Theory of General Minories

[t-b-g]

12 minutes ago, Flying Pig said:

 

Not necessary, as I pointed out in my previous post: the tracks could be brought to normal spacing within the first quarter turn, without using less than the minimum radius.  It might also be possible to start merging tracks on the curve to reduce the complexity of the fiddle yard.

 

I understand your dislike of layouts in which offstage space exceeds the modelled area, but they are far from uncommon and arguably the norm for large circuits.

 

I am sure you are right but it isn't an arrangement that I would choose to build.

 

[RJS1977]

My principal dislike (at shows) for layouts where the offstage area dwarfs the modelled area is that the length of time a train is "out front" is much less than the length of time when it is moving offstage.

 

That said, even if the scenery was carried on round, you might only be able to see the train for a short period of time when stood in a given position.

 

Obviously if there are multiple tracks, then the average wait to see a train is reduced, unless of course, they cross right in front of you!

[Compound2632]

13 minutes ago, RJS1977 said:

My principal dislike (at shows) for layouts where the offstage area dwarfs the modelled area is that the length of time a train is "out front" is much less than the length of time when it is moving offstage.

 

The trick is to express an interest in the stock and get yourself invited round the back for a closer look!

[Pacific231G]

I'm afraid that I've yet to see a layout that isn't selectively compressed that has, to my mind at least, actually benefitted from it. Even Plumpton Green, a layout that I admire greatly, just seems longer than it needs to be for the operations carried out. I can see the attraction of knowing that you'd modelled everything exactly to scale but I don't think it's ideal for a model railway. 

 

I think this is partly to do with perception and the the way we view a model scene compared to how we view the equivalent scene in reality but it does perhaps also relate to Alfred Hitchcock's (validated) quote “What is drama but life with the dull bits cut out.”

In a sense, what we are doing with a working model railway is dramatising a real working railway so perhaps we also need to cut out most of the long boring bits. If you make a film about an operating railway you'd never leave in the majority of the time when nothing was happening and I think that sort of compression in time also applies, though perhaps to a smaller extent, to compression of distance and even the length of trains.

 

[Compound2632]

10 hours ago, Pacific231G said:

Even Plumpton Green, a layout that I admire greatly, just seems longer than it needs to be for the operations carried out.

 

A very fine layout. But I think that being larger than it needs to be for the operations carried out is an entirely authentic representation of the majority of wayside stations!

[Aire Head]

On 23/06/2022 at 09:47, Regularity said:

Using hand-built track, or possibly some Tillig RTP, you can produce a much more visually satisfying look with a double slip, outside single slip, a “three-way” and a trap point:

 

If space wasn't an issue you could go full Bradford Forster Square where everyone gets a scissor! 🤪

 

[Pacific231G]

2 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

 

A very fine layout. But I think that being larger than it needs to be for the operations carried out is an entirely authentic representation of the majority of wayside stations!

That's true, but how much longer does it need to be to give that impression of space?

For example, taking three examples from Paul Karau's book, Tetbury - a good example of a small GW branch terminus- was about 20 chains or 1200ft  long so, in 4mm scale, would require a length of about sixteeen feet just to model the station. Lambourn was about 14 chains long and even Watlington, one of the smallest of BLTs,  was 10 chains long and at both termini you'd need to use the main line to shunt the goods yard. So, for a scale model of even Watlington, you'd be looking at perhaps eleven feet plus a fiddle yard.  

Local goods trains seem to have been between about eight and thirty wagons long  (probably on the high end of that in pre-grouping times when everythng that went anywhere did so by rail) and local goods sidings could certainly hold twenty or more wagons but, if you reduced that by say a third would you lose any of the impression of a well spread out country goods yard?

 

Of course, there may be great satisfaction in modelling a complete location to exact scale and running trains with completely authentic formations but I'd argue that, to recreate that location as a scene, judicious editing is generally preferable.

   

Edited June 28, 2022 by Pacific231G

[Compound2632]

18 minutes ago, Pacific231G said:

That's true, but how much longer does it need to be to give that impression of space?

 

I don't disagree with any of that analysis. But having seen Plumpton Green most recently at ExpoEM, I'd say there's a further factor: it needs that length to accommodate the crowd of onlookers, allowing space for the signalman/operator at the front.

[RJS1977]

32 minutes ago, Pacific231G said:

That's true, but how much longer does it need to be to give that impression of space?

For example, taking three examples from Paul Karau's book, Tetbury - a good example of a small GW branch terminus- was about 20 chains or 1200ft  long so, in 4mm scale, would require a length of about sixteeen feet just to model the station. Lambourn was about 14 chains long and even Watlington, one of the smallest of BLTs,  was 10 chains long and at both termini you'd need to use the main line to shunt the goods yard. So, for a scale model of even Watlington, you'd be looking at perhaps eleven feet plus a fiddle yard.  

Local goods trains seem to have been between about eight and thirty wagons long  (probably on the high end of that in pre-grouping times when everythng that went anywhere did so by rail) and local goods sidings could certainly hold twenty or more wagons but, if you reduced that by say a third would you lose any of the impression of a well spread out country goods yard?

 

Of course, there may be great satisfaction in modelling a complete location to exact scale and running trains with completely authentic formations but I'd argue that, to recreate that location as a scene, judicious editing is generally preferable.

   

 

Or, for another terminus I'm familiar with:

 

The current Wallingford (C&WR) is 375m (17 chains) from buffer stop to the end of the points at the station throat. Under current shunt/release operation(*) we need to use one of our 08s to pull up to three coaches clear of the points with enough space to allow the train engine to enter one of the sidings. So that's another chain for each coach, and say half a chain for each of the train engine and the 08 - 21 chains in total.

 

* Shunt release is normally used when running steam to ensure every departure leaves steam hauled. When running with the home diesel fleet, a new diesel attaches on the rear of the coaches and takes the next train out, so less space is needed to model this. As an alternative, sometimes we top and tail, and at some point in the next year or so we hope to install a run-round loop to eliminate shunt release.

 

My own model of the station only comes partway down the platform and so shunt-release takes place 'off stage'!

[The Stationmaster]

33 minutes ago, Pacific231G said:

That's true, but how much longer does it need to be to give that impression of space?

For example, taking three examples from Paul Karau's book, Tetbury - a good example of a small GW branch terminus- was about 20 chains or 1200ft  long so, in 4mm scale, would require a length of about sixteeen feet just to model the station. Lambourn was about 14 chains long and even Watlington, one of the smallest of BLTs,  was 10 chains long and at both termini you'd need to use the main line to shunt the goods yard. So, for a scale model of even Watlington, you'd be looking at perhaps eleven feet plus a fiddle yard.  

Local goods trains seem to have been between about eight and thirty wagons long  (probably on the high end of that in pre-grouping times when everythng that went anywhere did so by rail) and local goods sidings could certainly hold twenty or more wagons but, if you reduced that by say a third would you lose any of the impression of a well spread out country goods yard?

 

Of course, there may be great satisfaction in modelling a complete location to exact scale and running trains with completely authentic formations but I'd argue that, to recreate that location as a scene, judicious editing is generally preferable.

   

You make it sound rather unusual about having to use the mainline to shunt the goods yard.  As that was the way it was done in the overwhelming majority of places, including most branch termini, it doesn't sound at all unusual to me.  But to portray it in a better way it does mean even many a branch terminus layout needs a degree of 'open-country-ness' to create the shunting space and not keep shuttling into and out of the hidden sidings (or shunt very short trains).

 

Thus the idea if a 'spacious' layout for a very simple, or typical track layout isn't. as daft as it might sound and selective compression can allow it to be achieved to soem extent.  It all depends what you intend to achieve and to portray.  But we should never forget that one thing we cannot really portray is the shunting time needed to deal with most freight trains because even the best couplings available to the modeller still cannot reproduce real life freight shunting, particularly the pace at which it was usually carried out.

[RJS1977]

One thought on not using the fiddle yard to shunt - at many locations it's not physically possible to see the whole move at once. To be able to see sufficient of the line side-on to observe the whole move, you would need to be some distance from the track (other side of an adjacent field). It is/was quite a common occurrence for a train to disappear behind a building or other obstruction, or under an overbridge.

[Pacific231G]

4 hours ago, The Stationmaster said:

You make it sound rather unusual about having to use the mainline to shunt the goods yard.  As that was the way it was done in the overwhelming majority of places, including most branch termini, it doesn't sound at all unusual to me.  But to portray it in a better way it does mean even many a branch terminus layout needs a degree of 'open-country-ness' to create the shunting space and not keep shuttling into and out of the hidden sidings (or shunt very short trains).

 

Thus the idea if a 'spacious' layout for a very simple, or typical track layout isn't. as daft as it might sound and selective compression can allow it to be achieved to soem extent.  It all depends what you intend to achieve and to portray.  But we should never forget that one thing we cannot really portray is the shunting time needed to deal with most freight trains because even the best couplings available to the modeller still cannot reproduce real life freight shunting, particularly the pace at which it was usually carried out.

Not at all unusual. I agree completely that it was the norm rather than the exception so, unless one is happy to shunt into the fiddle yard, that makes a full scale model with an adequate approach even longer. That being so then selective compression  becomes even more necessary.  My real point though is that even if you could reproduce every inch of the prototype to strict scale I think the result would give less sense of actually being there than a suitably condensed interpretation. What constitutes suitably is of course for the artist (i.e. modeller) to determine and most of us probably end up compressing reality a bit too far.   

 

[t-b-g]

I don't have too much of a concern about trains going "off scene" to shunt as long as the scenic treatment is arranged in such a way that the view is blocked. Out of preference, it looks better to me if at least some of what is being shunted remains visible and I have never found layouts where the shunting goes into the fiddle yard from one track and re-appears on another very convincing either.

 

The fairly common "half station" arrangement where the run round is completed in the fiddle yard somehow just doesn't work for me, although I know it is popular with others. I did design a layout once with a crossover between two tracks on a traverser fiddle yard, so that once in the station, the train could be shunted conventionally, without using the traverser again. It never went any further than a sketch.

 

This is the sort of area where I find that modelling a fictitious location scores over modelling a real one. You can invent an overbridge or a big building to disguise the fact that the shunt is going into a fiddle yard. Very few real places have the necessary view blockers in the right places.

 

A short length of running line before the trains enter the fiddle yard can look good but although it adds something visually, it doesn't really increase the operational potential and there are some of us who would rather add a bit of extra length to sidings and trains, or sneak in a loco shed or an extra operational feature if we had an extra 4ft to play with! 

[TomJ]

This thread seems to be as good a place as any to ask!

If adding a goods shed where do people think it looks best? CJFs original design alongside the platforms - al la Moor Street? Could help disguise short platforms? Or the later design where it’s a kickback opposite the station throat?

 

Opinions welcome!

[Regularity]

Entirely depends on your sources of inspiration, and the (presumed, if you are inventing somewhere completely fictitious) topography of the surrounding area. This will be further driven by other matters such as if you need access to platform ends, how you are going to operate points and signals, and what sort of couplings you are using.

The only person who knows what looks best for you, is you.

[Pacific231G]

12 hours ago, TomJ said:

This thread seems to be as good a place as any to ask!

If adding a goods shed where do people think it looks best? CJFs original design alongside the platforms - al la Moor Street? Could help disguise short platforms? Or the later design where it’s a kickback opposite the station throat?

 

Opinions welcome!

I've long suspected that the goods version of CJF's original April 1957 design was a very last minute addition to the basic commuter terminus that I think he'd been working up for a while. Minories was published primarily as a  folding five foot long TT-3 plan the month after Tri-ang 's launch of the new scale and the goods version enabled the wagons in the initital very limited range to be used alongside the suburban coaches.

The two problems with it were first that access to the goods shed involved an awkward zig zag from platform three, which effectively became the goods reception road, and second that the goods warehouse completely hid the passenger platforms under the train shed. You could get round the latter problem by either shortening both the train shed and the goods shed  to give the impression that they go back further or by making the goods sidings into mileage sidings without a shed though the latter does seem less likely for such a terminus in reality.

I personally favour the kickback arrangement and have seen it used on a number of Minories based layouts.

CJF used it in all later versions of Minories that included a goods yard and it does have advantages. It doesn't hide the trains in the platforms.  it uses the otherwise dead triangle in front of the throat* so doesn't require a much wider baseboard at the terminus end. The goods warehouse can act as a view blocker for the main line entry to the fiddle yard. That also makes CJF's suggested road bridge between the throat and the main platforms, which I think is important in disguising the shortness of the station, far more credible. The disadvantages are that a kickback is a less  typical arrangement for a goods yard and, unless a run round is contrived,   would need two locos to handle a goods train (though so does the original scheme)

 

 

*In the original Minories, CJF used a tapered board for the throat end. That always seemed a very neat way of avoiding the dead space in front of the throat but I've not seen anybody else use it- we do seem unduly addicted to rectangular baseboards.

[KingEdwardII]

14 hours ago, TomJ said:

If adding a goods shed

Having a goods shed in a bay next to a platform is quite common in smaller stations - the branch from Yatton to Witham via Wells had quite a number of them, e.g. Axbridge.

 

Where you have a larger station - and larger goods yard - then it becomes more common to find the goods shed away from the station somewhere in the goods yard. Aberystwyth was like that, for example.

 

Yours, Mike.

[RJS1977]

54 minutes ago, Pacific231G said:

*In the original Minories, CJF used a tapered board for the throat end. That always seemed a very neat way of avoiding the dead space in front of the throat but I've not seen anybody else use it- we do seem unduly addicted to rectangular baseboards.

 

I suspect the reason for the "addiction" is largely because having all baseboards the same shape/size makes them much easier to stack for storage/transport.

[Pacific231G]

35 minutes ago, RJS1977 said:

 

I suspect the reason for the "addiction" is largely because having all baseboards the same shape/size makes them much easier to stack for storage/transport.

If you look at the original Minories plan, it was a foldover baseboard, so compact for storage and transport, but the throat half was tapered. An entirely  tapered baseboard can also be folded horizontally to  produce a rectangular box that, when opened, gives greater width at the terminus end where you generally need it and less at the throat where you generally don't (My own current layout is built that way and it has a number of advantages). In the case of Minories the tapered throat would also make that part of the layout lighter, Since it includes all the pointwork and associated motors, linkages and wiring, that would make it easier to fold over to work on the wiring etc. under the baseboard. 

Though I think the first goods version of Minories may have been a bit of an afterthought, the actual passenger Minories was obviously extremely well thought through in every aspect. Having come up with the ingenious arrangement of points that characterises it, Cyril Freezer clearly put a lot  of extra time and effort into perfecting the plan. From the design of the overall roof and the road bridge that hides the hinge towers and disguises just how short for a "mainline" terminus it really is, to  the projection he used for the plan to make it easier to visualise, that original article is well worth studying.  

Edited June 29, 2022 by Pacific231G

[Miss Prism]

I too thought the goods version of Minories was a not particularly well-thought out addition. Also, CJF's goods shed was distinctly 'country  branchline style'. Better, in my view, is the kind of urban shed exemplified by Mikkel's Farthing:

 

 

[KingEdwardII]

3 hours ago, Miss Prism said:

CJF's goods shed was distinctly 'country  branchline style'.

Yes, that is a good point. Small goods sheds went with small country stations - where there was a limited amount of business. Minories is supposedly a busy (sub)urban kind of place and the expectation would be that any goods business would be substantial and demand suitably large facilities.

 

Aberystwyth is a modest town even today, but the goods yard was bigger than the 5 platform passenger terminus and the goods shed was a substantial building.

http://www.archive-images.co.uk/gallery/Archive-Colour-Images-of-the-Railways-of-Cardigans/image/3/

 

Minories without goods facilities simply implies that the passenger & goods facilities were physically separate, as they sometimes were.

 

Yours, Mike.

[Regularity]

My memory of CJF’s goods shed was a two-road shed with central platform, of some length compared to a branchline goods shed, such as would be used for deliveries to the local shops. For a terminus in a major city, this traffic would arrive in a variety of opens, vans and NPCS, with the wagons at least coming from quite a few companies even before traffic pooling. It would also be worked outside of the rush hours, as during quieter periods, only two or even one or the platforms would be required for passenger trains.

[Nearholmer]

I’ve always suspected that the Met Railway goods depot at Vine Street, served from the outer road of the circle line, just west of Farringdon, might have been the inspiration.

 

The real thing was very compact, one track either side of a central platform, each able to take only seven wagons, with all the goods going up in lifts to the upper floor, which had a loading bay for lorries at street level.

 

That depot served not only shops, but the small industries that were based just to the north, and lots of offices, and handled 25 000 tons of goods in a year at its peak in 1915.

 

This suspicion is consistent with the fact that Minories was inspired by the Met at Liverpool Street.

 

Even if I’m wrong about this, if I were to build Minories, I’d use the ‘kick back’ option for the goods depot, and copy Vine Street quite closely,

 

 

 

The basic structure of the goods shed later became a lift and escalator stores and repair depot, and more recently was rebuilt as a traction substation, and you can see it on the left in this picture, taken looking east.

 

Edited June 29, 2022 by Nearholmer

[Pacific231G]

7 hours ago, KingEdwardII said:

Yes, that is a good point. Small goods sheds went with small country stations - where there was a limited amount of business. Minories is supposedly a busy (sub)urban kind of place and the expectation would be that any goods business would be substantial and demand suitably large facilities.

 

Aberystwyth is a modest town even today, but the goods yard was bigger than the 5 platform passenger terminus and the goods shed was a substantial building.

http://www.archive-images.co.uk/gallery/Archive-Colour-Images-of-the-Railways-of-Cardigans/image/3/

 

Minories without goods facilities simply implies that the passenger & goods facilities were physically separate, as they sometimes were.

 

Yours, Mike.

That's not necessarily so Mike. Ramsgate Sands was a busy passenger terminus. especially for holiday and tripper traffic   but it had a very small two road goods yard tucked between the terminus and the cliffs behind that I assume served just the harbour and beachfront area. 

 

I thnk there was a small goods shed and it also seems to have handled coal, possibly for the fishing fleet and local guest houses etc. 

 

The main goods depot of a mainline railway associated with its major terminus would indeed be large, as at Paddington or Bishopsgate (Liverpool St), and probably separated somewhat from the passenger terminus. However, a fairly large terminus could ocassionally have a relatively  small goods yard serving just the local needs of the district the terminus happened to be in while the passenger terminus served the whole city.

Though it's not in Britain, there was a particularly good example of this at the St. Paul station in Lyon where a busy five platform passenger terminus handled mainly commuter traffic  but with a relatively small goods shed and yard alongside it even though the city's main (and very large)  goods yards were elsewhere. 

 

I think that in a large city, and possibly also at Ramsgate Sands, such a local yard would probably be served by trip workings rather than being a destination/origin of longer distance goods trains.

Alternative approaches are to use a kickback goods yard but assume that it's one end of a much larger yard stretching back alongside the main line or to make the goods sidings not a goods yard as such but rather the exchange sidings for a line serving  docks or local industries. 

 

[Flying Pig]

11 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

I’ve always suspected that the Met Railway goods depot at Vine Street, served from the outer road of the circle line, just west of Farringdon, might have been the inspiration.

 

Visible on the Metropolitan Railway 1933 map here: https://www.harsig.org/Metropolitan.php

 

7 hours ago, Pacific231G said:

Alternative approaches are to use a kickback goods yard but assume that it's one end of a much larger yard stretching back alongside the main line or to make the goods sidings not a goods yard as such but rather the exchange sidings for a line serving  docks or local industries. 

 

Modelling the 'dead' end of a yard is an idea I've been mulling over for years.  It has the advantage that trains can arrive suggested by the loco and first few wagons, so much longer trains can be implied than space or available stock can accommodate.  Much of the action is releasing incoming engines, which could be anything up to a 9F or a Pacific on the fish empties, but I would also want to include some local spots for shunting. 

 

Similar arrangements have of course been suggested and even built previously in both goods and passenger form (see upthread, probably). Morfa Bank Sidings is one that springs to mind though that has an extensive onstage system springing from the yard. North Shields was a big inspiration, but that is modelled at the entrance to the yard, so requires full trains to be modelled.

 

The loco release would ideally run alongside the passenger station to give the spotters a thrill or two, but I don't think the suggested large freight yard really fits the inner urban Minories theme so we're drifting a bit here.  A single platform in a rather windswept location smelling of fish, chemicals and coal dust is more the thing.