Theory of General Minories

[Metropolitan H]

On 01/12/2021 at 09:09, Zomboid said:

I've not heard of anyone building it, which is a suprise. It would make for a fantastic model, either pre or post electrification as you say with the mix of trains and relatively compact size.

 

The Waterloo to Reading line doesn't really have much romance to it though, which might go some way to explaining it. Nobody is going to feel nostalgic about the holiday they had in Bracknell.

I had almost finished a response bigging up the charms of Bracknell - where I grew up from before my 5th birthday (1955) till getting married in 1972 and moving away - but the computer had a Hissy fit and junked most of my words.

 

But there was a lot of railway interest in the Bracknell area with local brickworks systems and Ascot Race meetings for starters. But I must admit to never having planned to model Bracknell.

 

However, when planning for retirement which happened over 10 years back I developed a plan for "Aldbrickham Southern" - see below - and acquired quite a lot of 00 track and relevant stock.

 

 

However, before I really got started ACE Trains introduced their plans for Metropolitan Railway electric locos and relevant stock, in "0" gauge coarse scale, which completely turned my head and resulted in a change of scale and in my taking the "Deliberately Old-Fashioned Route" to "Gutter Lane" - which is a very different story.

 

Regards

Chris H

 

Edited July 30, 2022 by Metropolitan H
Reinstatment of image.

[Compound2632]

6 minutes ago, Metropolitan H said:

I developed a plan for "Aldbrickham Southern" 

 

Aldbrickham being the equivalent of Reading in Thomas Hardy's fictionalised Wessex. Our club had a layout named Aldbrickham - now retired and in course of being replaced by a new roundy-roundy - though it didn't bear any resemblance to any Reading station past or present.

[RJS1977]

2 hours ago, Pacific231G said:

I I assume the teacher who led the group didn't fancy wrangling a bunch of schoolboys between London terminals.  

 

Quite possibly. A few years ago we took our Boys' Brigade company on a tour of the Houses of Parliament, and went in to Waterloo rather than Reading for the same reason.

[Lacathedrale]

Well I've pulled the trigger on some part built ratio LNWR coaches, so I guess I'm building an LNWR Minories.

[Lacathedrale]

Is a self-contained Minories layout a good format for a finescale experimentation?

 

The below snippet shows the same layout with B7, B6 and Peco 'Long' Radius turnouts on a Minories throat on a 4'6" board:

 

 

Both standard offerings are available RTP (Peco or as near as, with British Finescale) in EM or 00-SF. Peco obviously only in 00. For a Minories layout using those points available to CJF from the Triang range way back when, there is no longer any barrier of handlaid track construction.

 

For a pre-group layout, there are off the shelf 'get-you-started' RTR offerings for some companies. While there's incremental extra cost of re-wheeling existing rolling stock of approximately £1.50 per axle if they can't be re-gauged, in the grand scheme of things IMO this is essentially a moot point.

 

Once you are beyond the pale of Hornby and Bachmann, then kit and scratch building is required as a matter of course.  Striking P4 from the record for a moment for the sake of compensation complexity, if one is kit building then it appears to be little difference in building and buying components for EM vs 00.

 

The major strikes against finescale construction and re-wheeling in the past for me have been primarily around locomotives with outside valve gear, which is not a huge issue in pre-group. In my LNWR example, a Webb Coal Tank and the forthcoming Improved Precedent would need to be re-gauged, re-wheeled, re-axled, etc. - what does this process look like from a practical standpoint? I know that Alan Gibson/Markits/Romford/Ultrascale all supply wheels and axles but I've not actually ever done an RTR conversion!

 

EDIT: removed inflammatory P4 content

Edited December 1, 2021 by Lacathedrale

[Nearholmer]

2 hours ago, Lacathedrale said:

Well I've pulled the trigger on some part built ratio LNWR coaches, so I guess I'm building an LNWR Minories.

 

They nearly got a connection to the Met and City Widened Lines, the stub of the tunnels are in front of the western end of the facade of St Pancras, so you have a legitimate way in to The City, but one that would involve condensing engines, although that would permit their faintly insane 3-cylinder compound 4-2-2-0 rebuild of a Met Tank, which would be ideal for the novice scratchbuilder(!).

 

Less obscure might be the Rickmansworth side of Watford Junction, just pre-electrification, or better still in transition, because that was a sort of Minories, a three-platform terminus, although the throat was immensely complicated.

 

 

Edited December 1, 2021 by Nearholmer

[Lacathedrale]

I think I'm going to try to restrain my need to immediately push the layout to a place and time and then suck all the fun out of it completely, forget Bermuda - let's talk about somewhere like Wigan as a place fantastical and far away to site a layout. I say Wigan, but of course it could be anywhere.

 

Now, where's the button I press to start an argument about whether this is doable in P4...

Edited December 1, 2021 by Lacathedrale

[Harlequin]

On 26/11/2021 at 15:37, Lacathedrale said:

Every time I have embarked on a project which requires significant upfront effort to get anything going then it just stalls out completely before it has a chance to gain any kind of inertia. Hence my resolution to go with 00 for the range of stock available, and use Peco bullhead to get the bloody track laid before I waste another decade talking about it!

 

[t-b-g]

You can go on considering all the possibilities until the cows come home or you can make a decision and stick with it.

 

One approach will get the layout built, the other won't!

[Nearholmer]

As a wise old colleague used to say to me in such circumstances (please imagine heavy French accent):

 

“Do you want it perfect; or, do you want it Thursday?”

[Zomboid]

If you want to run trains any time soon, stick with stuff you can buy off the shelf. Which I guess means OO or possibly EM.

 

If you want to build track and convert rolling stock, go P4.

 

Neither are wrong, but as @Harlequin pointed out, this whole thing started with wanting to get something running. You can change your mind of course, but if you do then make sure it's a consequence of a definite decision to go in a different direction, and not a result of "scope creep".

[Lacathedrale]

Oh come now, lads: I've got baseboards ordered, some stock kits to hand, defined layout plan, solid operational cues, etc.  - I would have thought that's making a start!

 

As we're well and truly beyond the stage of the Theory of Minories, I will stop polluting this thread with my specific plans and ideas and I'll leave that to a seperate layout thread. Thank you all, you're such a wonderful group to talk to about this stuff.

 

In continuing the Minories-related content at least obliquely, with relation to setting a layout somewhere, I remember seeing this map and thought it would be an interesting prompt for layouts, routes and connections:

 

 

 

[St Enodoc]

14 minutes ago, Lacathedrale said:

Oh come now, lads: I've got baseboards ordered, some stock kits to hand, defined layout plan, solid operational cues, etc.  - I would have thought that's making a start!

 

As we're well and truly beyond the stage of the Theory of Minories, I will stop polluting this thread with my specific plans and ideas and I'll leave that to a seperate layout thread. Thank you all, you're such a wonderful group to talk to about this stuff.

 

In continuing the Minories-related content at least obliquely, with relation to setting a layout somewhere, I remember seeing this map and thought it would be an interesting prompt for layouts, routes and connections:

 

 

 

That's a good effort, even though a large chunk of North Devonshire is missing!

[t-b-g]

40 minutes ago, Lacathedrale said:

Oh come now, lads: I've got baseboards ordered, some stock kits to hand, defined layout plan, solid operational cues, etc.  - I would have thought that's making a start!

 

As we're well and truly beyond the stage of the Theory of Minories, I will stop polluting this thread with my specific plans and ideas and I'll leave that to a seperate layout thread. Thank you all, you're such a wonderful group to talk to about this stuff.

 

In continuing the Minories-related content at least obliquely, with relation to setting a layout somewhere, I remember seeing this map and thought it would be an interesting prompt for layouts, routes and connections:

 

 

 

 

I think some of us have realised that you have a nice plan and a good chance of building a decent layout but that if you keep thinking about possible tweaks and changes, you might talk yourself out of it!

[Siberian Snooper]

If you're lucky, you may get away with just pulling the wheels out a bit on the axles of your RTR locos. 

 

 

[Andy Kirkham]

48 minutes ago, Lacathedrale said:

Oh come now, lads: I've got baseboards ordered, some stock kits to hand, defined layout plan, solid operational cues, etc.  - I would have thought that's making a start!

 

As we're well and truly beyond the stage of the Theory of Minories, I will stop polluting this thread with my specific plans and ideas and I'll leave that to a seperate layout thread. Thank you all, you're such a wonderful group to talk to about this stuff.

 

In continuing the Minories-related content at least obliquely, with relation to setting a layout somewhere, I remember seeing this map and thought it would be an interesting prompt for layouts, routes and connections:

 

 

 

 

A larger scale version is here http://assets.londonist.com/uploads/2019/12/britainforlondonist20dec2019.jpg

and an index of places https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1djax783rILHf56Mue-huoVNkAgTL5mULyiBBY_AR5nU/edit#gid=0

 

The compilers are evidently quite railway-aware. Not only is Sodor included, but also Craigshire, and several locations I'm not familiar with which are linked to a "Noted model railway"

Craigcorrie (town)

Creag Dhubh (natural feature)

Dunalistair (town)

Eaton Gomery (town)

Inverlochan (town)

The works of LTC Rolt are extensively referenced.

[Lacathedrale]

Thank you @Andy Kirkham - I didn't see the big version!

[Nearholmer]

There are some notable ommissions, though. I cant quicly spot any from the Sherlock Holmes stories, for instance, while some other fictional detectives are in there.

[St Enodoc]

1 minute ago, Nearholmer said:

There are some notable ommissions, though. I cant quicly spot any from the Sherlock Holmes stories, for instance, while some other fictional detectives are in there.

There are quite a few, Kevin - I looked on Dartmoor first of course but the spreadsheet shows several more. Agatha Christie's Polperran is definitely missing though!

[Nick C]

7 minutes ago, St Enodoc said:

There are quite a few, Kevin - I looked on Dartmoor first of course but the spreadsheet shows several more. Agatha Christie's Polperran is definitely missing though!

St Loo is there though, and Soldier Island. Plus of course St Mary Mead...

 

More importantly, The Castle of Aaaaarrrrrrggghhh is included!

[Andy Kirkham]

39 minutes ago, St Enodoc said:

There are quite a few, Kevin - I looked on Dartmoor first of course but the spreadsheet shows several more. Agatha Christie's Polperran is definitely missing though!

Shoscombe Old Place and Stoke Moran are certainly there. For some reason, Holmes's cases are mostly to the south and west of London. There seem to be lots in Surrey and Berkshire but only one in Kent (The Man with the Twisted Lip) and I can't remember any set in Essex or Suffolk.

[Pacific231G]

1 hour ago, Nearholmer said:

There are some notable ommissions, though. I cant quicly spot any from the Sherlock Holmes stories, for instance, while some other fictional detectives are in there.

There are a good few from Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories but I notice that, though they've got the BBC's Borchester (and Ambridge) in a fairly likely place, they've not got Frank Dyer's Borchester and I'm not seeing Charford or Grandborough Junction.

Also I think Barchester is too far east as we know from Trollope's books that it was on the old coach road to Exeter and on a  GWR branch with the GW main line through Silverbridge twelve or fifteen miles to the north Trollope of course made it very clear that it was standing in for somewhere else. 

The Rev. Septimus Harding was, a few years since, a beneficed clergyman residing in the cathedral town of ––––; let us call it Barchester. Were we to name Wells or Salisbury, Exeter, Hereford, or Gloucester, it might be presumed that something personal was intended; and as this tale will refer mainly to the cathedral dignitaries of the town in question, we are anxious that no personality may be suspected. Let us presume that Barchester is a quiet town in the West of England, (The Warden)

I always reckoned that it was a place very much like Salisbury but, to be in GWR territory a bit further north (possibly in a Britain without Salisbury plain)

 

It's good fun and an excellent job though and must have taken ages to put together. Fictional Britain is a very very crowded island!

Edited December 2, 2021 by Pacific231G

[Pacific231G]

37 minutes ago, Andy Kirkham said:

Shoscombe Old Place and Stoke Moran are certainly there. For some reason, Holmes's cases are mostly to the south and west of London. There seem to be lots in Surrey and Berkshire but only one in Kent (The Man with the Twisted Lip) and I can't remember any set in Essex or Suffolk.

Well we know that East Anglia was a region cut off on three sides by the sea and on the fourth by the Great Eastern Railway so, by the time Holmes and Watson got there, the guilty would have escaped and the innocent already hanged. 

[RJS1977]

18 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

 

Aldbrickham being the equivalent of Reading in Thomas Hardy's fictionalised Wessex. Our club had a layout named Aldbrickham - now retired and in course of being replaced by a new roundy-roundy - though it didn't bear any resemblance to any Reading station past or present.

 

Which IIRC made an appearance at the very first Kenavon show back in 2005(?).

[RJS1977]

12 minutes ago, Pacific231G said:

Well we know that East Anglia was a region cut off on three sides by the sea and on the fourth by the Great Eastern Railway so, by the time Holmes and Watson got there, the guilty would have escaped and the innocent already hanged. 

 

A few Sherlock Holmes stories took place in and around the docks/Thames Estuary, which would have been in Essex at the time