Theory of General Minories

[Zomboid]

Were departures also backed in from the carriage sidings?

 

It's just as important if you using turnover engines, as your definitely need one on either end of the carriages in that scenario.

[Lacathedrale]

Bradfield Gloucester Square does that really well - adjacent the double track mainline there is a single-track branch. In the era that John Elliott modelled it, he had truncated this with lifted track, and it formed a headshunt for the station.  My understanding is that either running road could be used to back out in theory - with either a limit of shunt board on the inbound line that was the stopping-distance clear of the preceding box's block signal, or with an advanced starter and/or ground signals reaching away on the outbound line.

 

I believe someone else mentioned in this thread however that if you allow a train to depart on the wrong line but which would notionally pass over a crossover 'off scene' it becomes very easy to 'cheat' moves. I personally found while modelling a suburban branch terminus that it was  just awful to have a non-visible headshunt - it meant that every single move that involved shunting trains/etc. would require me to align an empty fiddle yard road - over and over again.

 

I will definitely ensure that the next layout has either a) enough space for a 'backing out' move to be modelled beyond the throat, or b) a separate headhunt that is modelled infront of the fiddle-yard area. Maybe like @Ravenser 's masked-but-not-hidden fiddle area.

 

[fezza]

It's not really a Minories but I always thought Ronsthorpe (4 platform terminus) modelled terminus operation and backing out movements very well. It demonstrated to me the joys of proper operation and that you didn't need a large or complex layout to have fun. If you just treat Minories simply as a shuttle operation it will grow old fairly quickly - and this is from someone who actually likes Dmus... 

[Lacathedrale]

First time I've seen Ronsthorpe, @fezza - looks nice!  It does appear to break a few 'rules' but I guess that shows that they are really only guidelines. 

[Pacific231G]

15 hours ago, Lacathedrale said:

Some very interesting answers. Joining and splitting of EMUs happens at Purley, my local station - but it is a junction on the main line with a pair of branches, rather than a terminus. I guess one could extrapolate the need for longer and shorter rakes throughout the day by consisting and splitting multiple units, but I think as @Pacific231G has said - you'd still end up running that parcels train!

 

Reading Iain Rice's old book 'Mainline in Modest Spaces' he suggests that the smallest 'express mainline service' (obviously with exceptions) would probably be the 'core' 5 coaches - two brake composites sandwiching a First, Restaurant, and Composite.  These would be strengthened with greater or fewer numbers of first/second/luggage vehicles as required for longer/more patronised journeys. I have often wondered if we could summarise this in Train-Units or TUs - if we assume that a bogie coach in the grouping era is 57-70' long and locos (Stanier pacifics aside) are not longer than this, then we can consider that 1TU. We can also reasonably assert that the clearance on a 'model railway' turnout is about one TU. Therefore:

• An eight coach express is 9TU including the loco.
• A suburban service using a tank loco might only be 4.5TU.
• Space for a loco runaround (without having to set back coaches) is 2TU.

If for Minories we talk about a mixture of these trains - two suburban services which look much the same as each other, one short posh train, one long fast train and one short parcels train - we can draw a number of conclusions:

• Our longest platform needs to be at least 9TU
• Our shorter platforms need to be at least 6.5TU (4.5TU for the train + 2TU for the runaround and headshunt)
• Our storage area needs to be 4.5+4.5+6+9+4.5 and one spare 9, containing a total linear space of 37.5TUs.
  • We can even surmise that with a 'fan' type arrangement we'd need 3TUs(ish) for a scissors between up and down lines between the visible area and the fiddle yard proper, but since we have two long tracks (9TU) and the rest are shorter, the 1TU consumed by the turnout for each storage track doesn't affect us. If we needed all 9TU tracks, we'd need to factor in at least 11TU overall length to account for the turnout and clearances
• Minories itself has 5TU worth of pointwork from the throat to the platforms (there are two small return curves which for our intents and purposes fit into the 'turnout' category.

Extrapolating this out, a minimum Minories footprint to support a 5 coach express would be:  6TU (platforms) + 5TU (throat) + 2TU (scissors) + 2TU (fFY siding fan) + 6TU (actual train storage) = 21TU, which in 4mm is approx 15', and in 2mm is 8'. If we subsitute the scissors and point fan we have a shade over 12' in 4mm and 6'6" in 2mm.

 

This works with pre-grouping bogie coaches too, since tender locomotives were also smaller, but starts to break down when you look at 6w and 4w vehicles unless you increase the relative size of turnouts and locomotives.

Good morning William

Thank you for a very interesting analysis. As it happens, I'm experimenting with actual train lengths on my test track right now and I'm not sure that you would be able to operate a five coach express in twelve feet even though the Minories throat is probably 4 rather than 5 TUs long.

Assuming that an "express" TU is 10- 11 inches (depending on the stock and couplers you're using) if you use "standard" three foot radius no.5 crossing points (e.g. Peco Medium) each with a length of around 8.5 inches, the throat length is a bit shorter than 5TU. Four points lengths = 34 inches plus say 3inches for clearance beyond the points accessing platforms 2 &3  and an inch at the fiddle yard end so that you're not putting the toe of the turnout right on a board joint. That makes the throat 36 inches long so a bit less than 4 TUs.  

    With a 10 inch TU (so grouping rather than Mk1 coaches) and using cassettess or a traverser you could just get the whole shooting match into thirteen feet. With mk1s you're going to need another six inches assuming that Hornby's quoted 265mm length is over couplers.

 

Thirteen feet just happens to be the length of my "studio" (aka back bedroom) but for the 1:87 scale H0 Ep III SNCF stock I'm using (with fairly close coupled Kadees) a TU of eleven inches is about right so long as I don't use any locos longer than a Pacific. That means that I'm coming up short for a five coach express, the regulation minimum length for fast loco hauled trains- a function of braking weight I believe.

 

I have though to agree with Ian Rice's estimation.  Though I think you can get away with four coaches in O scale, five does seem to be the minimum in 00/H0 to be convincing for a main line express. There's quite an interesting analysis in Cyril Freezer's book "Model Railway Operation" where he suggests, for the fund limited modelller  a basic four coach "intermediate passenger" train with a resturant added to make it an express, a sleeping car for an overnight long distance, and a parcels van or TPO for a parcels/newspaper or mail train.

 

Eight coaches is a good length for a steam era  express- the Castle hauled Paddington-Worcester trains I used to watch and occasionally travel on were normally that- I do wonder though whether, if you have room for that with a Minories throat, you might prefer to run seven coach trains with a more conventional throat using longer points.

 

 

Edited October 16, 2020 by Pacific231G

[Joseph_Pestell]

6 minutes ago, Pacific231G said:

 

 

Thirteen feet just happens to be the length of my "studio" (aka back bedroom) but for the 1:87 scale H0 Ep III SNCF stock I'm using (with fairly close coupled Kadees) a TU of eleven inches does work out about to be about right so long as I don't use any locos longer than a Pacific. That means that I'm coming up short for a five coach express, the regulation minimum length for fast loco hauled trains- a function of braking weight I believe.

 

 

 

A French Minories with express trains is going to have to confront the need for a fourgon at the head of the train in each direction.

 

That will need more length but will add to the shunt movements.

[Siberian Snooper]

When I did a bit of research on Devizes, there were a couple of trains from Paddington to Bristol which were headed by a castle and  four or five coaches. Certainly by the time they got to Devizes they had turned into stoppers.

 

 

[t-b-g]

10 hours ago, Pacific231G said:

There's quite an interesting analysis in Cyril Freezer's book "Model Railway Operation" where he suggests, for the fund limited modelller  a basic four coach "intermediate passenger" train with a resturant added to make it an express, a sleeping car for an overnight long distance, and a parcels van or TPO for a parcels/newspaper or mail train.

 

 

 

That sounds like pure Denny. No sleeping cars or TPO trains to Buckingham but a 4 car intermediate train and a 5 car express including a catering vehicle is precisely what runs on there.

 

Of course you can go back in time and make the trains shorter. The longest train on Buckingham is 5 corridor carriages plus a 4-6-0 tender loco.

 

The total length is 4ft 3". That just about gets you a 5 coach express in the fiddle yard, the platform and enough for a station throat in 12ft.

[CKPR]

In a similar vein, in his 'Modern image is easy' article from 1977, CJF proposed a diesel hauled five coach train of BG/brake 2nd/ compo/RMB/brake 2nd [I think  - I'm doing this from memory] as the basis for 'modern image' (i.e. contemporary) operation.

[fezza]

If you are working in the 2000s your express train can be a 4 car voyager - shorter than any express pre grouping. 

 

I know sometimes people are put off by modern image but my own N gaugd layout has 142s,150s,153s, 156s, 158s, 170s and a Voyager - and in 9 different liveries. It doesn't lack for variety, especially as coupling and uncoupling units is possible. And yes, I also have a parcels train and a short 4 car rake of blue Mk2ds... All these would work in a modern Minories. 

[t-b-g]

1 minute ago, fezza said:

If you are working in the 2000s your express train can be a 4 car voyager - shorter than any express pre grouping. 

 

I know sometimes people are put off by modern image but my own N gaugd layout has 142s,150s,153s, 156s, 158s, 170s and a Voyager - and in 9 different liveries. It doesn't lack for variety, especially as coupling and uncoupling units is possible. And yes, I also have a parcels train and a short 4 car rake of blue Mk2ds... All these would work in a modern Minories. 

 

Not so! I have seen photos of trains much shorter in pre-grouping times. I have one photo of an express headlamped train with a 2-4-0, one bogie carriage and one 6 wheeler. Another with five 6 wheeled carriages. A typical GCR express when the line to London was opened was 4 carriages, each around 50ft long. I haven't a clue how long a Voyager set is but I bet they are much longer than 50ft per carriage and even with a loco on the front, I would suggest the Voyager would be longer.

 

 

 

 

[Pacific231G]

12 hours ago, Joseph_Pestell said:

 

A French Minories with express trains is going to have to confront the need for a fourgon at the head of the train in each direction.

 

That will need more length but will add to the shunt movements.

Good evening Joseph

It depends on the era. A fourgon or fourgon compartments between the loco and passengers was only mandatory for wooden bodied stock, a reason for the m suffix in the carriage markings, but the habit did continue to a gradually reducing degree, probably not least because of the amount of checked luggage that travellers carried in those days. I can get four coaches and a Dq fourgon behind a Pacific in the space I have but not five full length coaches. If you have a staffed postal sorting van with a wooden body at the head of a train, the fourgon has to go in front of it (though for some reason a postal storage van with a conveyeur aboard could be marshalled next to the loco) 

There are photos , taken from a ferry leaving Dieppe in the 1930s,  of the train loco, a Pacific, from the Paris-Dieppe boat train, shunting the fourgons to the Paris end of the train before leaving it on the quayside for a fresh loco to take back a few hours later with passengers from the opposite direction ferry. . 

 

Edited October 16, 2020 by Pacific231G

[fezza]

1 minute ago, t-b-g said:

 

Not so! I have seen photos of trains much shorter in pre-grouping times. I have one photo of an express headlamped train with a 2-4-0, one bogie carriage and one 6 wheeler. Another with five 6 wheeled carriages. A typical GCR express when the line to London was opened was 4 carriages, each around 50ft long. I haven't a clue how long a Voyager set is but I bet they are much longer than 50ft per carriage and even with a loco on the front, I would suggest the Voyager would be longer.

 

 

 

 

Fair enough - I will certainly bow to your pre grouping knowledge. 

 

Okay I will try an even shorter modern example! For a while Midland Mainline had 170s on some London expresses. Great Western once hired a 158 for a regular late night Paddington Swansea turn. Not sure I can go any shorter than that! 

[Pacific231G]

20 minutes ago, fezza said:

Fair enough - I will certainly bow to your pre grouping knowledge. 

 

Okay I will try an even shorter modern example! For a while Midland Mainline had 170s on some London expresses. Great Western once hired a 158 for a regular late night Paddington Swansea turn. Not sure I can go any shorter than that! 

I wish I could find Belle-Epoque trains as fascinating as Ep. 3 but I do like late steam era stock.  

 

I used occasionally to see the Wrexham and Shropshire train, when it was diverted over the Greenford branch, with a DB Schenker Class 67, 3 Mark 3 carriages, one of them a buffet and a Driving Van Trailer. 

In total contrast to the mile long freight trains, many long distance passenger trains in N. America were surprisingly short. In the late 1950s early 1960s The 500 mile Detroit-St. Louis "Wabash Cannonball" had just three coaches, one of them a café-lounge, though the train's length was increased by the the head end consist of a baggage and a Railway Post Office-baggage car and the pair of passenger diesels- back to back for a rapid turnround in Detroit- hauling it.

In winter, even the famed Orient-Express could be as short as a fourgon and two voiture-lits (Paris and Calais)  leaving Istanbul. The restaurant car with another sleeper didn't come on till later.

However, though such short expresses certainly did exist, they don't really have the same presence and atmosphere. I think for me the answer has to lie in view blockers and a tight city location probably lends itself to that. I could have a five coach train with a fourgon if I accepted a single track throat and there are plenty of examples of those serving expresses  (qv Fort William old) but the train departing, clattering over one or two sets of points then disappearing straight into the fiddle yard doesn't cut it for me whereas the four point long Minories throat does.  

[Lacathedrale]

The 'City' section of the Paris Club train was four green four wheelers and a fourgon in 1893!

[hayfield]

On 11/09/2020 at 10:38, Pacific231G said:

I'm not sure, even though Cyril Freezer often suggested it when extolling the virtues of "modern image".  What you lose with MU or push-pull trains is the key operational feature of turnover locos making intensive operation challenging. I've operated a Minories that was mainly EMUs with the occasional loco hauled parcels train . It was great for showing off a range of such trains (the builder's main interest) but I didn't find it all that interesting to operate for any length of time and I was running the parcels train rather too frequently.

 

On the other hand, main line termini layouts based on or roughly equivalent to Minories such as Bradfield (Gloucester Square), Tower Pier, or Minories (GN), based mainly or entirely on loco hauled trains, are the layouts I've found myself watching for the longest periods at exhibitions.

 

The other point about compression is that, in an urban setting, you're far less likely to be able to see more than three or four carriages of a train than you are in more open country. The overbridge on the original plan is therefore IMHO a key scenic feature that most versions of Minories leave out though an overall roof or equivalent  scenic break can fulfil the same function. Geoff Ashdown used both for  his EM gauge Tower Pier as this end on view shows 

This isn't the normal operator's or visitors' view of the layout and from the side you're simply not aware of just how short the layout is. The goods sidings are completely separate from the passenger side, which is operationally equivalent to Minories, on a slightly higher level and represent the final yard serving a line into the very cramped St. Catherine's dock.

When Geoff told me that Tower Pier occupies just two metre long boards (the same length as the original Minories in OO) with a cassette based fiddle yard on a third board the same length I was totally amazed.

 

 

 

 

I have seen this super layout at a show, looks stunning and I was very impressed at the operational signal box, all be it a little over scale.

[fezza]

On a slightly different note, I'm surprised we don't see more layouts based on Manchester Oxford Road. In many ways it is a sort of through station Minories with a great compact arrangement, and the real thing has more frequent trains than any exhibition layout. I once planned a version in a tunnel "Manchester Whitworth Street" set in about 1980 and linking Victoria and a Piccadilly low level station. Really need to build it one day....

[Ravenser]

14 hours ago, CKPR said:

In a similar vein, in his 'Modern image is easy' article from 1977, CJF proposed a diesel hauled five coach train of BG/brake 2nd/ compo/RMB/brake 2nd [I think  - I'm doing this from memory] as the basis for 'modern image' (i.e. contemporary) operation.

 

It was actually BG / Mk2a BSO/ Mk2D FO/Mk1 RMB/  Mk2a BSO

The rational being that Airfix had not yet released a Mk2D TSO. The other vehicles would be Hornby Mk2 a and Mk1 buffet.

 

Been there , did that as a result of his article, though the layout never got anything like finished and had reliability issues: Flaxborough

 

In practice a 3 or 4 car semifast set could be produced by knocking out the BG and RMB (and potentially the FO) and splicing in a (Lima) Mk1 SK. With an extra BG and a couple of CCTs (all Lima ) parcels trains could be run. That's a total of 9 vehicles to form three possible trains - a satisfactory solution for an impecuneous teenage modeller.

 

These days I have stock coming out of my ears - including those vehicles from the late 70s

[KeithMacdonald]

On 15/08/2012 at 13:16, Orion said:

Alexandra Palace runs Minories close - especially if you place the scissors crossing in an imaginary location beyond the scenic area. It has a couple of freight sidings.

 

See http://signalbox.org/diagrams.php?id=270

 

The Curse of Thread Rot strikes again?

 

Quote

It’s the dreaded ERROR 404 message!

 

[Stevebr]

Try https://signalbox.org/~SBdiagram.php?id=%20270

[Ravenser]

4 minutes ago, Stevebr said:

Try https://signalbox.org/~SBdiagram.php?id=%20270

 

The only prototype you could research while attending a model railway exhibition

[t-b-g]

13 hours ago, Ravenser said:

 

The only prototype you could research while attending a model railway exhibition

 

I can think of a few more. Derby, in the roundhouse, plus a few at preserved railways. But the fact that we have parked our vehicles in the old Ally Pally station several times before we knew it was a railway location was a real surprise. Then finding that the station building was still there was another.

[Ravenser]

2 hours ago, t-b-g said:

 

I can think of a few more. Derby, in the roundhouse, plus a few at preserved railways. But the fact that we have parked our vehicles in the old Ally Pally station several times before we knew it was a railway location was a real surprise. Then finding that the station building was still there was another.

 

 

It is, on reflection, slightly unfortunate that the available pre-grouping tank engines don't really cover the GNR and that the Hattons Genesis stock won't really suit the GN . An Edwardian Alexandria Palace might make a cracking prototypical Minories layout. Every reason to run an intensive service - you could say that Bassett-Lowke and the newly formed MRC are staging an "exhibition of work" this Saturday

[t-b-g]

22 minutes ago, Ravenser said:

 

 

It is, on reflection, slightly unfortunate that the available pre-grouping tank engines don't really cover the GNR and that the Hattons Genesis stock won't really suit the GN . An Edwardian Alexandria Palace might make a cracking prototypical Minories layout. Every reason to run an intensive service - you could say that Bassett-Lowke and the newly formed MRC are staging an "exhibition of work" this Saturday

 

I agree. The roof profile of the GNR stock is one of its main features, along with square panelling and the "Genesis" range doesn't quite fit the bill as well as it approximates the stock of other companies. I always thought the main Alexandra Palace building would make an exceptional backscene. At present, anything pre-grouping would need a lot of kit building but I would have thought that N2s and Hornby Non corridor  Gresley's would allow a reasonable 1930s version based on RTR.

[woodenhead]

On 17/10/2020 at 10:56, fezza said:

On a slightly different note, I'm surprised we don't see more layouts based on Manchester Oxford Road. In many ways it is a sort of through station Minories with a great compact arrangement, and the real thing has more frequent trains than any exhibition layout. I once planned a version in a tunnel "Manchester Whitworth Street" set in about 1980 and linking Victoria and a Piccadilly low level station. Really need to build it one day....

I used to use Oxford Road a lot for travel as it is the terminus of the local Liverpool stoppers that go via Warrington.

 

I remember in the 1990s standing there watching the last of the first generation DMUs and thinking this would be a great layout - very intense running and freightliners to boot.  Maybe this is why I cannot part with my N gauge DMUs because I've got this deep set memory.

 

It's not quite the same these days, it even seems quieter though it won't be.