Theory of General Minories

[Compound2632]

1 hour ago, St Enodoc said:

It would only really work if you are modelling in H0 scale. Losing nearly 5mm between 00 trains even on parallel straight tracks is not a good idea. Don't even think about it on curves

 

I've never had an issue with prototypical 11'2" track centres (call it 45 mm) on the straight in 00. Widening of centres on curves is necessary irrespective of the gauge - 00, EM, or P4 - since this is dictated by the throw-over of vehicle centres and ends. Using pototypical track centres means that over-line structures, especially arched bridges, can be modelled to scale. There's also a saving in width when you go to doing the arithmetic for a Minories-like terminus. A minor benefit is that if using Peco pointwork for crossovers, one is obliged to dispense with the unprototypical angled sleeper on the diverging line.

 

Some will argue about increased slop in 00 but I think that argument is a hang-over from Triang-Hornby days - with modern RTR wheel standards, It's not an issue. For a maximum vehicle width of 9'6" over projections, the clearance between vehicles on adjacent lines is 7 mm with 45 mm track centres. The transition to a double-track curve has to be laid out carefully, the inner line curving first with a transition curve to the final radius. 

Edited June 19, 2020 by Compound2632

[St Enodoc]

25 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

 

I've never had an issue with prototypical 11'2" track centres (call it 45 mm) on the straight in 00. Widening of centres on curves is necessary irrespective of the gauge - 00, EM, or P4 - since this is dictated by the throw-over of vehicle centres and ends. Using pototypical track centres means that over-line structures, especially arched bridges, can be modelled to scale. There's also a saving in width when you go to doing the arithmetic for a Minories-like terminus. A minor benefit is that if using Peco pointwork for crossovers, one is obliged to dispense with the unprototypical angled sleeper on the diverging line.

 

Some will argue about increased slop in 00 but I think that argument is a hang-over from Triang-Hornby days - with modern RTR wheel standards, It's not an issue. For a maximum vehicle width of 9'6" over projections, the clearance between vehicles on adjacent lines is 7 mm with 45 mm track centres. The transition to a double-track curve has to be laid out carefully, the inner line curving first with a transition curve to the final radius. 

I agree entirely Stephen. The point is that you and I both take the spacing from the track (or vehicle, if you like) centres whereas the discussion is also mentioning the rail to rail "6ft" distance. That's where you'll have problems - as Tony Gee so rightly said (paraphrainsg), in 00 you can have the correct distance between the rails or the correct distance between the trains but not both.

[RJS1977]

4 hours ago, Joseph_Pestell said:

 

Quite a few places where platforms go below road bridges which result in substandard width. 

 

Bracknell's an example I'm familiar with having commuted there for six years.

[Zomboid]

6 minutes ago, RJS1977 said:

 

Bracknell's an example I'm familiar with having commuted there for six years.

Botley and Axminster too, we could go on.... A more useful example would be an inner city terminus though. The platforms under the bridge and either side of the footbridge stairs at Paddington don't feel especially wide, but are probably compliant. 

 

Platforms on the NYC Subway are often shockingly narrow by the standards I'm used to. The remaining City & South London island platforms are pretty bad too, but neither are really relevant here.

[JohnR]

Not a terminus, but I seem to recall that PLatform 2 at Exeter Central extended east under the New North Road bridge, and was pretty narrow at that point. Its been cut back since, of course. 

[Zomboid]

I'd like to offer the following as a thought on the Seironim "design by committee" process:

The curved point gets the lower platform line round a bit quicker to enable the platform itself to be wider. The single slip allows all shunting to be via the outbound line, though the top platform is pretty narrow at the end - however that's hardly unusual, for example the platforms at London Waterloo are very narrow at the end, and get wider towards the concourse. 

Trains of 3' + Loco are doable, I think.

 

Using the asymmetric 3 way wouldn't change a lot, I just default to the code 100 library for some reason. I'd actually only have a run round on the top platform personally, Bath Green Park style.

[Harlequin]

3 minutes ago, Zomboid said:

I'd like to offer the following as a thought on the Seironim "design by committee" process:

The curved point gets the lower platform line round a bit quicker to enable the platform itself to be wider. The single slip allows all shunting to be via the outbound line, though the top platform is pretty narrow at the end - however that's hardly unusual, for example the platforms at London Waterloo are very narrow at the end, and get wider towards the concourse. 

Trains of 3' + Loco are doable, I think.

 

Using the asymmetric 3 way wouldn't change a lot, I just default to the code 100 library for some reason. I'd actually only have a run round on the top platform personally, Bath Green Park style.

 

That looks very nice, very smooth.

A couple of problems, though:

• "Full length" trains (~3ft plus loco) would have to pull right up to the buffers in both platforms, so the release crossovers are not as useful as they should be .
• The parcels bay passes through where the hinge posts would be if it folds like Minories. 

 

 

[Schooner]

29 minutes ago, Zomboid said:

I'd actually only have a run round on the top platform personally, Bath Green Park style.

This also lends extra coherence to the location of the loco pocket and @Harlequin's point about train length. I like it

[Zomboid]

26 minutes ago, Harlequin said:

"Full length" trains (~3ft plus loco) would have to pull right up to the buffers in both platforms, so the release crossovers are not as useful as they should be .

This is true, but they can set back to run round, I understand that was a fairly common approach.

[Zomboid]

Mentioning Green Park has made me realise that the MAD/SAD junction box would be ideal for the SDJR. Bournemouth West at one end, with the wider LSW as the Alternate Destination, and Green Park the other with Bristol as that one's Alternate Destination.

 

Minories isn't very much like Bournemouth West, but Seironim could be said to resemble Green Park. From a long distance. At night. If you're squinting...

[Flying Pig]

52 minutes ago, Zomboid said:

I'd like to offer the following as a thought on the Seironim "design by committee" process:

The curved point gets the lower platform line round a bit quicker to enable the platform itself to be wider. The single slip allows all shunting to be via the outbound line, though the top platform is pretty narrow at the end - however that's hardly unusual, for example the platforms at London Waterloo are very narrow at the end, and get wider towards the concourse. 

Trains of 3' + Loco are doable, I think.

 

Using the asymmetric 3 way wouldn't change a lot, I just default to the code 100 library for some reason. I'd actually only have a run round on the top platform personally, Bath Green Park style.

 

I was playing around with that arrangement myself but in the end I preferred @Satan's Goldfish's vertical flip because it does not block the arrival line when shunting the siding. 

 

@Harlequin, I think this station may have one road too many for the available width - it still has all the platforms of Minories (albeit one of them specialised) and adds a centre road.  I would be tempted to either bin the parcels dock altogether and handle parcels in the two patforms, storing vans in the dead end of the centre road, or drop the middle road and copy Tower Pier.  

 

BTW there is a rationale for the slightly odd arrangement of Tower Pier, stemming from its origin as a station with separate arrival and departure roads. Geoff Ashdown, the builder, explained the details to me at Railex one year, but unfortunately I forget them now.  This is a layout that benefits from detailed imaginary connections to the real world which help to give it purpose, but aren't perhaps so relevant in the case of a pure point to point layout such as we are plotting here.

 

Note that it also has an entirely separate goods system at a slightly higher elevation which gets round some of the limitations of Minories and might be worth copying too if we expand our layout a bit to handle some freight.

[Philou]

I've been following this thread closely having has a very early copy of CJF's 'Plans for Small Railways' and always did like the plan as was. If I may make a comment on the latest iterations, and it has been mentioned above, would there really have been a loco release road in such a tight space? It just seems a bit of a luxury and I would have thought that there would have been additional operational interest in having the station pilot (or another loco doing another service) taking the stock away and allowing the loco to 'escape'. For a suburban station, I should have thought the extra platform would have been desirable.

 

Lots of good ideas though.

 

In the interests of space saving, here are a few photos showing my 45mm trial spacings. The first photo shows a Bachmann 'Hawksworth' and a MkIII trailer joining the mainline (I know, I know - non-prototypical mix of stock) and it shows maximum closure between the stock. I did the same test with a Class 800 coach with a similar gap being the result. The turnout was Peco 'medium' radius. I also attach two photos showing my approach to modifying the point and the resulting join disguised with a little extra ballast. Gordon s, of this parish, using Templot did kindly advise me that you could go down to 11ft radius without flaring through curves:

 

 

 

 

Hope it's of help.

 

Cheers,

 

Philip

Edited June 19, 2020 by Philou
Forgot the photos!!

[Zomboid]

Personally I'm a complete sucker for a centre road at a terminus, which is one of the reasons I'm so high on the idea. Obviously they're not useful in every situation, but it's one of the major features that differentiates Seironim from Minories. If I were actually building it, it would be a "keep at any cost" feature.

[Harlequin]

I think Seironim needs to be distinctive and different to Minories (as I think Compound said earlier).

 

Thus:

Where Minories needs pilots, Seironim allows locos to release themselves.

Where Minories has platforms either side of double tracks, Seironim has a central release road.

Where Minories has straight platforms, Seironim's are curved.

Where Minories has simple departures, Seironim needs a shunting pattern to move ECS in and out of the central road

Etc...

 

By definition, Seironim physically has to mirror the basic footprint of Minories. So flipping the track plan horizontally isn't really playing the game!

 

It should really use standard Peco Streamline turnouts, not bent and not cut.

 

Remember the inspiration for Seironim is a real station, Greenwich Park. So we're not completely in fantasy land.

 

I know we're trying to squeeze a quart into a pint pot here but you can see that so many of these variations very nearly work! Maybe we've already seen the best compromise but maybe there's still something better. Just needs a bit more thinking and trying...

 

P.S. I think Zomboid and I are on the same page on this one!

 

Edited June 19, 2020 by Harlequin

[Nearholmer]

It’s like writing haikus: the tighter the restrictions, the more creativity is squeezed-out by their existence.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited June 19, 2020 by Nearholmer

[Compound2632]

55 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

It’s like writing haikus: the tighter the restrictions, the more creativity is squeezed-out by their existence.

 

I think you mean that the discipline imposed by the restrictions is a spur to creativity but I'm not quite sure - you may mean the opposite?

 

6 hours ago, St Enodoc said:

The point is that you and I both take the spacing from the track (or vehicle, if you like) centres whereas the discussion is also mentioning the rail to rail "6ft" distance. That's where you'll have problems - as Tony Gee so rightly said (paraphrainsg), in 00 you can have the correct distance between the rails or the correct distance between the trains but not both.

 

Well, yes, I've always understood the 6ft to be descriptive of location relative to the running rails, rather than a dimension, in just the same way that 4ft is - it's not a statement of the gauge but a description of the space between the rails. It just so happens that on the prototype, the minimum dimension for the 6ft is 6'0".

[Nearholmer]

26 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

 

I think you mean that the discipline imposed by the restrictions is a spur to creativity but I'm not quite sure - you may mean the opposite?

 

I mean what you think I mean. Creativity is  squeezed out of the poet, like toothpaste out of a tube; the tighter you squeeze, the more creativity you get, as Carl Arendt's website proved.

[Pacific231G]

1 hour ago, Nearholmer said:

It’s like writing haikus: the tighter the restrictions, the more creativity is squeezed-out by their existence.

 

 

 

 

 

I like your comparison with haikus. It also fits the idea that an engineer is someone who can do for ten bob what any fool could do for a quid.

What we're trying to do is not so much squeezing a quart into a pint pot as a magnum into a wine glass and all the more fun for that. 

 

Trying to cram what I want into four metres is certainly exercising the little grey cells and in the end you start questioning what you thought you must have and finding ways to do without it. Do I want a double track throat more or less than five coach trains? How much throwover between coaches am I really prepared to accept?  If I make the loco spur into a parcels, mail, departures only bay, why shouldn't platform three be the headshunt for the goods yard? etc.

Edited June 19, 2020 by Pacific231G

[Nearholmer]

What you need is a Minories-sized shallow tray, a bag of fine sand, a rake, and two pebbles.

 

Then you can move up a level, from the theory of General Minories, to the philosophy of General Minories.

[Harlequin]

"Zen and the Art of Minories"

 

[t-b-g]

There is no doubt that designing layouts, even layouts that will never get built, is a stimulating and absorbing way to spend a bit of time when for whatever reason, you cannot be soldering, sticking things together and generally making stuff.

 

I do enjoy the irony of the dimension known colloquially as "the six foot" actually being, in many cases, 6ft. Whereas the dimension known as "the four foot" is 4ft 8 1/2inches. The combination of precise accuracy and a way out approximation appeals.

 

Especially when in 00, the 4 ft becomes nearer right than the 6ft!

 

I have enough layouts of my own started and incomplete (4) to keep me quiet for a while, plus my involvement with Narrow Road and Buckingham but this thread has got my layout planning creative juices flowing so I may have to start planning number five.      

[Zomboid]

1 hour ago, t-b-g said:

There is no doubt that designing layouts, even layouts that will never get built, is a stimulating and absorbing way to spend a bit of time when for whatever reason, you cannot be soldering, sticking things together and generally making stuff

Layout design is without doubt my favourite part of the hobby.

I very much enjoy operating a well designed layout too.

But the bit in the middle (you know, actually building it) I have neither the time nor aptitude to do to a decent standard.

[mdvle]

On 17/06/2020 at 12:18, Keith Addenbrooke said:

A comment by Linn Westcott in 101 Track Plans suggested the average size of (US) layout actually built was around 9’ x 5’.  While that was many years ago,

 

And given as the average size currently on a recent podcast, I think by a former NMRA official.

 

It wouldn't surprise me if it wasn't true - for those not aware 5'x9' is ping pong table size, and thus (at least at one point) it was easy to get the table top (in 2 pieces) and frames to hold it in North America.

 

 

[Joseph_Pestell]

9 hours ago, Zomboid said:

Botley and Axminster too, we could go on.... A more useful example would be an inner city terminus though. The platforms under the bridge and either side of the footbridge stairs at Paddington don't feel especially wide, but are probably compliant. 

 

Platforms on the NYC Subway are often shockingly narrow by the standards I'm used to. The remaining City & South London island platforms are pretty bad too, but neither are really relevant here.

But the NYC Subway is all stock with sliding doors. So not such a problem to have narrow platforms.

[Joseph_Pestell]

6 hours ago, Zomboid said:

Mentioning Green Park has made me realise that the MAD/SAD junction box would be ideal for the SDJR. Bournemouth West at one end, with the wider LSW as the Alternate Destination, and Green Park the other with Bristol as that one's Alternate Destination.

 

Minories isn't very much like Bournemouth West, but Seironim could be said to resemble Green Park. From a long distance. At night. If you're squinting...

 

It takes us beyond a pure Minories discussion, but what a cracking layout idea. Bath Green Park and Bournemouth West with fiddleyards to represent the other destinations. Definitely worth a drawing. Probably needs a shed of about 24' x 10' in 4mm.