Theory of General Minories

[Joseph_Pestell]

1 hour ago, Zomboid said:

Interesting idea. I'm not sure how such things were operated, but I'd expect most trains would arrive and be taken away for servicing by a switcher. If you're representing transcontinental trains then a turntable or return loop is probably necessary unless you want to spend the whole time handling your passenger cars, as the baggage cars were always on the front and the observation cars at the rear, and they along with single F units need turning. These days of course they actually use balloon loops and wyes to reverse the whole train (check out Miami Amtrak on Google earth, you'd get laughed out of the exhibition if you showed up with a model like that).

 

Obviously it does work with right hand running as all tracks can get to all other tracks, but it's it optimised, or would it be better mirrored?

 

But you could authentically run very short trains. I'm sure I've seen things like an Alco PA, a baggage car and a single coach forming some kind of passenger train.

 

I found myself looking at the Long Island Railroad recently (online, of course). It originally had a terminus of its own in New York. Good project to model it as it could have been if it had not been closed with trains diverted across a bridge to Grand Central. Some Long Island trains very short.

[Joseph_Pestell]

I don't think that I have ever seen a trackplan for this station, but I imagine that it might have been quite Minories-like.

[Pacific231G]

1 hour ago, Talltim said:

 

—

My introduction to Bastille was this photo. You don’t get much better

Paris Bastille France September 1969
by Loose_grip_99

Indeed. He took some excelllent photos of Bastille in its final months and not just of locomotives. He was also very generous in allowing me use them in my articles on the terminus. Unfortunately, as a rather scruffy little terminus serving a single mainly suburban line when main line steam was still operating elsewhere, Bastille was all but ignored by enthusiasts until its last year or so. That meant  that there were very few images and no film that I've found of its turnover operation with loco hauled trains before they were replaced by push-pull trains cascaded down from Gare de l'Est.  Unfortunately I only discovered it a year or so after it had closed when it was still intact with all the signals still in place but if you want to see the closest thing to a real life Minories in action it's well worth watching this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwn8DzI0rpU

Unfortunately it too was filmed in the station's final months.

 

The funny thing is that, though I'm utterly fascinated by Bastille,  I have absolutely no desire to model that type of intense suburban operation that Minories was also designed to offer. There are though a couple of models of it, one by Daniel Combexelle,  the author of the best researched book on the line, who managed to convert some Hornby-Acho 131TB Prairies- the locos used to operate the line until push-pull working arrived- to DCC. 

Edited June 10, 2020 by Pacific231G

[Keith Addenbrooke]

On 10/06/2020 at 08:42, Zomboid said:

Interesting idea. I'm not sure how such things were operated, but I'd expect most trains would arrive and be taken away for servicing by a switcher. If you're representing transcontinental trains then a turntable or return loop is probably necessary unless you want to spend the whole time handling your passenger cars, as the baggage cars were always on the front and the observation cars at the rear, and they along with single F units need turning. These days of course they actually use balloon loops and wyes to reverse the whole train (check out Miami Amtrak on Google earth, you'd get laughed out of the exhibition if you showed up with a model like that).

 

Obviously it does work with right hand running as all tracks can get to all other tracks, but it's it optimised, or would it be better mirrored?

 

But you could authentically run very short trains. I'm sure I've seen things like an Alco PA, a baggage car and a single coach forming some kind of passenger train.

Hi Zomboid, thanks for the replies - the photo is perfect: exactly the right train for this layout, both in terms of length and mixture of cars.  To explain my comments on operation better I should have included a schematic as well.

 

I have assumed all long-distance trains back in, having gone past a large Wye before reversing into the station.  Head end cars therefore are always at the front and can be switched out and engines are always pointing the right way - depending on the size of fiddle yard, there would be scope for switchers to pull out complete consists to go to the coach yard for cleaning between turns as well as switching operations on stage. I didn’t plan a fiddle yard, but it should work with engine cassettes so motive power can be swapped around, but part of the efficiency of operating this model is that I don’t need to turn stock or engines.  But it’s also why the kickback wouldn’t work other than as a stabling point - engines should never get beyond the cars.

 

As I understand it, trains backing in would have a brakeman on the rear platform with a valve operated extension to the brake hose.  I need an HO scale figure in position to make this look plausible - who’d then need to get off before a train departed.
 

With all trains backing in, track laying would need to be well above my usual standard though!

Edited October 7, 2022 by Keith Addenbrooke
Edited for text only as photo no longer available

[Zomboid]

8 minutes ago, Keith Addenbrooke said:

With all trains backing in, track laying would need to be well above my usual standard though!

One benefit of US modelling is that you're generally using body mounted Kadees. Propelling isn't really a problem.

 

I'd still have a balloon loop myself, but having the station on a wye like that would be believable, especially if it isn't the end of the transcontinental run (it wouldn't have to be on a wye either, the eastbound could reverse in, the westbound could reverse out).

[Keith Addenbrooke]

9 hours ago, Pacific231G said:

 

For an exhibition layout I think it's fine to use tricks like missing out the final crossover but for a home layout I want to operate it fully. I've looked at a few single track throats and this O gauge one by an E.A. Beet* from MRN in 1947 was quite appealing. particularly if the bays are lengthened. I'm not sure what the kick back siding from the upper bay was for.

 

To retain operational capability, an option might be to have the scenic divide (I’m thinking a bridge) across the middle of the throat, so the first crossover (looking at a plan left to right) is on the scenic station side and the second (which is most likely still visible under the bridge) is actually in the fiddle yard.  This one pair of crossovers then has to serve both the station and fiddle yard tracks.  I guess it would need bi-directional signalling for both tracks for it to work?  Not sure if it would be as much fun in the long run?

Interesting photo - looks to me like the kickback was used as a loco stabling point, perhaps for a station pilot to work the bay platforms?  The kickback Good Sidings could be shunted from the loop, so Beet has two types of station in one (either side of the central platform).  For educational purposes this may have been intentional, I guess.

Edited June 10, 2020 by Keith Addenbrooke

[Keith Addenbrooke]

1 hour ago, Zomboid said:

Obviously it does work with right hand running as all tracks can get to all other tracks, but it's it optimised, or would it be better mirrored?

I did wonder about this but, as my added schematic now explains, I’ve actually assumed bi-directional running on each entry / exit track (one the Eastbound leg of the large Wye, the other the Westbound).  To stay within the 1’ width for the track I didn’t show them diverging on stage - this will also help with the fiddle yard as they come in together.

 

As this is a theoretical exercise, I confess I liked the way I can compare this treatment of Minories directly with others on this thread by keeping it the same way round - I may have missed any earlier in the thread that point the other way (radical!).
 

I’ve kept the longer Track 1 for mainline trains next to the Station building, which also seemed to make sense.  The Commissary Track is next to Track 1 as there’s no raised platform, and it’s assumed with my shortie trains that that bit of Track 1 is where the head end cars are spotted, so passengers aren’t getting on to Track 1 trains there.  I didn’t put in a train shed, although it would be worth trying out a cardboard mock up to see if it helped disguise the length of the trains - I think I prefer to see all the cars, esp. if I have an observation car at the end of the train made up with a very mixed consist.

 

My main reservation about Minories (from a couple of pages back) is that the platforms seem to point away from the tunnel - this no longer applies when I take out the high-level platform, which is one reason this appeals to me.

[Pacific231G]

1 hour ago, Keith Addenbrooke said:

I did wonder about this but, as my added schematic now explains, I’ve actually assumed bi-directional running on each entry / exit track (one the Eastbound leg of the large Wye, the other the Westbound).  To stay within the 1’ width for the track I didn’t show them diverging on stage - this will also help with the fiddle yard as they come in together.

 

 

Hi Keith

That arrangement still exists at Tours in France though I think the triangle was simply to enable trains to come off the P-O Paris-Bordeaux main line and return to it rather than to turn them. There are shuttle trains from the terminus connecting with trains that only stop on the main line at St. Pierre-les-Corps and it was quite amusing to see a two coach set that had seen far better days appearing on the boards as TGV so and so to Paris or Bordeaux. Tours is though also a reversing terminus for trains between Nantes and Lyon and the terminus for a number of other long distance and local services.  

 

The good thing about American urban termini is that they were far more often on spurs into downtown from a railroad that otherwise ran a couple of miles away around the city and, unlike freight trains, their long distance passenger trains were often quite short by post war European standards,  even some that included catering vehicles. Model Railroader ran a fairly lengthy article on "pike sized passenger trains" in June 2007 and thought most of the trains featured were local, the 1962 Wabash Cannon Ball (Detroit-St. Louis 500 miles) was hauled by two passenger diesels back to back (to speed up the turnround in Detroit) and consisted of a baggage car, a heavy weight combination RPO/Baggage car and three lightweight cars, one of them a cafe-lounge.

Wabash E8A 1012 with Train 4, The Wabash Cannonball, Dabville, IL. 28-10-62

Photo Roger Puta  (public domain)

 

What was also interesting was the high proportion of each train devoted to express and post rather than passengers even in the 1940s.

 

I believe that the habit of backing into the terminus from the main line was particularly prevalent in the south with the conductor equipped with a brake pipe extension with a valve and a whistle. 

Edited June 10, 2020 by Pacific231G

[Nearholmer]

I really do like Mr Beet’s terminus!

 

Very “operable”, and uses the space to the maximum. Looks like the sort of thing for clockwork locos to me, so that little kickback might be a ‘winding bay’ for a turnover engine.

 

Before I largely gave-up on garden railways because it always seemed to be dark and raining when I got time to play trains, I schemed-out a mobile terminus to go on the lawn myself. The idea was something akin to a very low market-stall barrow, which could be put away in the garage, and would have track at a suitable height to mate with my fixed garden line, which is on a wall around a flower-bed, about 18” higher than the grass.

 

 

Edited June 10, 2020 by Nearholmer

[Zomboid]

2 hours ago, Keith Addenbrooke said:

As this is a theoretical exercise, I confess I liked the way I can compare this treatment of Minories directly with others on this thread by keeping it the same way round - I may have missed any earlier in the thread that point the other way (radical!).

Here we go then. Peco code 83 #6 turnouts throughout. Will work nicely for right hand running in general (Germany, Switzerland etc). 8' x 18", 6" grid. All the interesting trackwork is on one board as it turns out. Would obviously be shorter with #5s, but probably not by an 85' passenger car length (having checked, it's about 4" extra on the platform tracks). Might allow smallish steam locos on a 4 car consist, though.

Both the kickback and traditional loco spur are on reverse curves, but it's only to show the general point.

 

A very interesting idea, I have to say.

 

A reversal for left hand running with the rest of the world on the left would put the entrance tracks at the front of the board. and the kickback at the rear.

Edited June 10, 2020 by Zomboid

[t-b-g]

1 hour ago, Pacific231G said:

Hi Keith

That arrangement still exists at Tours in France though I think the triangle was simply to enable trains to come off the P-O Paris-Bordeaux main line and return to it rather than to turn them. There are shuttle trains from the terminus connecting with trains that only stop on the main line at St. Pierre-les-Corps and it was quite amusing to see a two coach set that had seen far better days appearing on the boards as TGV so and so to Paris or Bordeaux. Tours is though also a reversing terminus for trains between Nantes and Lyon and the terminus for a number of other long distance and local services.  

 

The good thing about American urban termini is that they were far more often on spurs into downtown from a railroad that otherwise ran a couple of miles away around the city and, unlike freight trains, their long distance passenger trains were often quite short by post war European standards,  even some that included catering vehicles. Model Railroader ran a fairly lengthy article on "pike sized passenger trains" in June 2007 and thought most of the trains featured were local, the 1962 Wabash Cannon Ball (Detroit-St. Louis 500 miles) was hauled by two passenger diesels back to back (to speed up the turnround in Detroit) and consisted of a baggage car, a heavy weight combination RPO/Baggage car and three lightweight cars, one of them a cafe-lounge.

Wabash E8A 1012 with Train 4, The Wabash Cannonball, Dabville, IL. 28-10-62

Photo Roger Puta  (public domain)

 

What was also interesting was the high proportion of each train devoted to express and post rather than passengers even in the 1940s.

 

I believe that the habit of backing into the terminus from the main line was particularly prevalent in the south with the conductor equipped with a brake pipe extension with a valve and a whistle. 

 

I don't have a huge interest in the railways of the USA and my knowledge is limited but that is a great photo! I knew the song about the Wabash Cannonball but had no idea it was real rather than fictional.

 

RMWeb as an educational tool at it's best!

[Dr Gerbil-Fritters]

On 05/06/2020 at 21:49, t-b-g said:

 

No it wasn't. There was another folding layout built later. Last time I spoke to Nick Freezer at a show, he said that he still had it after keeping it in store for many years and that he was considering breathing some new life into it.

 

Now can I remember what it was called?

 

Possibly "Dugdale Road" after Jack Dugdale.

 

Junior Dr Gerbill-Fritters wanted to visit the attic, so it was the perfect excuse to dig out the relevant Railway Toddler...

 

 

 

 

 

March 1977, it seems like only yesterday.

[Keith Addenbrooke]

1 hour ago, Nearholmer said:

I really do like Mr Beet’s terminus!

 

Very “operable”, and uses the space to the maximum. Looks like the sort of thing for clockwork locos to me, so that little kickback might be a ‘winding bay’ for a turnover engine.

 

Before I largely gave-up on garden railways because it always seemed to be dark and raining when I got time to play trains, I schemed-out a mobile terminus to go on the lawn myself. The idea was something akin to a very low market-stall barrow, which could be put away in the garage, and would have track at a suitable height to mate with my fixed garden line, which is on a wall around a flower-bed, about 18” higher than the grass.

 

 

 

I did wonder if lessons with Mr. Beet might begin and end with a platoon of students either side lifting and carrying the station to and from wherever it was stored - the board looks fairly solid?

 

I suppose a 'winding bay' could be seen as the early equivalent of a DCC programming track. Plus ca change...

[ejstubbs]

26 minutes ago, Zomboid said:

A reversal for left hand running with the rest of the world on the left would put the entrance tracks at the front of the board. and the kickback at the rear.

 

Why?

 

Unless I'm missing something fundamental (which I'll admit is entirely possible) it seems to me to work OK for left-hand running as it is.  Better, in some ways, as it avoids the immediate reverse curve on arrival in to "platform 1".  (Not so much of a problem on departure because more of the passengers are likely to be seated?  OK, not such a strong argument if the services are likely to be full-to-standing on a regular basis.)

[JohnR]

9 minutes ago, Dr Gerbil-Fritters said:

 

Junior Dr Gerbill-Fritters wanted to visit the attic, so it was the perfect excuse to dig out the relevant Railway Toddler...

 

 

 

 

 

March 1977, it seems like only yesterday.

 

I've got a vague recollection of Dugdale Road - wasnt it using Western Region Diesel locos - or was that another similar layout Nick Freezer had? 

[Zomboid]

I think the only reason it would be optimized for RH running is because the first crossover is facing for LH running. Not really a big deal in the grand scheme of things.

[Pacific231G]

6 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

I really do like Mr Beet’s terminus!

 

Very “operable”, and uses the space to the maximum. Looks like the sort of thing for clockwork locos to me, so that little kickback might be a ‘winding bay’ for a turnover engine.

 

Before I largely gave-up on garden railways because it always seemed to be dark and raining when I got time to play trains, I schemed-out a mobile terminus to go on the lawn myself. The idea was something akin to a very low market-stall barrow, which could be put away in the garage, and would have track at a suitable height to mate with my fixed garden line, which is on a wall around a flower-bed, about 18” higher than the grass.

 

 

Mr Beet's terminus had a fairly interesting history. It first started before the First World War as part of a layout occupying two rooms, I suspect in the parental home, with mainly clockwork but one steam loco and featured in MRN in November 1926 .

Though the plan looks crude and the trackwork was tinplate it was run to a strict timetable as an end to end layout (I suspect via Brunswick and round the loop to Dynever.

Moving to a smaller house left no room  for the layout but in 1930 he decided to resurrect the main terminus which was 10ft by 2ft 2ins on two boards plus a removable side extension for the goods yard.

In the summer the terminus was on the floor of a hut in the garden and temporary track laid outdoors to a smaller terminus at the other end which from the one photo was just a doubling of the single track to serve two platforms but it was fuly signalled. 

The railway was in storage during the war and deteriorated badly, the track from damp, the buildings from mice and the baseboards from warping, but he restored it from 1945 and mounted it on a single frame made from angle iron used for bedsteads; sturdy though very heavy but he could call on half a dozen boys to carry it out from his garage for operating sessions. The line was about 50ft long and the far terminus was just a run round loop. Signals were controlled from the signal box using fishing line for those on the board and solenoids for the outer home and advanced starter.

The revived railway described in MRN in 1947 had five clockwork locos including a Claughton 4-6-0 that he built on a Bassett-Lowke mechanson - his only modelling during the war- and four tank locos, probably all Bassett-Lowke.

Edited June 10, 2020 by Pacific231G
further information

[Nearholmer]

We're well off the theorising of General Minories, but Mr Beet's early plan is the classic "operator's layout": a circuit with two terminii branching from it in opposing directions, to permit A-to-B running with circulation in-between.

 

Its exactly what I've squashed into my layout, and if you are prepared to accept short trains I don't think it can be bettered as a topology to allow the "carrying out of representative railway operations", to quote Gilbert Thomas, who arranged Paddington to Seagood in this way (running long trains, because he had a vast space available!).

[FoxUnpopuli]

1 hour ago, Calnefoxile said:

We at Bentley Model Railway Group had a layout called Gladstone Road that was based on the Minories concept, it was supposed to based around surburban Manchester. We eventually extended it to allow through running and finally sold it last year.

 

Extending it certainly added much operational interest for the Operators.

 

Regards

 

Neal.

 

 

 

 

 

I copied this over from @Harlequin's 'Minories are made of this' thread.  Bentley are my local group, I've popped in a couple of times and threatened to join before all this recent Covid nonsense.

 

@Calnefoxile's comment is interesting, because I'd been fiddling with my Minories-inspired concept previously posted and had come up with this:

 

 

which I think is becoming quite interesting from an operational point of view, and gets me a roundy-roundy for when I just want to watch trains go by.  One of th initial issues I have is that I have lots of stock, so making the traverser be multi-deck, movable in the Z-axis, and even arranged to join with six further sidings under the 'south' end of the layout gives me plenty of storage yet faced off with scenic options from the light blue 'SX' headshunt.

Edited June 10, 2020 by FoxUnpopuli

[Zomboid]

5 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

We're well off the theorising of General Minories, but Mr Beet's early plan is the classic "operator's layout": a circuit with two terminii branching from it in opposing directions, to permit A-to-B running with circulation in-between.

 

Its exactly what I've squashed into my layout, and if you are prepared to accept short trains I don't think it can be bettered as a topology to allow the "carrying out of representative railway operations", to quote Gilbert Thomas, who arranged Paddington to Seagood in this way (running long trains, because he had a vast space available!).

I think we're ok so long as one of the termini is a Minories...

 

I like the idea of running from A to B (and back to A) rather than having some imagined rest of the world where trains go to hide, but it's pretty impractical for most of us. If I had the space, time & money then at least 31 of the 43 layouts I'd build would be to that pattern.

Edited June 10, 2020 by Zomboid

[t-b-g]

2 hours ago, FoxUnpopuli said:

 

I copied this over from @Harlequin's 'Minories are made of this' thread.  Bentley are my local group, I've popped in a couple of times and threatened to join before all this recent Covid nonsense.

 

@Calnefoxile's comment is interesting, because I'd been fiddling with my Minories-inspired concept previously posted and had come up with this:

 

 

which I think is becoming quite interesting from an operational point of view, and gets me a roundy-roundy for when I just want to watch trains go by.  One of th initial issues I have is that I have lots of stock, so making the traverser be multi-deck, movable in the Z-axis, and even arranged to join with six further sidings under the 'south' end of the layout gives me plenty of storage yet faced off with scenic options from the light blue 'SX' headshunt.

 

Out of all the plans inspired by Minories, that has to be the one furthest removed! If you showed me that and asked me what design inspired it, I wouldn't have guessed Minories in a month of Sundays.

[t-b-g]

18 minutes ago, Zomboid said:

I think we're ok so long as one of the termini is a Minories...

 

I like the idea of running from A to B (and back to A) rather than having some imagined rest of the world where trains go to hide, but it's pretty impractical for most of us. If I had the space, time & money then at least 31 of the 43 layouts I'd build would be to that pattern.

 

Is it really so impractical? If your fiddle yard is a fan of points rather than cassettes or a traverser, all you do is ballast the track and stick a platform on the edge and you are there! When you operate one "end", the other "end" represents the rest of the railway system, so in effect, you have a station and a fiddle yard that alternate. Sure it would be nice to have a run between the two but as long as you have a scenic break, it is no worse than having a train that shunts into any fiddle yard to move from one siding or platform to another.

[Dr Gerbil-Fritters]

I'm still reeling at the thought of a multideck traverser operating in the Z axis...

[Nearholmer]

Wasn't there a layout shown in a magazine that consisted of a British Terminus and a French one, each acting as the FY for the other? But, on the whole, I like the "junction fiddle yard" idea better.

[Dagworth]

On 08/06/2020 at 17:48, Harlequin said:

This was my take on a double-track fiddle yard for Minories that folds up into the same volume as the folded Minories:

 

I don't know if the suggestion has been made already as everything seems to be spread about over several pages and topics/blogs but I really like your plan, the only change I'd make would be to make the turntable double tracked so that when rotated the loco ended up behind the train that is about to depart to the station to then follow it through the then empty road.

 

Andi