Theory of General Minories

[Pacific231G]

8 minutes ago, Flying Pig said:

 

Yes it was what was available and honestly Tri-ang TT3 was a long way from being finescale, so a broadly representative loco was fine.  The Jinty was still the standard small passenger tank in 00 well into the 70s and I happily ran mine with a couple of those Mk1 derived panelled LMS carriages (vaguely resembling the long Caledonian stock). It made for a local passenger train while my Princess pulled the express.  The Jinty could also pull the goods of course.

 

The point is, you can have railwaylike operation without having the exact stock required (and for many situations even in 00 that still requires kit or scratchbuilding).  

A very long way from finescale though to be fair the coaches were pretty good but what would a four foot gauge railway look like in any case. I did modify my own Jinty by altering the cab and adding a copper safety valve cover to make it look more GWRish and I've  seen far less convincing disguises concocted by film companies.  

[Pacific231G]

18 hours ago, Schooner said:

Alternatives to inner city inspirations are available:

If you want intense double track passenger operation with shortish trains and small locos, Ryde Pierhead at the other end of the ferry route might also be a suitable candidate 

[t-b-g]

Some of he recent post remind me of my early modelling days when things seemed so much simpler.

 

If your carriages had  corridor connections it was an express and ran with a tender loco, preferably a big one.

 

If they didn't have corridor connections it was called a "Suburban" train and ran with a tank loco.

 

It may have been highly simplified and very unrealistic but running a layout on that basis was still great fun.

 

The "Hornby Dublo" Minories that has been linked to on one or more of the various Minories threads really recaptured those days very nicely indeed for me.

 

I will add a link here for those that have missed it as this isn't the video posted previously:

 

 

Edited October 21, 2022 by t-b-g
typo

[woodenhead]

29 minutes ago, t-b-g said:

Some of he recent post remind me of my early modelling days when things seemed so much simpler.

 

If your carriages had  corridor connections it was an express and ran with a tender loco, preferably a big one.

 

If they didn't have corridor connections iot was called a "Suburban" train and ran with a tank loco.

 

It may have been highly simplified and very unrealistic but running a layout in that basis was still great fun.

That was my father's railway in the early days with Farish stock.  Mainline coaches had a side corridor, corridor connections whilst suburbans just had doors all along the side and no corrdor connections.  They came in several colour variations to denote the Big Four and the only Mk1s came from Minitrix.

 

That Dublo Minories harks back to a very simple life doesn't it, lovely evocative model.

[Nearholmer]

1 hour ago, Pacific231G said:

The 060T was not perhaps the most convincing loco for an intense suburban turnover loco based service

CJF probably remembered the pre-WW2 services out of Broad Street to The Northern Heights, which were indeed worked by what us Triang-era chaps call Jinties, in that case pulling long strings of four-wheelers.

[CKPR]

In terms of a northern prototype or inspiration for a Minories-style layout, I would suggest either Great Moor Street in Bolton or New Bridge St. in Newcastle. Both small urban termini that were overshadowed by later and much larger stations but which continued to have intensive local services.

[D9020 Nimbus]

New Bridge Street was closed early and replaced, effectively, by Manors North.

 

I've been toying with Minories ideas for a while — one thought is assuming that the NBR, rather than the NER, bought the Blyth and Tyne. They moved the line closer to the coast, but the connection to the NER Newcastle and North Shields line was never made so there was no "coast loop". The ex-B&T wasn't electrified; the NBR didn't electrify the Glasgow lines after all. The LNER looked at completing the loop, and electrification but couldn't find the money… resulting in something much like "Newcastle Haymarket" with the Minories track-plan.

 

An alternative is something based on the Glasgow area, possibly based on the last years of the Glasgow Central Low Level system before closure (and later re-opening); trains being worked by 4MT tanks, both Fairburn and standard, standard 4MT 2-6-0s, DMUs and even type 1 diesels (even Clayton’s).

 

I was intending to do this in OO but have only a maximum of about 8 ft available, so might consider TT:120.  The main issue with N is uncoupling. The implementations of the standard coupling by Farish and Dapol don't readily uncouple over ramps; Minitrix is a bit better but still has only about a 60% success rate. And fitting Dapol Easi-Shunts to Farish is difficult since Farish seem to use a different standard to anybody else.

[St Enodoc]

10 hours ago, CKPR said:

Great Moor Street in Bolton

As modelled by a good friend of mine in Adelaide, @Gavdownunder:

 

https://thrumlington.blogspot.com/2015/06/great-moor-street-minories.html

Edited October 22, 2022 by St Enodoc

[meatloaf]

How possible is it to do a minories in 9f inc fiddleyard ? 00 Gauge.

[D-A-T]

Depends on how much you are prepared to compromise on platform length and train length/number of carriages.

I would be tempted to go pre-grouping as small locos and short carriages would look more convincing. 

Edited December 13, 2022 by D-A-T
Spelling

[RJS1977]

Depends a little on the length of the fiddleyard. If you use either a traverser or a cassette fiddle yard (so no offstage pointwork is needed), you should be able to do it.

 

Cyril Freezer's original Minories plan was 5'6" long in 00 (not including fiddle yard), so 9' all-in could be done.

[meatloaf]

Probably looking at 2 coach trains with diesel on the front. Ive got Class 20, 24, 25, 08 37 and 47. Plus DMUs that can be used as well.

 

Id like to maybe have a goods siding as well as i have a metcalfe goods shed to use

[Harlequin]

41 minutes ago, RJS1977 said:

Depends a little on the length of the fiddleyard. If you use either a traverser or a cassette fiddle yard (so no offstage pointwork is needed), you should be able to do it.

 

Cyril Freezer's original Minories plan was 5'6" long in 00 (not including fiddle yard), so 9' all-in could be done.

Wasn’t that the TT3 version, though?

 

The OO version is 7ft long, and the pointwork is packed very tightly into one 3ft 6in half.

 

I don’t honestly think that it’s possible to fit a OO Minories + FY in 9ft.

 

[Flying Pig]

How about if you save a crossover by rationalising to a single track approach?

 

 

[RJS1977]

43 minutes ago, Harlequin said:

Wasn’t that the TT3 version, though?

 

The OO version is 7ft long, and the pointwork is packed very tightly into one 3ft 6in half.

 

I don’t honestly think that it’s possible to fit a OO Minories + FY in 9ft.

 

 

Misread the scale slightly:

 

The version in "60 plans for small layouts" (the isometric plan) has two 'rulers' beside it.

 

One, for TT, is 5' long, the 00 one is a bit over 6' 8" long. Which, as you say, only leaves just over 2' for a fiddle yard.

 

The platforms could possibly be shortened slightly, losing 6" from them would make them 3' long and the fiddle yard 2' 10"

 

That would be long enough for a loco and two full-length coaches (and possibly a van), or for 3 car multiple units, if a traverser or cassettes were used.

 

If shorter coaches, like the Hattons or Hornby Generic coaches, or the shorter-than-scale Triang or Dublo coaches, were used, "longer" trains could be run.

[Flying Pig]

Further rationalisation: platform 1 disused (park road vehicles on it) and the platform road serves as a runround. The old loco spur is of course gone (maybe the buffers remain) and stabling is on the kickback off platform 3. Overall roof mostly derelict or removed.

 

Clearly you can't run the same intensive service as a proper Minories, but it should be ok for a single operator.  Not the first time I've posted something like this but the previous times are well down in the Silurian layers of the thread.

 

 

 

 

 

[RobinofLoxley]

2 hours ago, Flying Pig said:

Further rationalisation: platform 1 disused (park road vehicles on it) and the platform road serves as a runround. The old loco spur is of course gone (maybe the buffers remain) and stabling is on the kickback off platform 3. Overall roof mostly derelict or removed.

 

Clearly you can't run the same intensive service as a proper Minories, but it should be ok for a single operator.  Not the first time I've posted something like this but the previous times are well down in the Silurian layers of the thread.

 

 

 

 

 

Pre Cambrian more like

[melmoth]

9 minutes ago, RobinofLoxley said:

Pre Cambrian more like

 

That would be the Newtown and Machynlleth then...

[Nearholmer]

The guys who built Ripper Street using the Minories plan set that in the "dereliction era", but Flying Pig seems to be taking things a stage further here. I'm now imagining a version with no track at all, budlia bushes, urban foxes, the remnants of the odd bonfire on the track-bed, a Morris Marina with no wheels or windows that you can't for the life of you work out how it got there, and endless re-development plans that are perpetually mired in funding and planning permission difficulties.

 

Any takers?

[t-b-g]

11 hours ago, Flying Pig said:

How about if you save a crossover by rationalising to a single track approach?

 

 

 

3 hours ago, Flying Pig said:

Further rationalisation: platform 1 disused (park road vehicles on it) and the platform road serves as a runround. The old loco spur is of course gone (maybe the buffers remain) and stabling is on the kickback off platform 3. Overall roof mostly derelict or removed.

 

Clearly you can't run the same intensive service as a proper Minories, but it should be ok for a single operator.  Not the first time I've posted something like this but the previous times are well down in the Silurian layers of the thread.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The first "rationalised" plan is very like my "mini minories" except that I have made platform 1 a good siding and the first two points are swapped around, which makes the platforms one carriage longer. The kickback becomes the loco spur.

 

I may have posted this before but it shows the Templot plan attached to the first board. It was later tweaked to give a bigger gap between the running line and the loco spur siding and much of the track is now laid. The second board is just plain tracks with an island platform and the goods siding ion the right. It is a bit like the results of a breeding session between Minories and an Ian Futer's "3 point trick" layout. The loco spur is deemed to be the remnant of the old second line from when it was double track. The "story" is that it was intended as a double track through station with a single trailing siding but never got further than here.

 

The second rationalised plan, with a run round, if built on the original baseboard lengths, would take two carriages off the train length to allow a headshunt and run round, so I am not so keen on that one.

 

edit to add: I have had a think about that and I might be wrong. It might be only one carriage shorter with the run round.

Edited December 14, 2022 by t-b-g
typo

[melmoth]

1 hour ago, Nearholmer said:

The guys who built Ripper Street using the Minories plan set that in the "dereliction era", but Flying Pig seems to be taking things a stage further here. I'm now imagining a version with no track at all, budlia bushes, urban foxes, the remnants of the odd bonfire on the track-bed, a Morris Marina with no wheels or windows that you can't for the life of you work out how it got there, and endless re-development plans that are perpetually mired in funding and planning permission difficulties.

 

Any takers?

 

Birmingham Snow Hill, circa 1970

[woodenhead]

1 hour ago, Nearholmer said:

The guys who built Ripper Street using the Minories plan set that in the "dereliction era", but Flying Pig seems to be taking things a stage further here. I'm now imagining a version with no track at all, budlia bushes, urban foxes, the remnants of the odd bonfire on the track-bed, a Morris Marina with no wheels or windows that you can't for the life of you work out how it got there, and endless re-development plans that are perpetually mired in funding and planning permission difficulties.

 

Any takers?

Unfortunately, having such a layout on RMWeb and then looking excitedly at any new releases would result in the ire of the mods.

 

New class 40, new class 37, new any steam engine, new units would all elicit the same response 'sigh, nothing in it for me again'

[Nick C]

20 minutes ago, woodenhead said:

Unfortunately, having such a layout on RMWeb and then looking excitedly at any new releases would result in the ire of the mods.

 

New class 40, new class 37, new any steam engine, new units would all elicit the same response 'sigh, nothing in it for me again'

Not entirely - Rapido are doing a Leyland National...

[Nearholmer]

The most depressing bus ever invented IMO. It seemed to symbolise the death of bus travel as a pleasant and interesting way of getting about, ushering in an era of chilly, Spartan discomfort. I was only a teenager at the time, but could tell it was A Bad Bus.

 

So, yes, it will fit perfectly into the post-track Minories.

 

To get the full 70s feel, I suggest we scenic it pretty much like now, sub-zero temperatures, crunchy frozen snow (actually dirty frozen slush would be better), people peering under the bonnets of cars that have flat starter batteries, and a gaggle of blokes round a brazier, on strike about job losses at a factory that has lost all its business to cheaper and better-made imports from a distant land, that sort of thing.

 

[Nick C]

18 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

The most depressing bus ever invented IMO. It seemed to symbolise the death of bus travel as a pleasant and interesting way of getting about, ushering in an era of chilly, Spartan discomfort. I was only a teenager at the time, but could tell it was A Bad Bus.

We had one as a school bus for a couple of years, dreadful thing! It replaced a really comfy coach as well, which made it even worse...