Hornby announce TT:120

[D9020 Nimbus]

2 hours ago, frobisher said:

 

Because they match the "default" geometry in TT that Tillig produces.  The small radius Tillig points aren't that much shorter and weren't adjustable the same way Hornby revised their point to work around the standard unit track lengths.

129.5mm vs 166mm — quite a lot shorter, I'd say.

But the Tillig EW1 points need additional short straights (not currently in the Hornby range) of 36.5mm to get to the standard length of a straight. But the Hornby points are long for Setrack points — only 2mm shorter than OO ones.

[Porfuera]

5 hours ago, Grovenor said:

You would save a significant length in the Minories pointwork if you get away from Setrack track spacing and go for a scale 6ft way.

 

For Hornby maybe but the Peco points are Streamline, not Setrack. Not that Streamline is a 100% accurate copy of real trackwork, I'm sure.

 

But as far as I can tell from measuring the distance between adjacent rails on my Anyrail plan (not necessarily easy to get a completely accurate figure), the distance between the rails on the entry to the station throat is 22mm. Unless I'm completely wrong, that equates to 8-and-a-half feet or so, which isn't too shabby and I don't think a lot would be gained by trimming a few mm off the points to move them closer together.

 

And considering the track is entering a series of curves through the throat, I guess that the 6 foot way might widen out to be more than six feet? I might be grasping at straws there...

 

Cheers, Neil.

[melmerby]

8 hours ago, Pacific231G said:

didn't someone find that all the 00/H0 streamline points actually had rather smaller minimum radii than their nominal (possibly average)  value?

Peco Streamline 00/H0 points start on a straight and finish with a straight (and the TT ones look the same) so, yes the curved part is tighter radius than the average over the full length of the diverging road.

That's why when I wanted a fully curved double junction I had to make one using copperclad & Templot (Thanks Martin).

The main problem is that AFAIK none of the ready to use track manufacturers make a Diamond with LH or RH curved road.

 

I did originally try a home made curved diamond, made  to the nominal Peco Radius, but it didn't work well with the changes of radius.

[Hroth]

You only need to maintain the 6' way as the main line exits the throat.

 

As you approach the platforms, things will naturally tend to widen, it all depends on how you dispose of the platform lines and on how broad you want the platforms to be.

 

In general, set track is problematic.  I think the original "Minories" design was based on other than the Triang TT3 set track, the red based stuff was very  - unappealing!  It was probably Peco, Gem or Wrenn track points. And track!

 

Edited December 6, 2022 by Hroth

[Les1952]

11 hours ago, Steamport Southport said:

 

But many of us can spot a wrong liveried locomotive or carriage a mile away. These things had a set standard. If they were painted wrong, then they would be dragged back in for a repaint. 

 

Why not get it right in the first place?

 

 

Jason

 

That seems not always to have applied to Doncaster paint shop where tender linings were sometimes applied at the wrong height- normally on one side of the loco only, cab numbers were sometimes wonky (pics of 60045) or mis-spaced (pics of 60017 and others), and as for the curve on the lining of A4s it was quite usual for this to be a different radius on the two sides of the loco, an interseting sight when viewed head on- and there is plenty of photographic evidence of thsi.

 

It also goes back to the thirties- when 2750 PAPYRUS reached 108mph it had cabside numbers where the 27 was a different size to the 50 - pic in Yeadon's book and the RCTS Green Guide, and 2749-2752 were all turned out like that.  The pic of the bashed up "GRAND PARADE" arriving in Doncaster for dismantling shows the first two digits of the cabside number a different colour to the last two.   

 

Darlington Works turned out some Jinties in the early sixties with the number on the tank side rather than the bunker.  One was intercept6ed at Derby and "corrected".  Another went to Crewe and used as station pilot then works pilot and stayed wrong.

 

Perhaps we can spot a wrong liveried loco the prototype railway couldn't always....

 

Les

 

[BachelorBoy]

1 hour ago, Les1952 said:

 

That seems not always to have applied to Doncaster paint shop where tender linings were sometimes applied at the wrong height- normally on one side of the loco only, cab numbers were sometimes wonky (pics of 60045) or mis-spaced (pics of 60017 and others), and as for the curve on the lining of A4s it was quite usual for this to be a different radius on the two sides of the loco, an interseting sight when viewed head on- and there is plenty of photographic evidence of thsi.

 

It also goes back to the thirties- when 2750 PAPYRUS reached 108mph it had cabside numbers where the 27 was a different size to the 50 - pic in Yeadon's book and the RCTS Green Guide, and 2749-2752 were all turned out like that.  The pic of the bashed up "GRAND PARADE" arriving in Doncaster for dismantling shows the first two digits of the cabside number a different colour to the last two.   

 

Darlington Works turned out some Jinties in the early sixties with the number on the tank side rather than the bunker.  One was intercept6ed at Derby and "corrected".  Another went to Crewe and used as station pilot then works pilot and stayed wrong.

 

Perhaps we can spot a wrong liveried loco the prototype railway couldn't always....

 

Les

 

 

And yet if you modelled them like that.... accuracy isn't always realistic.

 

 

 

[Jeff Smith]

It just shows that whenever possible a model should be based upon actual photographs of the prototype, particularly during a company/livery change.

[Les1952]

7 hours ago, BachelorBoy said:

 

And yet if you modelled them like that.... accuracy isn't always realistic.

 

 

 

 

Dapol's Chinese factory picked up on the photos of 2750 and 60045, and the first release of their A3s included a 60045 LEMBERG with wonky cabside numbers, and a 2750 with the cabside numbers different sizes (both correct) - with a huge amount of negative reaction (including here on RMWeb).  Fortunately they missed GRAND PARADE's different coloured numbers.

 

Les

 

[NCB]

16 minutes ago, D9020 Nimbus said:

129.5mm vs 166mm — quite a lot shorter, I'd say.

But the Tillig EW1 points need additional short straights (not currently in the Hornby range) of 36.5mm to get to the standard length of a straight. But the Hornby points are long for Setrack points — only 2mm shorter than OO ones.

Most station areas had a greater  than 6 foot way.

[Jeff Smith]

25 minutes ago, NCB said:

Most station areas had a greater  than 6 foot way.

Certainly ex-GWR broad gauge ones did/do.......

[Pacific231G]

16 hours ago, Hroth said:

You only need to maintain the 6' way as the main line exits the throat.

 

As you approach the platforms, things will naturally tend to widen, it all depends on how you dispose of the platform lines and on how broad you want the platforms to be.

 

In general, set track is problematic.  I think the original "Minories" design was based on other than the Triang TT3 set track, the red based stuff was very  - unappealing!  It was probably Peco, Gem or Wrenn track points. And track!

 

Definitely and I couldn't agree more about Tri-ang's type A track. Fortunately, I had type B which bore at least a passing resemblance to real track.

Whether Cyril Freezer actually based Minories on Peco's 19 inch radius point kits* or simply reduced to 75% a plan drawn originally for 00 we'll probably never know. With three foot radius 16.5 mm gauge points, the basic Minories throat will fit comfortably onto a 39 inch long board (the board length of the 00 version) and that would also be true for a 30 inch board with Peco's current TT offering. The version with a goods shed wouldn't but if you look carefully at the original plan, the toe of the point accessing the goods headshunt appears to be over the join (It's a horrible plan anyway and CJF never used it in subsequent iterations of Minories) 

 

However, carefully measuring the original plan from April 1957 , the length of each turnout does appear  to be about  six inches for TT and 7.5 inches, about the length of a 24-26 inch radius turnout, in 00. That does suggest it was drawn for TT based on Peco's 19 inch radius points as they didn't then offer a 24 inch radius turnout  for 00 but only 36 inch radius (the minimum radius for points recommended by the BRMSB)  with a length of 8.5 inches. It seems unlikely that Cyril Freezer would have designed Minories for the track of Peco's rivals and the first 00/H0 Streamline points, which were two foot radius, came some years later.

It's also interesting that both Peco's TT point packs and Gem's RTL points were "universal", i.e. with closing frogs, suggesting that they were designed to accomodate finer wheel standards as well as Tri-ang's.

 

I'll check but, if you lay out the Minories throat with Streamline medium radius points, I'm pretty sure that the geometry does slightly reduce the spacing of the double track between platforms 2 & 3 

 

*(Gem's original RTL points, available along with Peco's track and "poni-packs  when TT-3 launched, were 15 inch with 24 inch added in late 1957 while Wrenn's TT offering with 18inch radius points came in October 1957 so a few months after Minories. Welkut also offered TT track towards the end of 1957 but I have no idea what radius they used. I have the impression that Welkut was a higher class of trackwork but know very little about them or other makes such as Nucro who AFAIK didn't get into 12mm gauge.

Edited December 7, 2022 by Pacific231G
Bit more about what fits where and further information about TT track systems offered by Gem and Wrenn,

[Steamport Southport]

13 hours ago, Les1952 said:

 

That seems not always to have applied to Doncaster paint shop where tender linings were sometimes applied at the wrong height- normally on one side of the loco only, cab numbers were sometimes wonky (pics of 60045) or mis-spaced (pics of 60017 and others), and as for the curve on the lining of A4s it was quite usual for this to be a different radius on the two sides of the loco, an interseting sight when viewed head on- and there is plenty of photographic evidence of thsi.

 

It also goes back to the thirties- when 2750 PAPYRUS reached 108mph it had cabside numbers where the 27 was a different size to the 50 - pic in Yeadon's book and the RCTS Green Guide, and 2749-2752 were all turned out like that.  The pic of the bashed up "GRAND PARADE" arriving in Doncaster for dismantling shows the first two digits of the cabside number a different colour to the last two.   

 

Darlington Works turned out some Jinties in the early sixties with the number on the tank side rather than the bunker.  One was intercept6ed at Derby and "corrected".  Another went to Crewe and used as station pilot then works pilot and stayed wrong.

 

Perhaps we can spot a wrong liveried loco the prototype railway couldn't always....

 

Les

 

 

Well, there was at least one locomotive on the GWR with misspelt nameplates which would have been an easy fix.

 

4969 Shrugborough Hall which lasted from 1929 to 1962 apparently with out mention.

 

 

Jason

[Hroth]

3 hours ago, Pacific231G said:

Gem's original RTL points, available along with Peco's track and "poni-packs  when TT-3 launched, were 15 inch with 24 inch added in late 1957 while Wrenn's TT offering with 18inch radius points came in October 1957 so a few months after Minories.

 

I was typing from recollection of the Railway Modeller April 1957 contents...

 

There was an advertisment for the Gem track, and opposite it was a full page Wrenn ad which put it in my mind, but the Wrenn advert was a competition - "put the following 6 statements in order and write a slogan containing 'Wrenn'".  The next page had an advert for Peco spiked track, "Now including TT-3", which seems to be a most tedious way to lay track!

 

 

[Pacific231G]

20 minutes ago, Hroth said:

 

I was typing from recollection of the Railway Modeller April 1957 contents...

 

There was an advertisment for the Gem track, and opposite it was a full page Wrenn ad which put it in my mind, but the Wrenn advert was a competition - "put the following 6 statements in order and write a slogan containing 'Wrenn'".  The next page had an advert for Peco spiked track, "Now including TT-3", which seems to be a most tedious way to lay track!

 

 

I have that as well as the March edition which was a bit of a special on TT-3 following Tri-ang's launch of their TT at the Toy Fair trade show in February)  and that included a rundown of the "scale tracks" (Peco and Gem) I have the whole year as a bound volume but without some of the advertising. I went through them to find out when various products appeared but there may be some I've  missed.

I've heard bad things about Peco's spiked track for TT but their nylon wheelsets were good. I did once build some spiked track for a north American themed layout- it was even more tedious than ballasting and N. American track has a lot of ties!

[D9020 Nimbus]

The original Minories article gives just one basic plan with two length scales against it. It's not clear whether it was originally drawn for OO or TT.

[Pacific231G]

1 hour ago, D9020 Nimbus said:

The original Minories article gives just one basic plan with two length scales against it. It's not clear whether it was originally drawn for OO or TT.

This is getting more into General Theory of Minories territory than TT:120 but there were actually two plans in the original article  (I'm looking at it now)  Both were the same length but the second one has a wider left-hand board to include a two-road goods shed and a tapered right board that avoids the wasted space that building Minories on a rectangular baseboard leaves. It's not clear that the second plan is for a folding layout but the basic Minories really could be a "suitcase" layout, especially in TT.

It never has been clear whether CJF originally drew Minories for TT-3 or OO. He was always rather vague about that but I think he did once say that it had originally been drawn for TT-3.

I think, but could be wrong, that it was an idea he'd been playing around with for a while, had probably already sketched out for OO, hadn't yet fully developed but did so for TT-3 when its launch became imminent. He possibly drew  it up in detail based on the likely dimensions of Peco's new TT points .  Five foot (in TT-3) also seems a more likely length to aim for than 6ft 6ins (in OO) unless he was thinking of two metres. It was though, in either scale, probably the plan he worked out in greater detail than any of his others and is more a full project specification than his normal plans of the month.

 

I did wonder if he'd been thinking of building it himself, possibly as a project layout. Mike Bryant did that very soon after TT-3's launch with a 4ft x 2ft TT-3 layout. That was published as a blow by blow "how to" series in five parts in MRC between January and June 1958  using Gem track but a photograph of the complete layout appeared in December 1957 and it had already been exhibited at the Nottingham Club's annual exhibtion in 1957. He also said that he'd got hold of some of the first of Gem's new TT track and points and had laid out a branch terminus (in 3ft x 1ft) even before obtaining theTri-ang stock, so he must have started very early.

 

In TT:120, either Minories in a Suitcase or A Large Quart in a Small Pint Pot would be entirely feasible today.

 

Tri-ang's initial TT-3 offering consisted of the Jinty and two suburban coaches plus three types of goods wagon and a goods brake. The Jinty, with the passenger stock, might fit a branch line but, ideally for Freezer's desire to prove that a small layout didn't have to mean branch line, would also fit the idea of a busy city commuter terminus using turnover tank locos to maintain an intense rush-hour service- a complete contrast with the branch line layouts he'd done so much to promote (and, I suspect, had become rather bored of)

To be able to also use the TT-3 goods stock he drew up a second version with the goods depot, This was possibly an afterthought but he did describe how goods trains would be worked outside the rush hours by having the spare engine waiting at the end of the headshunt (rather than in the loco spur). It would take the wagons from, and thus release, the train engine, which had arrived with the goods train on platform 3, before shunting them into the goods shed roads- presumably exchanging them with wagons already there. 

 

I don't know whether using a platform road for goods reception at quiet times for passenger services in this way was ever a real practice for main line stations  but CJF's plan didn't require any trap points so would presumably not be a problem for the Board of Trade.   

 

He used an axonometric projection to visualise the plan but, if you rotate it 45 degreess anti-clockwise and ignore the uprights, you do get a conventional two dimensional plan.  

Edited December 7, 2022 by Pacific231G
improvements in readability.

[Dix120]

On 06/12/2022 at 04:39, Porfuera said:

 

I've been trying out various shunting plank track plans in Anyrail and I've found that the currently available Peco points (medium?) are quite large.

 

If I've got the plan below right I'd say that using the Peco points for the smaller Minories plan above would mean that the points will occupy about half of the five foot board and would severely reduce the length of the sidings. Nice, sweeping curves at the station throat I guess, but at the expense of a longer layout. Longer even than the OO layout.

 

So much for the space-saving properties of TT120! Don't get me wrong - I'm not knocking it, I've ordered a Class 08 and a few wagons and I can't wait for them to arrive... I just would've preferred Peco to bring out the smaller-radius points first. But that's just me...

 

Edit: Just to get it back on thread - I don't really like the look of the Hornby points so I won't be buying those and I haven't tried planning with Hornby.

 

Edit: the board size below is 150cm by 30cm (or 1500mm by 300mm, which is approx. 5 feet by 1 foot)

 

Thank you for this. Gives me something to start with. Maybe add a bit of freight service in the front right. Extend the platform tracks enough for three cars and locomotive. Of course this will have to be a three piece display. Station tracks on the left module, main yard throat in the middle, and fiddle yard on the right. Much to think about.

[Dix120]

My Hornby TT:120 Club package arrived yesterday here on the wet coast of Canada. Now to wait (im)patiently for the train sets. I hope we have at least one in time for our B3 Dinner (that's Beer, Burgers and BS) in January. We usually plan our (Pacific Northwest TT-Scale Modellers) TT-Tracks displays for the coming years. 

[irishmail]

2 hours ago, Dix120 said:

My Hornby TT:120 Club package arrived yesterday here on the wet coast of Canada. Now to wait (im)patiently for the train sets. I hope we have at least one in time for our B3 Dinner (that's Beer, Burgers and BS) in January. We usually plan our (Pacific Northwest TT-Scale Modellers) TT-Tracks displays for the coming years. 

Amazing that they have got it to Canada.  Joined on 10th October and I am still waiting for mine  and I'm only just across the Irish Sea and not the Atlantic lol... 🙄 Emailed them last week but not had a reply. Time for a phone call I think.

[britishcolumbian]

I got mine on Monday too.

[Dix120]

Interesting discussion about paint colours. Reminds me of the never ending discussion of what is CPR Maroon? The answer is - it depends. What shop painted the locomotive/car. How weathered is the car? What side of the car is it? Most CPR Passenger cars were not turned  so the North side weathered differently than the south side of the car. Has the car been washed with a finish restorer? and so on. 

A late friend of mine once contacted the expert on CPR Steam Locomotive and asked what the correct colour was. He got back a paint sample with the note that is what was being used now and would not necessarily match what had been used at other times. With multiple shops across Canada the colour would vary. In ancient days the older hands mixed up the paint as needed to a known basic recipe. Take one barrel of 'X', add two scoops of 'Y', a scoop of 'Z', and a half scoop of 'A'. Adjust colour to taste. So things varied a bit. It also depended on the under coat. In very early days when they were moving away from mahogany wood side panels, to painted panels, they used a yellow undercoat to get a richer colour. No idea how long that lasted.

 

[andrewshimmin]

18 hours ago, Steamport Southport said:

 

Well, there was at least one locomotive on the GWR with misspelt nameplates which would have been an easy fix.

 

4969 Shrugborough Hall which lasted from 1929 to 1962 apparently with out mention.

 

 

Jason

The LMS repaints of some Highland locos included misspellings of some of the Gaelic names.

Edited December 8, 2022 by andrewshimmin

[Porfuera]

22 hours ago, Dix120 said:

Thank you for this. Gives me something to start with. Maybe add a bit of freight service in the front right. Extend the platform tracks enough for three cars and locomotive. Of course this will have to be a three piece display. Station tracks on the left module, main yard throat in the middle, and fiddle yard on the right. Much to think about.

 

I'm glad it was some help! Given that the station throat is about 40% of the total length of the trackwork (i.e. it is 2 feet out of the 5 feet total) then I reckon a Peco-

trackwork Minories in TT:120 would fit on two 1 metre boards and there would still be enough space to fit in the station building (as you mentioned a third board would be needed for the fiddle yard):

 

 

If (like me) you don't have anywhere for a permanent layout then if you can get the width down to about 225mm, each board would fit into a 77 litre Really Useful Box for storage (internal dimensions about 1110mm long x 300mm H x 225mm W). I have a couple of these and I'm sorely tempted to give it a try!

Edited December 8, 2022 by Porfuera

[luke_stevens]

My brother got an e-mail at 17:45 saying his Scotsman set in now in the Hornby warehouse and will soon be dispatched.

 

Luke

 

PS and his credit card has been charged too! All looking positive :)

Edited December 8, 2022 by luke_stevens

[Dix120]

1 hour ago, Porfuera said:

 

I'm glad it was some help! Given that the station throat is about 40% of the total length of the trackwork (i.e. it is 2 feet out of the 5 feet total) then I reckon a Peco-

trackwork Minories in TT:120 would fit on two 1 metre boards and there would still be enough space to fit in the station building (as you mentioned a third board would be needed for the fiddle yard):

 

 

If (like me) you don't have anywhere for a permanent layout then if you can get the width down to about 225mm, each board would fit into a 77 litre Really Useful Box for storage (internal dimensions about 1110mm long x 300mm H x 225mm W). I have a couple of these and I'm sorely tempted to give it a try!

I see this as three boards. The left end is two feet long. That should give tracks long enough for three cars and a locomotive. The middle will be four feet long and have all the track work. The right end fiddle yard will be about two feet long. It needs enough length for the turnouts necessary to give four staging tracks.  It could be made as a fully folding setup but I think transporting it as a four foot piece and two two-foot pieces bolted together would be a better idea. Thinking about the idea of having  a curved section leading to the fiddle yard so the final setup is an L shape, but that is another piece to carry. Much to think about while waiting for equipment arrive.