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Theory of General Minories


Mike W2
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28 minutes ago, Pacific231G said:

CJF's real motivation seems to have been to try to break the cult of the branch line terminus as being the only theme you can work with if  you're starved for space.

More than that, if you're starved for space then actually a city station is more likely to fit than a BLT, which tended to sprawl over the plentiful cheap land on which they were usually built (a mile or so from the settlement from which they take their name).

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29 minutes ago, Lacathedrale said:

QjUjrWn.jpg

 

It seems that Mr. Freezer felt the same way about Minories, it showed up in his book about model railway signalling!

and in his book about model railway wiring!  I don't know if this is a but undersignalled by the standards of some British railways but, apart from probaby not needing the calling on arms on the gantry that schema would work rather well with French signalling.

This is the final signalling layout for Bastille just before it closed in 1969,

426491342_signallingdiagram1969.jpg.0e7b1854768da09c9b033d9ae3e88b88.jpg

obviously the throat has been straightened. The chequerboards are carrés, absolute stop signals, the diamonds are avertissements, distant signals more or less, and the solid square top left is a carré violet, an absolute stop signal for service lines whose clear signal is  white not green indicating that trains or locos passing it clear are only cleared for shunting moves till they reach the next principal signal. 

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I have a question: if I run a Minories on the basis that a pilot engine is available for shunting trains on arrival, I can see how tail end traffic could be shunted into a parcels bay on Platform 3 (let’s not worry about the kickback for now).  The remaining ECS can then be pulled out of the station to go to the off-stage coach yard for cleaning and the light engine can be released - NB: I’m obviously wanting to run more than just commuter trains.

 

But, when it comes to departure, how do I get the departing tail end traffic to the back of the outgoing train, if the ECS is pulled into the station by a pilot that is then trapped at the buffers until the road engine* (which I assume doesn’t shunt) arrives and the train leaves?
 

Or is it assumed that the tail end traffic arrived loaded (XP) but returns empty in a dedicated train.  What about Night Mail or Newspapers - would those carriages be added to the front of a train by a second pilot?  Thanks, Keith.

 

* This may be American terminology.

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2 hours ago, Zomboid said:

More than that, if you're starved for space then actually a city station is more likely to fit than a BLT, which tended to sprawl over the plentiful cheap land on which they were usually built (a mile or so from the settlement from which they take their name).

 

Hear,hear - going back to my example - caterham from the home signal to the bufferstops is a hair over 14' in 2mm/ft - and Holborn Viaduct, including the routing to the metropolitan extension - less than 6'!

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5 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

I think I might be saying that, if a goods/parcels or milk section is included, Minories is unnecessarily big/complicated for home use. which might be controversial

Depends what you're into. It's perfectly possible to have a long and challenging shunting session on a layout with only one point, if you determine that car spots are important. Though quite how many times you'd want to do that is another question.

 

On my own I doubt I could get the best out of a Minories layout, but I would probably enjoy myself. Add a balloon loop and some level of automation and I could probably get quite stressed trying to run it...

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37 minutes ago, Keith Addenbrooke said:

how do I get the departing tail end traffic to the back of the outgoing train


Put it at the front of the train, but there are buts: if it is 6W vehicles, in more recent years it has to go at the back, and where do the stations down the line need it for unloading? You might have to propel the passenger ECS in on top of already positioned NPCS, or trip the NPCS to the carriage sidings (=FY) for marshalling. Variations of all of this happened in reality.

 

There isn’t much length in Minories for trains of complex composition, though.

 

 

 

 

Edited by Nearholmer
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39 minutes ago, Keith Addenbrooke said:

I have a question: if I run a Minories on the basis that a pilot engine is available for shunting trains on arrival, I can see how tail end traffic could be shunted into a parcels bay on Platform 3 (let’s not worry about the kickback for now).  The remaining ECS can then be pulled out of the station to go to the off-stage coach yard for cleaning and the light engine can be released - NB: I’m obviously wanting to run more than just commuter trains.

 

But, when it comes to departure, how do I get the departing tail end traffic to the back of the outgoing train, if the ECS is pulled into the station by a pilot that is then trapped at the buffers until the road engine* (which I assume doesn’t shunt) arrives and the train leaves?
 

Or is it assumed that the tail end traffic arrived loaded (XP) but returns empty in a dedicated train.  What about Night Mail or Newspapers - would those carriages be added to the front of a train by a second pilot?  Thanks, Keith.

 

* This may be American terminology.

 

The alternative would be for the pilot to propel the coaching stock back into the platform.

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41 minutes ago, Keith Addenbrooke said:

I have a question: if I run a Minories on the basis that a pilot engine is available for shunting trains on arrival, I can see how tail end traffic could be shunted into a parcels bay on Platform 3 (let’s not worry about the kickback for now).  The remaining ECS can then be pulled out of the station to go to the off-stage coach yard for cleaning and the light engine can be released - NB: I’m obviously wanting to run more than just commuter trains.

 

But, when it comes to departure, how do I get the departing tail end traffic to the back of the outgoing train, if the ECS is pulled into the station by a pilot that is then trapped at the buffers until the road engine* (which I assume doesn’t shunt) arrives and the train leaves?
 

Or is it assumed that the tail end traffic arrived loaded (XP) but returns empty in a dedicated train.  What about Night Mail or Newspapers - would those carriages be added to the front of a train by a second pilot?  Thanks, Keith.

 

* This may be American terminology.

 

Many trains ran with a van or two at the front of the train. If the "tail load" was a loaded horse box the front was where it belonged. So an over complex shunt is not necessary. If you really want a van at the back, the pilot could shunt it to the buffers in the departure platform, then go to the "carriage sidings" and pull the carriages into a different platform. The train loco could then complete the shunt.

 

In real life, it would probably just go on the front. 

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1 hour ago, Keith Addenbrooke said:

I have a question: if I run a Minories on the basis that a pilot engine is available for shunting trains on arrival, I can see how tail end traffic could be shunted into a parcels bay on Platform 3 (let’s not worry about the kickback for now).  The remaining ECS can then be pulled out of the station to go to the off-stage coach yard for cleaning and the light engine can be released - NB: I’m obviously wanting to run more than just commuter trains.

 

But, when it comes to departure, how do I get the departing tail end traffic to the back of the outgoing train, if the ECS is pulled into the station by a pilot that is then trapped at the buffers until the road engine* (which I assume doesn’t shunt) arrives and the train leaves?
 

Or is it assumed that the tail end traffic arrived loaded (XP) but returns empty in a dedicated train.  What about Night Mail or Newspapers - would those carriages be added to the front of a train by a second pilot?  Thanks, Keith.

 

* This may be American terminology.

The simple answer is by pilot locos propelling ECS into the relevant platforms and quite a lot of shunting moves between platforms but with the pilot always at the country end. The best example I know of this was the original Fort William station. That was a three platform terminus with a grand total of two points but had some very intensive operations*. It was on a single track line with carriage sidings, loco and and goods yards further back up the main line roughly where the current (far less interesting) terminus is)

Though Ft. Willaim was a single line station ( the junction between the Glasgow and Mallaig lines was te other end of the yards) the same principles would apply to a station on the end of a double track line. The basic principle was that a train loco could and did bring its train in and get briefly  "trapped" at the buffers  until the train was moved out either by another loco taking it on the next leg of its journey (Ft. Williiam is a reversing terminus for the Mallaig extension) or by a pilot loco taking the stock to another platform or to the sidings. In any case the pilot was never trapped. There was a releasing crossover between two of the platforms but it was so liitle used that it was removed,  I think in the1950s

The thing to remember is that trains arriving in a terminus don't hang around so the train locos that bring them in aren't trapped for long. Departing trains tend to sit on the platform for far longer  so a loco that had pulled them in would be trapped for some time. This did happen at Paddngton where pilot locos- generally pannier tanks- hauled long distance ECS into the platforms and were duly trapped until the train loco attached and took them out. There was a good reason for this though as the pilot suppled the carriages with steam heating until the main line loco was attached to take them out.

If you remove from Minories the pointwork required for the second main line,  you're actually left with something remarkably similar to Ft. Wiliam. It's also a good prototype as the three platforms could each only handle trains of six mk 1 coaches but there was a lot of adding and subtracting of sleepers and resaurant cars that didn't go on to Mallaig and observation cars that worked on that part off the line.

 

*Ian Futers was knd enough to send me a copy of his movments sheet for Ft William on a typical summer's day in the 1970s. It runs to 104 movements!

 

Edited by Pacific231G
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12 hours ago, t-b-g said:

When I watch an exhibition layout, I love seeing the points, then the signals show what is going to happen next. It really adds a sense of anticipation. 

Not very often though...

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7 hours ago, Pacific231G said:

The simple answer is by pilot locos propelling ECS into the relevant platforms and quite a lot of shunting moves between platforms but with the pilot always at the country end. The best example I know of this was the original Fort William station. That was a three platform terminus with a grand total of two points but had some very intensive operations*. It was on a single track line with carriage sidings, loco and and goods yards further back up the main line roughly where the current (far less interesting) terminus is)

Though Ft. Willaim was a single line station ( the junction between the Glasgow and Mallaig lines was te other end of the yards) the same principles would apply to a station on the end of a double track line. The basic principle was that a train loco could and did bring its train in and get briefly  "trapped" at the buffers  until the train was moved out either by another loco taking it on the next leg of its journey (Ft. Williiam is a reversing terminus for the Mallaig extension) or by a pilot loco taking the stock to another platform or to the sidings. In any case the pilot was never trapped. There was a releasing crossover between two of the platforms but it was so liitle used that it was removed,  I think in the1950s

The thing to remember is that trains arriving in a terminus don't hang around so the train locos that bring them in aren't trapped for long. Departing trains tend to sit on the platform for far longer  so a loco that had pulled them in would be trapped for some time. This did happen at Paddngton where pilot locos- generally pannier tanks- hauled long distance ECS into the platforms and were duly trapped until the train loco attached and took them out. There was a good reason for this though as the pilot suppled the carriages with steam heating until the main line loco was attached to take them out.

If you remove from Minories the pointwork required for the second main line,  you're actually left with something remarkably similar to Ft. Wiliam. It's also a good prototype as the three platforms could each only handle trains of six mk 1 coaches but there was a lot of adding and subtracting of sleepers and resaurant cars that didn't go on to Mallaig and observation cars that worked on that part off the line.

 

*Ian Futers was knd enough to send me a copy of his movments sheet for Ft William on a typical summer's day in the 1970s. It runs to 104 movements!

 


Thank you.  IIRC, Railway Modeller magazine once had Ft. William as a “Plan of the Month ” - I couldn’t even guess which decade though (I could have read it in a back issue at any time).  Two left hand points leading into gently curving platforms and a straight front line that carried on past the station?  
 

Presumably most of the movements described would involve trips “off-stage” to and from the carriage sidings?  Other than that (if that is correct), the shunting you describe would also work for the American Minories I drew a few pages back - switching head end cars is one of the features of US outline railroading I’m drawn to.  I’d not appreciated there’s such a good, small UK example too.  
 

It doesn’t sound like there was any goods movement in Ft. William station, although I can’t remember where the line continued on to, so that could be a justification (in a layout plan these days there might be a short cassette additional Fiddlestick for that). Either way, Ft. William would pass the “single line busy terminus” test, even though the track plan has to go into the “not Minories” pile.

 

As for Paddington, I note that Bachmann have a 94xx PT in the pipeline and I think they had pilot duties there (I don’t know what the GW used before they were introduced, which I also think was post-War as the final Pannier design)?

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Shunting carriages and vans around is a bit outside the usual remit of Minories, but I suppose it wasn't rush hour all the time. There's something extra atmospheric about a busy station in a quiet period, with maybe just one passenger train awaiting its departure time with no passengers in sight, and some vans and carriages being sorted into a subsequent departure. A bit like the one time I used Limerick station (a long time ago when just about all Irish trains were loco hauled, and I was getting the afternoon train to Castleconnel where we were staying).

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1 hour ago, Zomboid said:

Shunting carriages and vans around is a bit outside the usual remit of Minories, but I suppose it wasn't rush hour all the time. There's something extra atmospheric about a busy station in a quiet period, with maybe just one passenger train awaiting its departure time with no passengers in sight, and some vans and carriages being sorted into a subsequent departure. A bit like the one time I used Limerick station (a long time ago when just about all Irish trains were loco hauled, and I was getting the afternoon train to Castleconnel where we were staying).

 

The first and simplest Minories is often portrayed as just being a succession of suburban trains coming and going with loco swaps. CJF described it that way himself.

 

But there is certainly potential to have parcels vans to be shunted off trains and also potential (at least with DMUs) for trains to be split/joined.  Add in the two road goods shed of the second Minories design and there is enough operational potential for any single operator to keep busy.

 

I like some of the ideas that have come up in this thread for a Minories down each side of a shed with a hidden fiddle yard in between on the U-shaped curve. The trick is to not have the two stations not too similar.

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1 hour ago, Zomboid said:

Shunting carriages and vans around is a bit outside the usual remit of Minories, but I suppose it wasn't rush hour all the time. There's something extra atmospheric about a busy station in a quiet period, with maybe just one passenger train awaiting its departure time with no passengers in sight, and some vans and carriages being sorted into a subsequent departure. A bit like the one time I used Limerick station (a long time ago when just about all Irish trains were loco hauled, and I was getting the afternoon train to Castleconnel where we were staying).

 

The variety of workings possible at a compact terminus was well illustrated by The Laird's Bradfield, Gloucester Square thread. 

 

 

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2 hours ago, Flying Pig said:

 

The variety of workings possible at a compact terminus was well illustrated by The Laird's Bradfield, Gloucester Square thread. 

 

 

 

Super layout. One of those I did stay and watch for quite a while.

 

The variety of the operation and, importantly, the pace of operation was just right. It wasn't trains whizzing about all over the place but the gaps when nothing was happening were kept to a minimum. Just enough for the signalman to put the levers back in the frame and set the next move up. When I saw it, the next move was always just a short while after one had finished.

 

Scenic all down the viewing side too, with the carriage sidings masking the fiddle yard.

 

An excellent example of the genre!

 

Slightly larger than your true "Minories" but very much in the same spirit. 

 

 

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12 minutes ago, t-b-g said:

The variety of the operation and, importantly, the pace of operation was just right. It wasn't trains whizzing about all over the place but the gaps when nothing was happening were kept to a minimum. Just enough for the signalman to put the levers back in the frame and set the next move up. When I saw it, the next move was always just a short while after one had finished.

 

This is called "playing trains" (more strictly "playing railways") and it isn't done enough imo.

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2 minutes ago, Flying Pig said:

 

This is called "playing trains" (more strictly "playing railways") and it isn't done enough imo.

 

I know what you mean but I phrase it slightly differently.

 

I call it the difference between operating a model railway and running trains on one.

 

When it is done properly, it is, to me, as good as the hobby gets. It doesn't matter if the locos and stock are the finest scratchbuild items or the latest RTR products. If the layout is being run just as it would have been if it was full size, I am won over.

 

As a viewer, I can be totally immersed in the experience. I can imagine myself on the end of the platform watching.

 

Sadly, as you say, it doesn't happen often but when it does, I really can appreciate the effort and skill that goes into achieving it.

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It takes effort to purposefully run trains on a model railway, but to do so in a way that entertain someone who's just watching is another level of skill.

 

I can amuse myself with a JMRI switchlist and 5 freight cars, but it wouldn't be a great spectator event.

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2 minutes ago, Zomboid said:

It takes effort to purposefully run trains on a model railway, but to do so in a way that entertain someone who's just watching is another level of skill.

 

I can amuse myself with a JMRI switchlist and 5 freight cars, but it wouldn't be a great spectator event.

 

The strange thing is that the simplest layout, run properly, can have just the same almost mesmerising effect. A tiny branch line, run well, can engross me as much as a bigger layout. If the operating is done well, with a purpose to what is being done, the size of layout and amount of stock is secondary.

 

In your case, if you spent your time aimlessly shuffling cars from one track to another and back again, that would be a "fail". Assembling a train into a particular formation for a purpose, that works for me.

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21 minutes ago, t-b-g said:

I know what you mean but I phrase it slightly differently.

 

I call it the difference between operating a model railway and running trains on one.

 

 

I stand by my description because it recalls the degree of immersion of a child playing with an imagined scene; your's highlights an adult understanding of the prototype.  Combined, imagination and knowledge can multiply the pleasure got from even a simple layout several times over.

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11 minutes ago, Flying Pig said:

 

I stand by my description because it recalls the degree of immersion of a child playing with an imagined scene; your's highlights an adult understanding of the prototype.  Combined, imagination and knowledge can multiply the pleasure got from even a simple layout several times over.

 

Absolutely. I think we are just using different terms to explain the same experience. 

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A vast amount is still going-on in the imagination when “seriously operating a model railway”, unless the operator has reduced himself to a complete dullard, so the boundary between “play” and “operate” is very, very fuzzy indeed.

 

My youngest, who is still at the full-on imaginative play stage on some days, was asking me about this only yesterday, trying to understand whether I was “playing properly”, by which she meant imbuing the little lead characters with life and making them talk, when ‘playing trains’. On the basis that I wasn’t making them talk, she decided that I wasn’t “playing properly”.

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12 minutes ago, t-b-g said:

In your case, if you spent your time aimlessly shuffling cars from one track to another and back again, that would be a "fail". Assembling a train into a particular formation for a purpose, that works for me

The question would be how would you know? The switch list tells me what to do, but to someone watching I'm just putting some cars together into a train.

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Just now, Zomboid said:

The question would be how would you know? The switch list tells me what to do, but to someone watching I'm just putting some cars together into a train.

 

You could make your list available to the viewer. Explaining what you are doing and why can really add to the experience for the viewer.

 

When we ran Leighton Buzzard at shows, we have the sequence on a display board. It is well worth it as many people would look at what was happening and work out where we were up to in the sequence. You would often hear parents telling youngsters, or even the not so young discussing it. "The next one should be the steam railmotor" and so on.

 

It also raised a few chuckles when the viewers knew what was supposed to happen next and we made a hash of it. More than once somebody tapped me on the shoulder to say something like "Shouldn't you have put a horsebox on that one?".

 

It all makes it a bit more involving for the audience, which I am very keen on.

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I’ve been lurking and enjoying this thread enormously, and other than my brio interjection, it’s finally time to make a few observations / comments

 

Regarding exhibition vs home operation, I have a small N gauge inglenook that I exhibit (search for Boostfine Yard for its own thread on this site). For me it is a perfect combination of entertaining to operate and (I hope) entertaining to view. The shunting puzzle element is self-explanatory, but I’ve also used a shuttle unit for a DMU that runs across the back. So even when there’s no shunting going on there’s the “surprise” of a DMU appearing almost at random. I’ve also used technology to enable me to operate the layout either from in front (at home) or behind when exhibiting. So the only thing I’d want to add to CJF’s Minories is a inglenook goods yard (in the “dead” space near the front”).

 

Secondly, I LOVE the concepts regarding Minories - Seironim and despite other’s comments regarding doing something else with the space this is EXACTLY what I’d do if I had space. It meets all my requirements of operational variety and claustrophobic scenery & trackwork. I note that no-one has considered stacking them and using a helix to join them though. Obviously that increases the width to >3’ at one end but the length would be no more than Minories + FY as originally conceived. I also enjoyed the topic drifting to Tilbury but as I live in Hornchurch in Essex I’d consider Seironim as being somewhere like Upminster - the eastern terminus of the district line but significant enough as a through station on the original London, Tilbury & Shoeburyness. It’s not beyond the realms of imagination to link a Minories in East London with a Seironim somewhere out in the ‘burbs.

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