Theory of General Minories

[woodenhead]

This would make for an interesting Minories in the country type layout

 

http://www.disused-stations.org.uk/t/tilbury_riverside/

 

Lots of platforms, it's in Essex rather than London and there is scope for trains in and out from two directions and it's route started with an actual station named Minories.

[Clive Mortimore]

46 minutes ago, woodenhead said:

This would make for an interesting Minories in the country type layout

 

http://www.disused-stations.org.uk/t/tilbury_riverside/

 

Lots of platforms, it's in Essex rather than London and there is scope for trains in and out from two directions and it's route started with an actual station named Minories.

Hi Woodie 

 

Can you think of a terminus layout where there the trains can go in and out of two directions made by a former Essex resident? 

 

I cannot lie but having visited Riverside a few times before it closed it did leave an impression. 

 

 

Edited June 14, 2020 by Clive Mortimore

[woodenhead]

3 minutes ago, Clive Mortimore said:

Hi Woodie 

 

Can you think of a terminus layout where there the trains can go in and out of two directions made by a former Essex resident? 

 

I cannot lie but having visited Riverside a few times before it closed it did leave an impression. 

 

 

It did cross my mind

[Pacific231G]

2 hours ago, woodenhead said:

This would make for an interesting Minories in the country type layout

 

http://www.disused-stations.org.uk/t/tilbury_riverside/

 

Lots of platforms, it's in Essex rather than London and there is scope for trains in and out from two directions and it's route started with an actual station named Minories.

Hi Woodie

It was a fascinating station- I once caught a train there having arrived on a Russian ship carrying school parties from Leningrad-  but I wouldn't describe it as being in the country. Boat trains and Marine Stations do of course provide great potential for more exotic stock such as Pullmans at relatively small termini though we just used one of the regular Southend-Fenchurch St. EMUs that reversed there (most didn't) and of course there is also scope for goods without needing to model actual goods yards as stuff comes in and out of the docks. 

Edited June 14, 2020 by Pacific231G

[Clive Mortimore]

1 hour ago, Pacific231G said:

Hi Woodie

It was a fascinating station- I once caught a train there having arrived on a Russian ship carrying school parties from Leningrad-  but I wouldn't describe it as being in the country. Boat trains and Marine Stations do of course provide great potential for more exotic stock such as Pullmans at relatively small termini though we just used one of the regular Southend-Fenchurch St. EMUs that reversed there (most didn't) and of course there is also scope for goods without needing to model actual goods yards as stuff comes in and out of the docks. 

To the west it is all built up but to the east and and north not so. The other side of Tilbury Fort and the sewage works it is countryside along the Thames until you get to Corringham and Standford-Le-Hope. Going northwards there isn't a big settlement until you hit Brentwood.

[FoxUnpopuli]

Tilbury: Interesting arrangement of tracks, plus it has a shed, goods facilities etc...  Jinties, Tilbury tanks, plus the lovely Stanier 4P 3-Cylinders.  I've a soft spot for all the LMS 2-6-4 tanks.

 

https://maps.nls.uk/view/103200049 

https://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/#zoom=16&lat=51.45516&lon=0.35912&layers=193&b=1

http://shedbashuk.blogspot.com/2017/02/plaistow-tilbury-1935-1962.html

 

 

 

 

[Nearholmer]

Those big 2-6-4T are an ideal loco for the sort of operation that gets represented in Minories-derived layouts, and I've just been playing suburban operations on my layout with one figuring in the roster. Aesthetically, I actually like the BR ones more, as per Hornby Dublo, but the whole Stanier, Fairburn, Riddles family were very smart pieces of work.

 

Worth building a suitable layout just to include them!

 

 

Edited June 14, 2020 by Nearholmer

[Pacific231G]

4 hours ago, Clive Mortimore said:

To the west it is all built up but to the east and and north not so. The other side of Tilbury Fort and the sewage works it is countryside along the Thames until you get to Corringham and Standford-Le-Hope. Going northwards there isn't a big settlement until you hit Brentwood.

Interesting Clive

I knew if from the point of view of the docks. Apart from arrving on the Nadezhda Krupskaya at the end of a school trip, a couple of years later  I was working on a cargo ship that was docked there for  the best part of a week but  was blisfully unaware that there was countryside the other side. You do sometimes get that with 'new' docks.

[t-b-g]

Then of course there are these little beauties. Built by me and painted by Ian Rathbone for a layout set in that part of the world in the 1890s, long before Mr Stanier had any 2-6-4 tanks at all.

 

 

Photographed before things like buffers were fitted, so they were not missed off!

[St Enodoc]

10 hours ago, t-b-g said:

"They do work but the public isn't operators aren't interested in shunting so we just send trains round"

Corrected.

[Zomboid]

4 hours ago, t-b-g said:

Then of course there are these little beauties. Built by me and painted by Ian Rathbone for a layout set in that part of the world in the 1890s, long before Mr Stanier had any 2-6-4 tanks at all.

 

 

Photographed before things like buffers were fitted, so they were not missed off!

That's a lovely machine. The (probably) better known Adams Radial tanks would also be ideal for that kind of timeframe.

 

Besides having a soft spot for all things LSWR anyway, I do like Mr Adams' stovepipe and square window styling features. Seems odd that the vast majority of the industry stuck with round windows until boilers got too big for such things.

[Nearholmer]

Getting a bit OT, but I believe there is some relationship between the LTSR locos and the LSWR ones, through the drawing offices of the GER and various external loco builders - we traced it in another thread here. Both exceedingly elegant, and a smart expansion of the 4-4-0T concept, which was brilliant for squiggly suburban lines, to allow them to go a bit further.

[Pacific231G]

On 14/06/2020 at 00:18, St Enodoc said:

And there's the rub. It's (almost) axiomatic that a good operators' layout rarely makes a good exhibition layout and vice versa.

It depends on the visitor. For those who just want to see trains moving that's probably true but there are plenty of exhibition visitors (including me) who are fascinated by proper operation- during its revival I spent hours at various shows watching Borchester and the same has been true of Bradfield Gloucester Road and a few others. There are also plenty of exhibition operators (also including me) who enjoy shunting trains, coming up with operating patterns, even operating to a sequence. 

 

I'd go so far as to say that one of the the best ways to find out what you want in your own layout is to volunteer to operate other people's. Though it's a different design, what I put in my current H0 BLT- passenger and goods with three goods sidings, one facing the opposite way-  was directly inspired by operating someone else's layout at several shows. It's also shown me that I don't want a roundy round (other people may realise the exact opposite) and that Minories without goods doesn't provide quite enough operational interest but with it should.

 

What I have seen and experienced more than once with some larger continuous layouts is that snags, mosly electrical, appear. The focus then becomes entirely on the obvious need to get trains running on the circuits and somehow,  getting the shunting the layout is capable of working goes by the board even at two day shows.

Edited June 15, 2020 by Pacific231G

[Keith Addenbrooke]

44 minutes ago, Pacific231G said:

There are also plenty of exhibition operators (also including me) who enjoy shunting trains, coming up with operating patterns, even operating to a sequence. 

 

I'd go so far as to say that one of the the best ways to find out what you want in your own layout is to volunteer to operate other people's. Though it's a different design, what I put in my current H0 BLT- passenger and goods with three goods sidings, one facing the opposite way-  was directly inspired by operating someone else's layout at several shows. It's also shown me that I don't want a roundy round (other people may realise the exact opposite) and that Minories without goods doesn't provide quite enough operational interest but with it should.

Although I’ve never operated an exhibition layout, the same can be applied to home layout design: one of the mistakes I’ve made looking at bigger terminus station ideas (which I’ve never progressed) is that I’ve started by doodling a nice station, rather than thinking first of the kind of trains my location might expect, then designing a suitable fiddle yard with capacity to generate / receive them (ie: to imagine what the rest of the network is providing), before then looking at the station I need to make it all work.

 

Getting into the detail of Minories, those versions that have a twin track entry to the fiddle yard can operate quite differently (at least potentially) to those where the entry / exit lines become one just inside the tunnel (usually done to give easy access to all fiddle yard roads), both in terms of simultaneous movement and ECS shunting. Harlequin’s Minories fiddle yard design is very different to a simple fan of (typically 3) sidings shown in many designs.  Similarly, Zomboid’s headshunt addition to his Interstitial module adds flexibility, as does t-b-g’s rather clever fiddle yard entry with twin headshunt either side of the tracks fanning out.
 

Those termini with a single entry / exit road (the Shepherd’s Bush Minories from a few years ago was one), or with the faux double line (per your own proposal) are a further variation of course.  Sometimes I guess I start at the wrong end!

[t-b-g]

I do find that the modeller who enjoys both the building of models and the operating side of things is a minority. Amongst my friends, I am happy to have some superb model builders, who are happy to see their model trains running through a good looking setting but have n interest in intricate operating. I have others who can't tell one end of a soldering iron from another but will operate a layout superbly for hours. There are a few who enjoy both aspects.

 

My own view is that he hobby has such a wide range of aspects that there is plenty of room for all but that I think people might be missing out a bit if they limit their own interests. So I like to try it all.

 

I would agree about Minories being much more limited with no goods facilities. Just a constant in/out of passenger trains and all your goods wagons and locos look out of place if they appear. I find even one short goods/loading dock siding is enough to justify such things appearing. A goods can come in, pick up a couple of vans from the dock and go. Sounds simple but but is a nice shunting move! Plus a loco coal wagon for the loco spur and somewhere to put horse boxes and a van off the back of a passenger train. So yes, a small goods facility makes a lot of difference.  

[Keith Addenbrooke]

8 minutes ago, t-b-g said:

I do find that the modeller who enjoys both the building of models and the operating side of things is a minority. Amongst my friends, I am happy to have some superb model builders, who are happy to see their model trains running through a good looking setting but have n interest in intricate operating. I have others who can't tell one end of a soldering iron from another but will operate a layout superbly for hours. There are a few who enjoy both aspects.

 

My own view is that he hobby has such a wide range of aspects that there is plenty of room for all but that I think people might be missing out a bit if they limit their own interests. So I like to try it all.

 

I would agree about Minories being much more limited with no goods facilities. Just a constant in/out of passenger trains and all your goods wagons and locos look out of place if they appear. I find even one short goods/loading dock siding is enough to justify such things appearing. A goods can come in, pick up a couple of vans from the dock and go. Sounds simple but but is a nice shunting move! Plus a loco coal wagon for the loco spur and somewhere to put horse boxes and a van off the back of a passenger train. So yes, a small goods facility makes a lot of difference.  

This sounds great - my resistance is weakening further...

[t-b-g]

15 minutes ago, Keith Addenbrooke said:

Although I’ve never operated an exhibition layout, the same can be applied to home layout design: one of the mistakes I’ve made looking at bigger terminus station ideas (which I’ve never progressed) is that I’ve started by doodling a nice station, rather than thinking first of the kind of trains my location might expect, then designing a suitable fiddle yard with capacity to generate / receive them (ie: to imagine what the rest of the network is providing), before then looking at the station I need to make it all work.

 

Getting into the detail of Minories, those versions that have a twin track entry to the fiddle yard can operate quite differently (at least potentially) to those where the entry / exit lines become one just inside the tunnel (usually done to give easy access to all fiddle yard roads), both in terms of simultaneous movement and ECS shunting. Harlequin’s Minories fiddle yard design is very different to a simple fan of (typically 3) sidings shown in many designs.  Similarly, Zomboid’s headshunt addition to his Interstitial module adds flexibility, as does t-b-g’s rather clever fiddle yard entry with twin headshunt either side of the tracks fanning out.
 

Those termini with a single entry / exit road (the Shepherd’s Bush Minories from a few years ago was one), or with the faux double line (per your own proposal) are a further variation of course.  Sometimes I guess I start at the wrong end!

 

The single track exit is something that I have become familiar with through Buckingham. Running a train in and anther one out at the same time looks great but if you are driving them both and they are each only moving around 8ft, running both realistically and stopping them both in the right place is very tricky indeed! Unless I am deliberately "showing off" how clever I am as an operator, which usually ends in failure and with people laughing at me,  I find driving one at a time enough to keep me occupied. So the single track exit/entry on mine works just fine.

 

From a viewers perspective, if you are in a position to have a train in the platform ready to go, which you start up just before the arriving one stops, that looks just as impressive as two passing at the exit. I can do that by changing one point as soon as the last carriage has passed it leaving the fiddle yard. the station points and signals can be set in advance. 

[St Enodoc]

11 minutes ago, t-b-g said:

 

The single track exit is something that I have become familiar with through Buckingham. Running a train in and anther one out at the same time looks great but if you are driving them both and they are each only moving around 8ft, running both realistically and stopping them both in the right place is very tricky indeed! Unless I am deliberately "showing off" how clever I am as an operator, which usually ends in failure and with people laughing at me,  I find driving one at a time enough to keep me occupied. So the single track exit/entry on mine works just fine.

 

From a viewers perspective, if you are in a position to have a train in the platform ready to go, which you start up just before the arriving one stops, that looks just as impressive as two passing at the exit. I can do that by changing one point as soon as the last carriage has passed it leaving the fiddle yard. the station points and signals can be set in advance. 

Which brings to mind another CJF aphorism, that however many trains you can have running on your layout you can only control one at a time.

[Harlequin]

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.

 

 

[t-b-g]

5 minutes ago, St Enodoc said:

Which brings to mind another CJF aphorism, that however many trains you can have running on your layout you can only control one at a time.

 

He was right! I would add that as a viewer, you can also only watch one properly at a time. Any others moving are seen out of the corner of the eye as background. So why not move one, then the other? That way the viewer and the operator can concentrate on them both.

 

An added benefit is that if you have a limited number of trains and an operating sequence, a train arriving and then one departing takes twice as long as them happening together and makes it longer before the same train has to appear again.

 

 

[t-b-g]

5 minutes 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.

 

 

 

That is all true and if you want operate an intensive commuter service, that is all fine. My preference would be for a more varied service with less intensity. There are no rights and wrongs, just personal preferences.  

[Clive Mortimore]

30 minutes 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 was able to achieve simultaneous arrival and departure with my Minories layout, my fiddle yard was a traverser.

[St Enodoc]

1 hour ago, t-b-g said:

He was right!

He usually was!

[Keith Addenbrooke]

1 hour 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.

 

 

 

1 hour ago, t-b-g said:

I would add that as a viewer, you can also only watch one properly at a time. Any others moving are seen out of the corner of the eye as background.

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).

[Lacathedrale]

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.