or less solves itself * Nevertheless, even though it's simply 'Minories inspired' but still manages to squeeze a busy main line terminus into a bucolic BLT space-then that's fine and Minories has done its job. CJF's real motivation seems to have been to try to break the cult of the branch line terminus as being the only theme you can work with if  you're starved for space.

 

*Bastille's problem of how to provide simultaneous up and down line access to any two of five platforms through a very short  throat, in a terminus originally designed for a separate arrival  and departure platform  and a far less frequent service, would have been insoluble in the available length if the Daumesmil viaduct had been aligned with the terminus. The viaduct would have had to have been widened for several hundred metres to enable points long enough for straight crossovers to have been used. Its designers were therefore faced with and solved brilliantly an equivalent challenge to the one that CJF set himself and solved with equal ingenuity thirty years later of squeezing quarts into pint pots

[Chimer]

2 hours ago, Zomboid said:

It probably doesn't count as a true Minories if you bend it round a corner, but since I've posted this in another thread today...

All the fun of a Minories layout, without any reverse curves at all on the running lines.

 

Damn, I just did this …. look, it works in X-TrackCAD too