Theory of General Minories

[Pacific231G]

On 14/10/2020 at 09:10, Lacathedrale said:

Bastille was alot like the suburban platforms at Liverpool Street, and alot like how Freezer allegedly designed Minories - a 'jazz service' of immediate arrivals, only for a loco on shed to buffer up to the other end of the train and pull it straight out?

 

So, as a 'theory' - what can be done to better support modern traction in a Minories layout, assuming that loco-hauled services are off the cards. Holborn Viaduct had a parcels service until the 70's so we can suppose for an urban setting that we might even see some air-braked vans - but that is almost the same as any steam-era station with a freight area (minus the brake van).

 

My biggest question is 'how do we make EMU operation interesting, in the way that a steam-hauled service is by nature?' Is it even possible? 

 

 

Not really a loco on shed at Bastille. The annexe traction (sub shed)  and its coaling faciltes were probably mainly used to prep locos between the morning and evening peaks. Before push-pull working arrived, just a few years before the terminus was replaced by the RER,  arriving locos had to wait until they could clear back and then make their way directly to the front of the train they were taking out. The whole thing was so tightly choreographed that they even put water cranes at the buffer end of the platforms so that locos could fill their tanks while they were waiting. They had releasing traversers similar to those at Moor St. but, looking at the graphique with its platform occupany diagram,  I doubt if they were much used actually during the rush as the pattern was to send trains out from platforms 5 to 1 in right to left order (looking from the concourse) so that incoming trains and ECS from the sidings at the other end  of the long double track viaduct could refill those platforms in turn. That meant that, fairly soon after a five train "flight"  departed, the next five trains were ready to go and the pattern repeated several times during the heures d'affluence. 

Paris Gare de la Bastille, evening peak graphique 1925 (my collection) 

 

Not 'allegedly' for Cyril Freezer's approach in designing Minories. He was very clear about it in the original article and several times since. Despite being two platforms and a releasing road/stock siding larger, Bastille is about as close to  a real Minories as I've ever come across. The fairly complex throat required for that sort of intense operation was very short with no chance to increase the number of approach tracks. That made it necessary to use exceptionally short turnouts (Tg 0.13 equivalent to no. 7.5 crossings) usually only used in sidings and that in turn made it essential to avoid S curves. The angle between the platforms and the viaduct made that feasible but it was a very clever piece of track design- all done with standard turnouts (tan 0.13 long and short)   Freezer's clever piece of track design was of course to double angle the approach and only have one immediate S curve out of the six possible routes as opposed to four out of six with straight crossovers. Had the Est not had that angle to work with I'm not sure how they could have achieved no S curves. 

 

 

 

Edited November 18, 2020 by Pacific231G
spelling

[Lacathedrale]

Lovely stuff @Ravenser - particularly your astute observation about platform widths. Blacklade has been on my radar since the 2006 (?) Challenge !  @Pacific231G - what intensity.

 

 

[Budgie]

I'm currently building a N-gauge layout based on Paris-Bastille which I am going to call Basty, because it is going to run British stock. This is an experiment (haha! an experimental layout at my age!) and a change of pace from my OO layout in the garden shed.

Edited October 15, 2020 by Budgie

[Pacific231G]

1 hour ago, Lacathedrale said:

!  @Pacific231G - what intensity.

 

 

Indeed. The Est really were squeezing a gallon into a pint pot. A rapid increase in commuter numbers during the roaring twenties was overwhelming the services running to and from Bastille but the station's restricted site allowed no room for expansion and electrification was deemed  too expensive, commuters not being terribly profitable. Using traversers to allow longer trains and double deck carriages had already been done so, the  exploitation  (traffic) department set about rationalising the flow of trains. They also built a class of more powerful Prairie tanks  (SNCF 131TBs) with better acceleration speciifcally for the line.  In the end they managed to increase services by about 20% with no more infrastructure work than rearranging a few points to enable parallel in and out moves with any pair of platforms and introducing semi-automatic mechanical block signalling over the bottleneck of the viaduct. The real work though was a scientific analysis of every aspect of the actual running of trains from figuring out ways of running trains non stop then stopping to cut down total dwell times over the length of the line to maximising platform utilisation and minimising loco turn round times . 

[danstercivicman]

I know it’s not minories but would Glasgow Queen Street be of any use? 

[imt]

2 hours ago, danstercivicman said:

I know it’s not minories but would Glasgow Queen Street be of any use? 

 

What precisely were you intending to do with it?  I could make a few suggestions, but perhaps you should elucidate first?

[PaulaDoesTrains]

12 hours ago, Lacathedrale said:

 

My biggest question is 'how do we make EMU operation interesting, in the way that a steam-hauled service is by nature?' Is it even possible? 

 

 

 

I'd also love to know the answer to that question. My layout is only 5ft 6 by 1ft and I find D/EMUs rather dull to operate because I enjoy the (for me) operational fun of uncoupling the loco (I use acetate strip as an uncoupling ramp) the running around the train.

[CKPR]

I think this is where 'operating by the book' using timetables, rule books, working signalling, block systems, etc comes into play.

Edited October 15, 2020 by CKPR

[Keith Addenbrooke]

9 hours ago, CKPR said:

I think this is where 'operating by the book' using timetables, rule books working signalling, block systems, etc comes into play.

Agreed, though it might be more fun operating as a team if possible rather than solo so jobs can be shared and you are working with others (like the real Railway).
 

I’m also aware of variations which add a small deck of cards on top of this - one might say: “Unit fails in Platform 2,” or another: “Points failure closes the departure line,” or “next Arrival from X is delayed, Connection to Y must wait.”  It may sound like a game (in a sense it is) but this also replicates the kind of situations the real Railway can face.

[Lacathedrale]

9 hours ago, CKPR said:

I think this is where 'operating by the book' using timetables, rule books working signalling, block systems, etc comes into play.

 

That could definitely help - but all of these things are applicable to steam working too so don't really form a differentiator. I guess however, it does ensure there's a base level of things going on - assuming one models the pre-signalbox-centralisation era!

 

  

27 minutes ago, Keith Addenbrooke said:

Agreed, though it might be more fun operating as a team if possible rather than solo so jobs can be shared and you are working with others (like the real Railway).
 

I’m also aware of variations which add a small deck of cards on top of this - one might say: “Unit fails in Platform 2,” or another: “Points failure closes the departure line,” or “next Arrival from X is delayed, Connection to Y must wait.”  It may sound like a game (in a sense it is) but this also replicates the kind of situations the real Railway can face.

 

 

This is a bit interesting, reminds me of a videogame development 'challenge' where people are revealed new concepts to integrate into the game during development over the course of a day, i.e. 'time is running out', or 'inversion' or something, and their success is based on including or working around those limitations.

Edited October 15, 2020 by Lacathedrale

[Harlequin]

19 minutes ago, Lacathedrale said:

 

That could definitely help - but all of these things are applicable to steam working too so don't really form a differentiator. I guess however, it does ensure there's a base level of things going on - assuming one models the pre-signalbox-centralisation era!

 

  

 

 

This is a bit interesting, reminds me of a videogame development 'challenge' where people are revealed new concepts to integrate into the game during development over the course of a day, i.e. 'time is running out', or 'inversion' or something, and their success is based on including or working around those limitations.

If you find d/emu operations unsatisfying those activities might not work for you, though, because they don't make trains do anything fundamentally different on the layout.

 

They still just slide soullessly into platforms, stand a while and slide out again. Only the reasons for doing that have changed.

 

For some people the off-layout activities would add enough interest, but for others, maybe not.

 

Edited October 15, 2020 by Harlequin

[Zomboid]

Fundamentally if you get your enjoyment from locomotives dealing with unpowered vehicles, then it's unlikely that you'll enjoy operating a multiple unit railway very much.

 

There's a lot of potential interest to be had in a multiple unit scenario, but nothing that will replicate the operations of a loco hauled non push/pull railway. You'd need to look at it differently and recreate the challenges that face modern signallers. Running the service in and out of Charing Cross or Fenchurch Street to a realistic timetable could be enough excitement without locos, for example. But an MU based BLT really wouldn't be operationally very exciting.

[t-b-g]

I can think of a couple of variations in multiple unit operation in that some did haul a van or two as a tail load and even on a short platform, you could run in a train that either splits or joins up. A two car set and a single car isn't very long.

 

You can do these moves on a loco hauled train too so when you add them to the operations needed to get a loco on the other end and release the train loco, I don't see how a MU layout can ever have the variety of moves that a loco hauled layout can but it doesn't have to be "train in, train out".

[Pacific231G]

I've operated a Minories based on EMUs and can only say that the loco hauled parcels train appeared a lot more often than it was supposed to. OTOH Tom Cunnington and others' Minories (GN) buiit for the 50th anniversary of the plan followed Cyril Freezer's originally suggested turnover operation pretty closely with just the addition of a few DMUs and was fascinating. Tom let me have a go at operating it a few years ago and it was far more challenging .

 

Minories aside, I can't help thinking that efficiency, at the cost of less interesting operation, of the modern railway is possibly a more significant reason for the number of steam era layouts than actual nostalgia for steam engines. There was a programme about Zurich station on recently and it was remarkable how many Swiss trains were still loco hauled and it just made everything so much more interesting.

 

According to Loco-Revue, the most popular era for modellers in France is the immediate post steam Ep. IV. Steam ended there a few years later than in Britain but wagonload goods, trains that ran in sections with consequent making and breaking of trains, parcels services and TPOs, mixed trains and even perfectly ordinary passenger trains with an interesting variety of carriages, all ended much later, a lot of them in the late 1980s to early 1990s.

 

Has anyone treated Minories as serving two parallel single lines (i.e. a reversing terminus) rather than a double track main line? That should offer some different possibilities. 

 

* I'm sure I'm not the only one to have been thrown by the coaches I was travelling on, along with my rucksack, pulling out of a European station while I was in the buffet, ten minutes before  it was due to depart only to reappear on a different platform to be coupled up to a section from another train.

Edited October 15, 2020 by Pacific231G
to give due credit to CJF for the concept

[TravisM]

5 hours ago, Zomboid said:

Fundamentally if you get your enjoyment from locomotives dealing with unpowered vehicles, then it's unlikely that you'll enjoy operating a multiple unit railway very much.

 

There's a lot of potential interest to be had in a multiple unit scenario, but nothing that will replicate the operations of a loco hauled non push/pull railway. You'd need to look at it differently and recreate the challenges that face modern signallers. Running the service in and out of Charing Cross or Fenchurch Street to a realistic timetable could be enough excitement without locos, for example. But an MU based BLT really wouldn't be operationally very exciting.

 

I did consider a Minories based layout before embarking on my present layout.  It was going to Southern Region MU operated with the closest platforms being effectively a island platform (platforms 1 &2) for all services and the other platform (3) being used for peak services only.  At all other times it would be used for stabling stock in the platform until needed.  The siding that leads off platform 1 would be used again to stable stock until either needed to attach to another unit, or detach and move onto the siding.

[Pacific231G]

9 hours ago, Lacathedrale said:

 

That could definitely help - but all of these things are applicable to steam working too so don't really form a differentiator. I guess however, it does ensure there's a base level of things going on - assuming one models the pre-signalbox-centralisation era!

 

 

This is a bit interesting, reminds me of a videogame development 'challenge' where people are revealed new concepts to integrate into the game during development over the course of a day, i.e. 'time is running out', or 'inversion' or something, and their success is based on including or working around those limitations.

So, who's going to be the first to come up with a programmable "Automatic Crispin" device for solo operators?

Tri-ang did actually produce a fully working three position block instrument and bell code set. It cost as much as a main line locomotive and only a few thousand were ever made. I've often wondered why nobody else has ever produced one commercially but aimed at the "serious" modeller.  

Edited October 15, 2020 by Pacific231G

[Lacathedrale]

Interesting idea - literally just being the signalman, for trains which drive themselves?

 

Honestly I don't think it'd be that difficult - iTrain already has the functionality to set up things like train priority (i.e. train A takes a siding for train B), and with bidirectional DCC a computer/etc. would be able to identify which locos are on which sidings, set routes, etc. to feed a layout.

 

Train looks at siding #1 and sees 'Duchess' i.e. express train, bell code to station operator for express and then pauses for acknowledgement.

On acknowledgement and signals cleared, train is driven out onto a station platform as routed by signalman.

The reverse would also be the case - bell code to next box 'are you ready to accept express train', set signals and off you are - the home of the FY box only being cleared when the relevant route is set/etc.

 

I imagine the difficulty would be in when you want to drive the trains yourself

[Zomboid]

48 minutes ago, Pacific231G said:

Tri-ang did actually produce a fully working three position block instrument and bell code set. It cost as much as a main line locomotive and only a few thousand were ever made. I've often wondered why nobody else has ever produced one commercially but aimed at the "serious" modeller.  

To my eyes, "serious" modelling these days is more about recreating the look (and to a lesser extent, sound) of the railway and its surroundings, rather than the operational practices.

 

If "serious" modellers wanted block instruments, they'd probably be building them themselves.

[t-b-g]

13 minutes ago, Zomboid said:

To my eyes, "serious" modelling these days is more about recreating the look (and to a lesser extent, sound) of the railway and its surroundings, rather than the operational practices.

 

If "serious" modellers wanted block instruments, they'd probably be building them themselves.

 

This cropped up on another thread a while ago. It really illustrates the difference between running trains and operating a model railway.

 

There are many layouts, some well known and highly respected ones, where it is all about how a train looks running through a scene.

 

There is nothing wrong with that if people have no interest in recreating how the real thing worked but I have had the joy of operating several layouts with block instruments, proper lever frames and worked (within the limitations imposed by the fact that they are little trains without real crews!) as closely as possible to how the real thing would have run.

 

Once the operating bug had bitten, just "running trains" seems dreadfully limited to me now.  

 

 

 

 

[Zomboid]

6 minutes ago, t-b-g said:

This cropped up on another thread a while ago. It really illustrates the difference between running trains and operating a model railway.

I think we're cut from the same cloth on this.

 

There is of course absolutely nothing wrong with focussing on visual fidelity. But personally I'd get much more from 3 generic coach trains running through shonky scenery with accurate operations than from a beautiful layout with full length trains in accurate formations run as a free for all.

[Keith Addenbrooke]

21 minutes ago, Zomboid said:

I think we're cut from the same cloth on this.

 

There is of course absolutely nothing wrong with focussing on visual fidelity. But personally I'd get much more from 3 generic coach trains running through shonky scenery with accurate operations than from a beautiful layout with full length trains in accurate formations run as a free for all.

Of course, some modellers are able to both build fine models and operate them prototypically (if he doesn’t mind, I’d suggest @t-b-g would be a good example).
 

A good Minories layout would offer that possibility - my response to the question about making an EMU layout more interesting would be to build the layout, and rolling stock, to as high a standard a possible so the layout is an operating showcase for high quality modelling.

 

In terms of the ‘equation of time,’ because more time would be spent on building, detailing and refining the layout, operating sessions might be less frequent, so would retain interest simply by virtue of being less often.

Edited October 15, 2020 by Keith Addenbrooke

[St Enodoc]

3 hours ago, Zomboid said:

To my eyes, "serious" modelling these days is more about recreating the look (and to a lesser extent, sound) of the railway and its surroundings, rather than the operational practices.

 

3 hours ago, t-b-g said:

It really illustrates the difference between running trains and operating a model railway.

Both those approaches are (with others too) "serious" modelling in my book.

[Lacathedrale]

Some very interesting answers. Joining and splitting of EMUs happens at Purley, my local station - but it is a junction on the main line with a pair of branches, rather than a terminus. I guess one could extrapolate the need for longer and shorter rakes throughout the day by consisting and splitting multiple units, but I think as @Pacific231G has said - you'd still end up running that parcels train!

 

Reading Iain Rice's old book 'Mainline in Modest Spaces' he suggests that the smallest 'express mainline service' (obviously with exceptions) would probably be the 'core' 5 coaches - two brake composites sandwiching a First, Restaurant, and Composite.  These would be strengthened with greater or fewer numbers of first/second/luggage vehicles as required for longer/more patronised journeys. I have often wondered if we could summarise this in Train-Units or TUs - if we assume that a bogie coach in the grouping era is 57-70' long and locos (Stanier pacifics aside) are not longer than this, then we can consider that 1TU. We can also reasonably assert that the clearance on a 'model railway' turnout is about one TU. Therefore:

• An eight coach express is 9TU including the loco.
• A suburban service using a tank loco might only be 4.5TU.
• Space for a loco runaround (without having to set back coaches) is 2TU.

If for Minories we talk about a mixture of these trains - two suburban services which look much the same as each other, one short posh train, one long fast train and one short parcels train - we can draw a number of conclusions:

• Our longest platform needs to be at least 9TU
• Our shorter platforms need to be at least 6.5TU (4.5TU for the train + 2TU for the runaround and headshunt)
• Our storage area needs to be 4.5+4.5+6+9+4.5 and one spare 9, containing a total linear space of 37.5TUs.
  • We can even surmise that with a 'fan' type arrangement we'd need 3TUs(ish) for a scissors between up and down lines between the visible area and the fiddle yard proper, but since we have two long tracks (9TU) and the rest are shorter, the 1TU consumed by the turnout for each storage track doesn't affect us. If we needed all 9TU tracks, we'd need to factor in at least 11TU overall length to account for the turnout and clearances
• Minories itself has 5TU worth of pointwork from the throat to the platforms (there are two small return curves which for our intents and purposes fit into the 'turnout' category.

Extrapolating this out, a minimum Minories footprint to support a 5 coach express would be:  6TU (platforms) + 5TU (throat) + 2TU (scissors) + 2TU (fFY siding fan) + 6TU (actual train storage) = 21TU, which in 4mm is approx 15', and in 2mm is 8'. If we subsitute the scissors and point fan we have a shade over 12' in 4mm and 6'6" in 2mm.

 

This works with pre-grouping bogie coaches too, since tender locomotives were also smaller, but starts to break down when you look at 6w and 4w vehicles unless you increase the relative size of turnouts and locomotives.

[Zomboid]

2 minutes ago, Lacathedrale said:

Our longest platform needs to be at least 9TU

It needs to be at least 10TU between the buffers and the signal protecting the exit from the platform, to allow space for the loco which takes the ECS out for cleaning, or whatever that departure actually is.

 

Obviously that doesn't apply for MU operation.

[nigb55009]

What about ECS movements backing out of a station? This did happen at several real locations. At Llandudno trains reversed out to carriage sidings to run round before backing into the platforms shortly before their booked departure time. At Windermere the loco shunted clear after backing the coaches out, which returned to the platform using gravity  before reattaching the loco. Also, didn`t Euston have " backing out roads" on the downside? It would make operating a Minories style layout more interesting as well as more prototypical.