Theory of General Minories

[t-b-g]

20 minutes ago, Lacathedrale said:

Interesting - I know that the GER were famous for their Jazz service with outbound locos attached to the rear of inbound trains and shooting off in very quick succession, but I've not heard much elsewhere? No doubt a gap in knowledge there...

 

Either way, variety is the spice of life and doing some fiddling (ha!) with the 8' Minories layout pictured above, every combination of large/medium/small locomotives and three or four 48' or 54' bogie coaches works fine except a 'Long Train' of a large 4-6-0 and four 54' coaches, where only a small pilot loco fits.

 

The 'Long Train' is already larger than I had set as my minimum so I'm pleased it fits at all.  While I think there ought to be some logically elegant way of  managing moves for a 'Long Train' but as @Zomboid has pointed out, maybe it's a once-per-session princess which fouls pointwork and generally makes life miserable for the signalman at St. Giles?

 

Much of it comes down to the intervals between trains. If you want a short interval rush hour service followed by a more leisurely suburban service during the day, that can be timetabled to give you time to shunt the odd overlong train out of the way. If you want a frequent service throughout the day, time for fancy shunting moves becomes difficult. That is how mine was worked. We started with quick change around suburban services, then changed to mix of suburban and long distance with the odd van, horsebox or fish train, then went back to the suburban rush hour. Varying the operation is more interesting than working it the same way all the time.

[Compound2632]

1 hour ago, Zomboid said:

I suppose it depends on the nature of the station. If it has a frequent service for commuters then you're not going to block up the throat for every arrival, but it might be tolerable once or twice a day for "The London Train" or similar.

 

16 minutes ago, Lacathedrale said:

Interesting - I know that the GER were famous for their Jazz service with outbound locos attached to the rear of inbound trains and shooting off in very quick succession, but I've not heard much elsewhere? No doubt a gap in knowledge there...

 

But the intensive commuter service is exactly what Minories sets out to represent. 

 

How far that is representative of the working of the southern London termini in steam days, I do not know. It's the only way Moorgate can have been worked, with a loco siding at the outer end of each of the three terminal platforms, each assigned to its proper company:

 

 

[Crop from Midland Railway Study Centre Item 20628.]

 

Note that the trains of the three companies each make use of their own crossover! The green dots represent water columns. 

 

 

[Zomboid]

3 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

But the intensive commuter service is exactly what Minories sets out to represent

True, but in its purest form that could get pretty samey. So we add this that and the other to create variety and interest.

 

As @t-b-g says, a days timetable of Hectic rush - Lull - Hectic Rush - evening wind down gives opportunities outside the rush to run long trains, sleeping cars etc.

 

I suspect that I'm most real versions, the lull in the middle of the day wouldn't feature a big engine on a too-long train; nothing at all is more likely. But even today there's examples like the LNER service to/from Bradford which finds its way amongst the suburban EMUs.

[Compound2632]

1 minute ago, Zomboid said:

True, but in its purest form that could get pretty samey. So we add this that and the other to create variety and interest.

 

Yes indeed but I felt we were drifting away from the core idea. A prototype from which to draw inspiration is Liverpool Central Station. As well as the CLC local trains, in its pre-Grouping heyday that saw expresses to and from London by two routes - Midland and Great Central - as well as the continental boat train, with Great Eastern carriages working through. Those expresses were only four or five carriages long, since they were generally combined with Manchester portions at Manchester Central or Chinley. And those are 48 ft - 54 ft carriages, so equal to three or four Mk1s only, for those for whom the Mk1 is a standard unit of carriage length.

[woodenhead]

And as a model Liverpool Central is a beautiful mix of complex trackwork in a very restricted space - a gem for someone wanting something like a Minories but with a little bit more complex operation.

[t-b-g]

5 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

 

Yes indeed but I felt we were drifting away from the core idea. A prototype from which to draw inspiration is Liverpool Central Station. As well as the CLC local trains, in its pre-Grouping heyday that saw expresses to and from London by two routes - Midland and Great Central - as well as the continental boat train, with Great Eastern carriages working through. Those expresses were only four or five carriages long, since they were generally combined with Manchester portions at Manchester Central or Chinley. And those are 48 ft - 54 ft carriages, so equal to three or four Mk1s only, for those for whom the Mk1 is a standard unit of carriage length.

 

To me, that is pretty much the ideal sort of set up for a model railway. You get the variety of stock due to different companies being involved and you get the mix of local and long distance services. Add in even a small amount of adding and removing tail loads and perhaps a loading dock for parcels, horses and carriages etc. and you have enough to keep me happy!

 

Has anybody ever modelled Liverpool Central? It ticks many boxes for me in terms of track layout and operation but the scenic and viewing aspects were, shall we say, challenging.

[Lacathedrale]

I'd seen photographs of those bizarre wooden? single road terminus platforms at Moorgate but couldn't puzzle it out - thank you! Funnily enough I think Moorgate is how I would probably seek to model my Minories variant - though HV is close to my heart I'm not sure I can take another attempt at building a triple-baseboard viaduct....

 

While on a client call today I mused a Marylebone-style MPD from a trailing point on the down line - one siding for locos to be coaled, one for a wagon, and the turntable itself:

 

 

Or from the middle of the throat:

 

Upfront I think this looks like it could be an interesting addition, but I think it would need to be pondered. Maybe something where the option is left open, but not implemented upfront.

[Regularity]

It is possible to have your cake and eat it, if you make a couple of simple changes.

But first, DC, RC or DCC? If the former, then you simply need to ensure that each traversed road  has an isolated end section, likewise the first 12” or so of the “up” line departing from it. With RC and DCC, none needed.

(I know you know all this, William, but some readers may not.)

You don’t need a longer fiddle yard, capable of holding a loco on each end: the loco for the next train simply stands on the mainline, ready to couple up to a train on the traverse, once it is aligned. The loco which has been freed up can then be removed, turned, etc. by hand. 
Also, at the station end, you can compress the track throat by the length of a turnout by replacing 4 turnouts with a single slip and a 3 way, as below - drawn up before you added an MPD.

 

 

But on the topic of traversers, why not use a Coulter-style turning traversed, I.e. make the traverser deck rotate about its centre, and instead of having a simple slide for it, use telescoping runners for traversing, which also allow you to pull the whole deck out away from the wall, and turn it 180 degrees?

 

See RM, July 2010 (multicoloured sheep are optional):

[Harlequin]

34 minutes ago, Regularity said:

It is possible to have your cake and eat it, if you make a couple of simple changes.

But first, DC, RC or DCC? If the former, then you simply need to ensure that each traversed road  has an isolated end section, likewise the first 12” or so of the “up” line departing from it. With RC and DCC, none needed.

(I know you know all this, William, but some readers may not.)

You don’t need a longer fiddle yard, capable of holding a loco on each end: the loco for the next train simply stands on the mainline, ready to couple up to a train on the traverse, once it is aligned. The loco which has been freed up can then be removed, turned, etc. by hand. 
Also, at the station end, you can compress the track throat by the length of a turnout by replacing 4 turnouts with a single slip and a 3 way, as below - drawn up before you added an MPD.

 

 

But on the topic of traversers, why not use a Coulter-style turning traversed, I.e. make the traverser deck rotate about its centre, and instead of having a simple slide for it, use telescoping runners for traversing, which also allow you to pull the whole deck out away from the wall, and turn it 180 degrees?

 

See RM, July 2010 (multicoloured sheep are optional):

 

The slip is a great space saver but the downside is that the turning routes through it have a nominal 2ft radius, which might be a bit sharp for the reverse curve route into P2 especially.

 

[Zomboid]

The slip works better if it's part of a curved approach (see the diagram I illustrated balloon loops with) as the tightness or otherwise of it doesn't form part of a reverse curve.

 

And of course it's not Minories if it has the slip. I like it though, diamonds and the like are a great way to make a station throat look busy.

 

https://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/60091-theory-of-general-minories/&do=findComment&comment=4655234

Edited November 29, 2021 by Zomboid

[Regularity]

3 minutes ago, Harlequin said:

 

The slip is a great space saver but the downside is that the turning routes through it have a nominal 2ft radius, which might be a bit sharp for the reverse curve route into P2 especially.

 

That’s a problem when using Peco track from their traditional range.

[woodenhead]

3 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

 

 

But the intensive commuter service is exactly what Minories sets out to represent. 

 

How far that is representative of the working of the southern London termini in steam days, I do not know. It's the only way Moorgate can have been worked, with a loco siding at the outer end of each of the three terminal platforms, each assigned to its proper company:

 

 

[Crop from Midland Railway Study Centre Item 20628.]

 

Note that the trains of the three companies each make use of their own crossover! The green dots represent water columns. 

 

 

Now that I LIKE.

[Lacathedrale]

@Regularity I'm going (probably) for DC - maybe RC, I hadn't really thought far enough ahead except 'no bloody computers'.

 

I've run your changes through on the xtrkCAD file and it works a charm - but I'm not sure what I'd do with that extra length. It would permit the platform roads to be slightly longer, but the limiting factor is still the traverser:

 

 

Re: loco stabling ahead of the traverser - if we assume that 'large loco with lots of coaches' is an outlier rather than the regular, that seems like a fine proposition to overcome the extra few inches otherwise required. Thank you for the information on the Coulter FY - I think I need to 'run' the Minories layout for a while to see how much fiddling of the fiddle yard is required. A quick sketch shows that it's possible to get a scissors crossover and a pair of turnouts using Peco geometry. A very quick sketch-up in Templot suggests it would have a larger minimum radius (30" to 48"), but I'm not quite ready to pull the thread of whether to hand lay track yet...

 

 

The FY roads are generously spaced and have more than enough room for the top-and-tail method. Additionally, the wedge created by the curved double scissors does permit  the vestige of a suburban island platform (think: Ludgate Hill, Spa Road, etc.) to justify the scissors being visible, while still maintaining a full train length under the St. Giles box block section, and Slipcote Road's block section extends a little way on the mainline to realistically permit light engine movements between the two wings of the scissors.

 

I of course note that St. Giles/Minories hasn't changed at all. It looks like I could build the station modules and the first of the 45 degree curves and would be able to handle 3 coach trains 'on layout'. Whether it would be worth setting up a cassette system while the FY options shake out is up for debate...

 

In the meantime I'm going to pop over to the pre-group area and ask about availability....

Edited November 29, 2021 by Lacathedrale

[KingEdwardII]

3 hours ago, Regularity said:

multicoloured sheep are optional

A prototype one of those would be truly scary - frankensheep!

[Zomboid]

1 hour ago, Lacathedrale said:

A very quick sketch-up in Templot suggests it would have a larger minimum radius (30" to 48"), but I'm not quite ready to pull the thread of whether to hand lay track yet..

I'm not saying don't, but we did start this sub-thread with you saying that you wanted something to get on with the minimum of fuss...

[Regularity]

1 hour ago, Lacathedrale said:

I've run your changes through on the xtrkCAD file and it works a charm - but I'm not sure what I'd do with that extra length. It would permit the platform roads to be slightly longer, but the limiting factor is still the traverser:

It depends on your focus. The extra length could be used to increase the scenic modelling of the station concourse. It could be used so that a new engine backing on to a recently arrived train is comfortably clear of turnouts/fouling points, it could be used to shift the pointwork to the left, opening up other possibilities such as a double junction for a connection to the widened lines, or similar, represented by a fiddle yard in front of the station…

As with the issue of loco exchange in the fiddle yard, it depends on how intensively the layout will be worked, and how many operators will be present. If only one, you will need to seriously consider a Denny type fiddle yard, with full pointwork for access to the roads, and then performing a lift and turn once in a while. You will get pretty sick of walking backwards and forwards to realign a fiddle yard road if you are operating an intensive service on your own.

[woodenhead]

Does the continuation of this thread mean Katherine St is no longer being pursued?

[SZ]

How about a fiddle yard that mimics a Minories, ie: the loco does not get turned, the loco does change set.

 

Train fully arrives into loop from left, loco detaches then attaches to and propels a previously detached set around the loop until it clears the points (either remains on the loop for immediate despatch or stacks up in the sidings for tidal flow), train exits left

 

Would be interesting to connect it up to a Minories to see if there are synergies.

 

Edited November 29, 2021 by SZ

[Lacathedrale]

You're totally right of course, hence my reluctance to go down that route and my thoughts of starting the layout in the Grouping-era and working backwards as I put together a pre-group stock roster.

 

@woodenhead not at all -but KS is much more of a finescale diorama than the kind of intense train-focused operation I'm looking at for this - parallel enquiries, where one flounders the other can flourish.

Edited November 29, 2021 by Lacathedrale

[simon b]

3 hours ago, SZ said:

How about a fiddle yard that mimics a Minories, ie: the loco does not get turned, the loco does change set.

 

Train fully arrives into loop from left, loco detaches then attaches to and propels a previously detached set around the loop until it clears the points (either remains on the loop for immediate dispatch or stacks up in the sidings for tidal flow), train exits left

 

Would be interesting to connect it up to a Minories to see if there are any synergies.

 

 

I can see how that would work, but cant help thinking that 3 return loops with a few loco sidings in the middle would be more flexible. 

[simon b]

6 hours ago, Lacathedrale said:

 

 

 

The FY roads are generously spaced and have more than enough room for the top-and-tail method. Additionally, the wedge created by the curved double scissors does permit  the vestige of a suburban island platform (think: Ludgate Hill, Spa Road, etc.) to justify the scissors being visible, while still maintaining a full train length under the St. Giles box block section, and Slipcote Road's block section extends a little way on the mainline to realistically permit light engine movements between the two wings of the scissors.

 

 

Looking at the angle of that scissors crossing it reminds me of smallbrook junction on the isle of white, 2 separate single lines which were worked as up and down in busy periods.

 

Not my pic.

Edited November 29, 2021 by simon b

[t-b-g]

“The enemy of a good plan is the dream of a perfect plan.” Carl von Clausewitz (born 1 June 1780, died 16 November 1831).

 

That new version does nothing for me. It introduces complexity, lots of wrong line running of trains and light engines and an improbable second station within 3 train lengths of the first one. It also reduces the number of fiddle yard sidings compared to the traverser.

 

The curved fiddle yard sidings look like a crammed in afterthought and have none of the elegant simplicity that the earlier version had.

 

That version just looked so right that it made me think that further tweaking was only ever going to take things backwards.

 

Still, it isn't really my problem, as it isn't my trainset!

 

 

[Siberian Snooper]

As this layout is being planned, have you thought about the British Finescale easy to assemble turnout kits being developed by Wayne Kinney,  he's produced a B7 turnout and is currently working on a 1 in 7 double slip. Over time he hopes to develop a range of switches crossings. There's a couple of threads on here about the range and developments.

 

 

[Harlequin]

6 hours ago, Lacathedrale said:

@Regularity I'm going (probably) for DC - maybe RC, I hadn't really thought far enough ahead except 'no bloody computers'.

 

I've run your changes through on the xtrkCAD file and it works a charm - but I'm not sure what I'd do with that extra length. It would permit the platform roads to be slightly longer, but the limiting factor is still the traverser:

 

 

Re: loco stabling ahead of the traverser - if we assume that 'large loco with lots of coaches' is an outlier rather than the regular, that seems like a fine proposition to overcome the extra few inches otherwise required. Thank you for the information on the Coulter FY - I think I need to 'run' the Minories layout for a while to see how much fiddling of the fiddle yard is required. A quick sketch shows that it's possible to get a scissors crossover and a pair of turnouts using Peco geometry. A very quick sketch-up in Templot suggests it would have a larger minimum radius (30" to 48"), but I'm not quite ready to pull the thread of whether to hand lay track yet...

 

 

The FY roads are generously spaced and have more than enough room for the top-and-tail method. Additionally, the wedge created by the curved double scissors does permit  the vestige of a suburban island platform (think: Ludgate Hill, Spa Road, etc.) to justify the scissors being visible, while still maintaining a full train length under the St. Giles box block section, and Slipcote Road's block section extends a little way on the mainline to realistically permit light engine movements between the two wings of the scissors.

 

I of course note that St. Giles/Minories hasn't changed at all. It looks like I could build the station modules and the first of the 45 degree curves and would be able to handle 3 coach trains 'on layout'. Whether it would be worth setting up a cassette system while the FY options shake out is up for debate...

 

In the meantime I'm going to pop over to the pre-group area and ask about availability....

 

Some thoughts:

• You could probably make better use of the space. The terminus could be wider, even if you keep the Minories track plan, allowing it to be placed within a scene a bit more.
• The main lines curving into the station are already crossing the face of the platforms and so there's a natural station throat in that curve with the platforms on the inside, rather than continuing the curve so that the platforms are on the outside, in the Minories way. Having platforms inside the curve would allow the terminus to be longer and that could be used not just for platform length but scenery and/or pointwork such as loco release crossovers, goods spurs, loco spurs and engine shed connections.
• The curving FY looks a bit awkward and railing vehicles on a curve can be annoying. It looks like there's room for a straight FY, either simple storage sidings or a traverser, along the south wall.

Sorry, I realise I might be extending the planning phase with these remarks.

 

[Budgie]

Have you thought about using a Peco Loco-Lift for moving locos from one end of the train to the other in the fiddle-yard? It makes railing locos easy, and it keeps your fingers off the locos.