Theory of General Minories

[Harlequin]

41 minutes ago, Clive Mortimore said:

I seemed to have lost the plot on this.

 

A busy inner city terminus with lots of loco action representing the peak periods of the day is what the original Minories offered. 

 

Adding a central track to act as a run round destroys the whole ethos of the plan. It either makes the trains shorter or the layout longer to fit in the additional point work. It loses the hustle and bustle of the intense operation.

 

May be I am talking out of a lower body orifice, but arriving, reversing down the platform, releasing the loco so it can go forward again, changing the points, running round the train, changing the points, reversing the loco and then propelling the train back down the platform does sound more like CJFs other love, the Ashburton branch.

 

This why I asked the other day about who had built a Minories layout and enjoyed operating it. Instead of trying reinvent the wheel, have ago at making a Minories layout and enjoy the ride.

 

Seironim is not Minories.

(You could put that on a tee-shirt!)

 

It does cope with the same length trains as Minories, the pointwork fits, the operation methods are different.

 

(And I am building a Minories at this very moment.)

 

[Clive Mortimore]

28 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

IMO, it makes a different plan, with a different atmosphere.

Same thing, different use of words to describing a different type of layout. 

[Clive Mortimore]

22 minutes ago, Harlequin said:

 

Seironim is not Minories.

(You could put that on a tee-shirt!)

 

It does cope with the same length trains as Minories, the pointwork fits, the operation methods are different.

 

(And I am building a Minories at this very moment.)

 

What is the point of having another terminus a couple of feet away that will only hold the same number of trains. Most of us have more stock than is needed so why not use as much as possible.

 

That is what my old club suggested they could do with their donated layout and my layout. Why?

 

Sheffield Exchange mk1 was 16 feet long, the first four feet was the eleven road traverser, then four feet of approach tracks (this allowed them to align in the center and at 90 degrees to the traverser), four feet of point work and  four feet of station. I operated the layout with thirteen trains so only ever had one road on the traverser free or one platform free. Even operating by myself it was busy. It was fun.

[mdvle]

5 hours ago, Harlequin said:

I've tried out all the suggestions and for me, the best compromise for Seironim is pretty close to the original. Let me explain why:

 

It it possible that it is just because Seironim is newer, but I actually prefer it over Minories.

 

Minories is great at what it is - a busy commuter station using push-pull or dmu/emu.  And that is great for an exhibition where you want constant activity, or if that is the type of operation you want for your home layout.

 

But my guess is that the changes to later minories - adding some sort of goods working - is a reflection that it wasn't enough in a home setting for most people.

 

Seironim gets around that by creating more activity with the passenger workings - releasing the loco so it can be swapped around, perhaps taken off-stage first for servicing.  To me, my personal opinion is that Seironim provides more potential work to get trains back out, the stuff that creates that little bit more of interest in a home layout.

 

The proverbial icing on the cake is that the station itself, with the gradual curve to the platforms, is that much more visually interesting.

[Nearholmer]

I wouldn’t do it either, certainly not “face-to-face”, but that doesn’t alter the fact that Seironim is actually a very good terminus design.

 

It stands-up on its own as a design.
 

And, somebody might find the MAD/SAD concept useful.

 

And, if a person doesn’t like either, they don’t have to build either.
 

 

 

[mdvle]

7 minutes ago, Clive Mortimore said:

What is the point of having another terminus a couple of feet away that will only hold the same number of trains.

 

Not everyone wants to have a "hidden" fiddle yard - for some the idea of taking a chunk of precious layout space to use to store trains seems a waste - that they aren't into the operational aspect of this hobby that many of us are.

 

7 minutes ago, Clive Mortimore said:

Sheffield Exchange mk1 was 16 feet long, the first four feet was the eleven road traverser, then four feet of approach tracks (this allowed them to align in the center and at 90 degrees to the traverser), four feet of point work and  four feet of station. I operated the layout with thirteen trains so only ever had one road on the traverser free or one platform free. Even operating by myself it was busy. It was fun.

 

Great,  Then it did what it needed to do.

 

But we are all different, and what works for one doesn't work for another.

[Zomboid]

I'll just add that for some of us, layout design is a hobby in itself.

 

Seironim has been great fun for me in looking at ways of solving the problems that it's thrown up by being a wilfully different (to Minories) answer to an interesting to operate, compact main line terminus in 7 square feet.

 

I don't have to build anything at all to enjoy myself imagining and designing a model railway. My hard drive is full of plans for places to run toy trains that are essentially academic exercises, some just for my own amusement, and some to propose solutions to problems which are posed on this forum.

 

Having said that, if I had an opportunity to do so, I would leap at building and operating Seironim, it's right up my street in terms of what I enjoy to run trains on.

Edited June 20, 2020 by Zomboid

[Zomboid]

49 minutes ago, mdvle said:

Not everyone wants to have a "hidden" fiddle yard - for some the idea of taking a chunk of precious layout space to use to store trains seems a waste - that they aren't into the operational aspect of this hobby that many of us are.

I don't know that having lots of different looking trains is anything to do with operational interest. The operating fun for me comes in with the variety of different things got might need to do with the trains. I could have as much fun on a Minories layout with 5 trains as I would have with 15, if I had to do interesting things with them. If it's a DMU trundling in and out then one of those is just as interesting to me as having a selection of 10. Same with sets of carriages.

 

Which is why I'd enjoy operating with a single track balloon loop on Minories, probably more than a 15 track traverser.

 

But we're all different, and long may that last.

[Joseph_Pestell]

53 minutes ago, Zomboid said:

I'll just add that for some of us, layout design is a hobby in itself.

 

Seironim has been great fun for me in looking at ways of solving the problems that it's thrown up by being a wilfully different (to Minories) answer to an interesting to operate, compact main line terminus in 7 square feet.

 

I don't have to build anything at all to enjoy myself imagining and designing a model railway. My hard drive is full of plans for places to run toy trains that are essentially academic exercises, some just for my own amusement, and some to propose solutions to problems which are posed on this forum.

 

Having said that, if I had an opportunity to do so, I would leap at building and operating Seironim, it's right up my street in terms of what I enjoy to run trains on.

 

How true! If I had built every layout that I had designed, I would need to live in a castle to accommodate them all.

[Keith Addenbrooke]

7 hours ago, whart57 said:

 

Even though the real Greenwich Park only saw a shuttle service for most of it's life? It would be a use for the Hattons P class though.

 

Now I know that this is theory and the idea is for a busy opposite end of a city centre terminus so picky little details like the whole point of Greenwich Park station disappearing in 1899 with the working union between SER and LCDR are not wanted.

 

In which case the SECR area provides a few more candidates. Chatham Central for example, though the modern Thameslink connection might offer better suggestions. Back in pre-Group days the stations of St Paul's (now part of Blackfriars) and Holborn (originally Snow Hill) were small termini, but they lay beside the through line connecting the southern and northern railways. I've always thought this bit of London railway would make an excellent exhibition layout given the three stations of St Pauls, Ludgate Hill and Holborn lying so close to each other the platforms almost touch. As anyone who takes the Thameslink trains across the city will know today.

I think CJF himself drew them out in his book on Operating Model Railways (a PSL publication from memory).

Edited June 20, 2020 by Keith Addenbrooke

[Nearholmer]

I've just remembered another terminus with Seironim's track plan: Sheerness on Sea.

 

Sheerness actually had an even more interesting earlier terminus, about which relatively little seems to be recorded and, for about twenty years I think, the new terminus was a branch from the old one, so the old one would make a great model, with all that "in and out". The 1896 25" OS shows the strange arrangement, and the 1931 25" OS shows the track plan with centre-release road with three-way point at the new station, as I remember it from the 1970s.

 

The old station is here http://www.disused-stations.org.uk/s/sheerness_dockyard/

 

It had a positively insane track plan, and what isn't mentioned in that write-up is that the overall roof was destroyed during WW1 when a battleship blew-up  nearby  https://www.historicmedway.co.uk/localdisasters/hms_bulwark.htm . 

Edited June 20, 2020 by Nearholmer

[t-b-g]

2 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

I've just remembered another terminus with Seironim's track plan: Sheerness on Sea.

 

Sheerness actually had an even more interesting earlier terminus, about which relatively little seems to be recorded and, for about twenty years I think, the new terminus was a branch from the old one, so the old one would make a great model, with all that "in and out". The 1896 25" OS shows the strange arrangement, and the 1931 25" OS shows the track plan with centre-release road with three-way point at the new station, as I remember it from the 1970s.

 

The old station is here http://www.disused-stations.org.uk/s/sheerness_dockyard/

 

It had a positively insane track plan, and what isn't mentioned in that write-up is that the overall roof was destroyed during WW1 when a battleship blew-up  nearby  https://www.historicmedway.co.uk/localdisasters/hms_bulwark.htm . 

 

I recall seeing another station in that part of the world with a similar arrangement. I would guess the points and the buffers act as "traps" to prevent both routes being set pointing at the turntable and also perhaps so that a passenger train didn't have to arrive straight onto the turntable road. It would be interesting to know if the points were set to the turntable before a train arrived or after, when the loco had been uncoupled from the carriages and when the passengers had got off.

[Zomboid]

Ramsgate Harbour (or beach, or something like that) has been mentioned hereabouts lately and had that turntable arrangement.

[Nearholmer]

But, Sheerness Dockyard had a fan table, which was pretty unusual.

 

The other termini, other than Ramsgate Harbour, in the Ramsgate/Margate area I’d need to check.

[Zomboid]

4 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

fan table

What's one of those?

 

Google just gives me table fans and other ways of moving air about...

[Harlequin]

Here's the parallel projection of Seironim:

[Harlequin]

And here's the view I was talking about:

 

(I love Sketchup!)

 

[t-b-g]

3 minutes ago, Harlequin said:

And here's the view I was talking about:

 

(I love Sketchup!)

 

 

Lovely work. You might need to move the front hinge supports to the outside. I really wouldn't fancy any passengers or luggage trolleys squeezing past it as drawn there!

[FoxUnpopuli]

Or perhaps take the support to the edge of the platform and cut an archway into the front side up against the front panel (fancy.)

 

(first part not done, but archway illustrated.)

 

 

 

[Keith Addenbrooke]

20 minutes ago, t-b-g said:

 

Lovely work. You might need to move the front hinge supports to the outside. I really wouldn't fancy any passengers or luggage trolleys squeezing past it as drawn there!

For an exhibition layout, if someone wanted a cameo to entertain the children (who might be at eye level and looking at this exact point),  you could keep that pillar where it is and have a Harry Potter Cameo - a young boy pushing a laden trolley directly at the wall with a little “Platform 9 3/4” sign as an explainer.  Not my most serious thought, sorry.

[t-b-g]

7 minutes ago, Keith Addenbrooke said:

For an exhibition layout, if someone wanted a cameo to entertain the children (who might be at eye level and looking at this exact point),  you could keep that pillar where it is and have a Harry Potter Cameo - a young boy pushing a laden trolley directly at the wall with a little “Platform 9 3/4” sign as an explainer.  Not my most serious thought, sorry.

 

That might work but last time I checked, most railway porters were muggles. Perhaps a smashed up luggage trolley, a pile of boxes spread all over the place and a porter having his head bandaged might be even better!

 

You could model a few commuter carriages with no doors too, where the people on the incoming train opened them before the train stopped.

 

Just needs a little imagination and cunning!

[Zomboid]

42 minutes ago, Harlequin said:

And here's the view I was talking about:

 

(I love Sketchup!)

 

Like doesn't do it justice. I can see the compromise on the hinge block, but don't really care, it doesn't materially detract from what would be a great view.

 

It has a very different feel to what I had in my head with the wall along the back. Much more grotty and dank than I imagined, and I like it more, I think.

[Nearholmer]

2 hours ago, Zomboid said:

What's one of those?

I’m not totally sure I’ve got the name right, but:

 

 

It’s better than a sector plate, because the weight of the loco is balanced across the pivot.

 

Ive seen one in Spain, where the mid-C19th railways were engineered by Brits, and I think that some of the UK examples that we think of as small turntables were actually like this, with limited arc of movement. Vent or and Bembridge original versions?

[Keith Addenbrooke]

25 minutes ago, Zomboid said:

Like doesn't do it justice. I can see the compromise on the hinge block, but don't really care, it doesn't materially detract from what would be a great view.

 

It has a very different feel to what I had in my head with the wall along the back. Much more grotty and dank than I imagined, and I like it more, I think.

Makes me think, if there was room, a few inches (3” ?) of tunnel before emerging into the Fiddle Yard could add to the effect too.  If the fiddle yard design had kickback sidings for loco storage, the modelled tunnel could be behind these, so no wasted space - the opening as shown could be darkened to represent this?

Edited June 21, 2020 by Keith Addenbrooke

[Pacific231G]

On 17/06/2020 at 14:26, scottystitch said:

A number of years ago, a forum member sent me a diagram of minories with add on modules.  I'm not sure of the origin of said modules; was it Freezer's idea?  Anyway, I had a go of drawing them out in N gauge.  Track is Code 40 and most of the turnouts are B6, although there is a B7 and and a B8 in there as well.  The crossing in the station is actually a number 6 double slip.  The crossing at the Junction is a number 6 as well, but just a standard diamond.

 

I've rationalised the Engine Servicing board down to a single road engine shed and a siding for a rake of 3 carriages.  The shed for the station pilot (which would double as the goods yard shunter?), perhaps, and a turntable for incoming service train locomotives to turn and be fuelled/watered.

 

I had pondered a canal basin in the dead ground between station and goods yard.  The wharf might make for interesting operations.

 

If it were to be exhibited, I'd imagine the operators would be on the inside of the curve, but I suppose you could have it vice versa as well.  For a home setup you could utilise the curved modules to make the layout suit the room it was set up in.

 

The engine shed board and the junction board could have their positions swapped. I suppose the canal basin would have to be either a seperate board or part of the goods yard board so it went wherever the goods yard went.

 

Best

 

Scott.

 

 

 

Hi Scott

Since my origianl reply, I've been trying to remember the small loco shed at viaduct level sarf of the river that possibly inspired Cyril Freezer's idea of a modular layout on viaducts. I've now found the article I was looking for 'Ewer Street, the Hell-Hole of Southwark' in the August 1975 Model Railways.

This was a tiny sub-shed on the line between Charing Cross and London Bridge next to the curve to the line crossing the river at Blackfriars Bridge. It was a subshed of Bricklayers Arms located next to the SECR's 'Grand Vitesse' goods depot*

 

 

It enabled locos from Charing Cross and Cannon St. to be serviced without having to make the journey down to Bricklayers Arms MPD.

The turntable could handle locos up to "King Arthurs" with 6 wheel tenders. Larger locos  like Bulleid Pacifics and King Arthurs with 8 wheel tenders would be serviced at Ewer St. then use the triangle into Cannon St. to be turned before going tender first to Charing Cross. Locos coming in to Cannon St. and rostered out of Charing Cross or vice versa would automatically be the right way round when they reached the other terminus but would drop in to Ewer St. for servicing en route. There was no shed as such but fitters came to work there from Cannon St. MPD and, after it closed on electrification in 1924,  from Bricklayers arms. Ewer Street was so tight that it was apparently a hell-hole for them to work in as well as for spare firemen allocated there who might work on 20-25 locos in a shift- all of them hot. I think it closed

 

For someone with a yen for main line passenger locos but no room even for a Minories this place would make an excellent model with all sort of interesting goods vehicles, from xp fruit vans to passenger stock bullion vehicles coming in and out of the Grand Vitesse depot   while Pacifics etc, came in and out of Ewer Street sub shed to be serviced. The whole lot was at viaduct height and most of it actually on arches.  It could of course also be built as an additional  single section to be placed between Minories and its fiddle yard, With a bit of low cunning the turntable could probably serve both terminus and fiddle yard!

 

The goods depot or part of it is now Network Rail's  James Forbes House and the long (to allow horse drawn carts to use it) access road to the goods depot from Dolben St. under the arches but over Great Suffolk Street is still in use. The site of the Ewer Street sub-shed itself is a park for vans - presumably Network Rail's though it's a lot easier to spot it on Google Earth than from ground level. However, even today,  the maze of tracks, all on viaducts, between London Bridge, Waterloo East, Cannon St. and Blackriars with places like Borough Market below, is fascinating and it's almost a bonus if the train gets held up for a few minutes (as it often is) between Waterloo and London Bridge. 

 

I don't know how aware Cyril Freezer would have  was aware of Ewer Street itself. It was well hidden and may not have been visible from passing trains, though he'd probably have been well aware of the Grand Vitesse goods depot (a parcels depot after the war)  It is perhaps more likely that it was the Cannon St. MPD, alongside the line into Cannon St. Station on the other side of the river on the corner of Clink St. and Stoney St. that inspired the idea. That too was raised to viaduct height but was larger and a bit more conventional than Ewer Street 

There's much more about the Cannon Street MPD here,

https://www.kentrail.org.uk/cannon_street_mpd.htm

 

 

 

*(Grand Vitesse was an interesting name for a London goods depot because Grand Vitesse (GV)  was the official French designation for the type of fast priority goods the Ewer St. depot handled including fruit and veg. for Covent Garden and Borough Markets along with wine, silks and even bullion as opposed to Petit Vitesse (PV)  which included all the coal, timber, stone and everything else that trundled around on ordinary goods trains at normal shipping rates)    

Edited June 21, 2020 by Pacific231G