Theory of General Minories

[Hroth]

26 minutes ago, woodenhead said:

Before I set upon a layout based in Chester I was thinking how I could do a Liverpool Central type layout - really a modellers dream layout when it was so cramped.

 

The problem with Central was that it was almost all under a glass roof, and the throat vanished sharply under the roadbridge, you'd hardly see the trains!!!

 

Chester? I suppose Northgate could be emulated with a Minories plan....

 

[Compound2632]

8 minutes ago, Hroth said:

The problem with Central was that it was almost all under a glass roof, and the throat vanished sharply under the roadbridge, you'd hardly see the trains!!!

 

Could it be modelled to be viewed at platform level, with one side wall not modelled?

[t-b-g]

This is one of my reasons for preferring to model a fictional location rather than a real one.

 

You can take something like the plan of a real station but set it in a scenic environment that shows it off to its best advantage.

 

So although my layouts are often set in real towns and cities, to make sense of services to or from other nearby places, they tend to be a fictional "what if" rather than a model of a real place.

 

A further advantage is that you I don't feel guilty about running locos and stock that never appeared where the place is set. If it is a fictional location, what is to stop the real railway bringing in stock and locos from other areas to work these extra services if the station had been built?

[Hroth]

5 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

 

Could it be modelled to be viewed at platform level, with one side wall not modelled?

 

To do that, it'd probably be best to cut away the Lewises side.

 

[woodenhead]

1 hour ago, t-b-g said:

This is one of my reasons for preferring to model a fictional location rather than a real one.

 

You can take something like the plan of a real station but set it in a scenic environment that shows it off to its best advantage.

 

So although my layouts are often set in real towns and cities, to make sense of services to or from other nearby places, they tend to be a fictional "what if" rather than a model of a real place.

 

A further advantage is that you I don't feel guilty about running locos and stock that never appeared where the place is set. If it is a fictional location, what is to stop the real railway bringing in stock and locos from other areas to work these extra services if the station had been built?

My Chester is very fictional so I can run something more than locals, though any engines are familiar to the Northwest in the 60s.

 

A third platform face also added but departing trains only so it forces a shunt on some trains, in the same vein as your pre grouping terminus.

 

The station buildings at the moment are extremely fictional though I have plans to develop towards an overhead roof in the style of the actual Northgate once I get happy with hands free uncoupling where the roof would be.

 

And I really shouldn't have been pouring over Iain Rice books looking for the Harestone plan, it's brought me back to his Navigation Sidings inglenook that I am very taken with.

[john new]

1 hour ago, t-b-g said:

This is one of my reasons for preferring to model a fictional location rather than a real one.

 

You can take something like the plan of a real station but set it in a scenic environment that shows it off to its best advantage.

 

So although my layouts are often set in real towns and cities, to make sense of services to or from other nearby places, they tend to be a fictional "what if" rather than a model of a real place.

 

A further advantage is that you I don't feel guilty about running locos and stock that never appeared where the place is set. If it is a fictional location, what is to stop the real railway bringing in stock and locos from other areas to work these extra services if the station had been built?

Agree. I have often joked that we need a fictional ‘GWR Branch-lines’ class as if all the GWR BLTs that have been modelled over the years had been built there were not enough Swindon built locos in the real world to work them. The same for coaching stock.

 

Edited October 20, 2022 by john new
Changed one word.

[t-b-g]

1 hour ago, woodenhead said:

My Chester is very fictional so I can run something more than locals, though any engines are familiar to the Northwest in the 60s.

 

A third platform face also added but departing trains only so it forces a shunt on some trains, in the same vein as your pre grouping terminus.

 

The station buildings at the moment are extremely fictional though I have plans to develop towards an overhead roof in the style of the actual Northgate once I get happy with hands free uncoupling where the roof would be.

 

And I really shouldn't have been pouring over Iain Rice books looking for the Harestone plan, it's brought me back to his Navigation Sidings inglenook that I am very taken with.

 

We manage with three link couplings on this version of Chester! A gap is left in the glazing for an uncoupler to come down from above but in the event of difficulty, the roof has a hinge at the back edge and can be lifted. The missing glazing panels are hardly noticeable in normal viewing.

 

 

 

[RJS1977]

A friend of mine has got round the problem by modelling Cannon Street in the post-war era (after the station roof was destroyed by enemy action but before it was replaced by an office block.

[Flying Pig]

2 hours ago, Hroth said:

 

The problem with Central was that it was almost all under a glass roof, and the throat vanished sharply under the roadbridge, you'd hardly see the trains!!!

 

Chester? I suppose Northgate could be emulated with a Minories plan....

 

 

A lot of trainsheds got cut back in later years due to deterioration or bomb damage, so if you're modelling post WW2 and not absolutely wedded to a prototype that shouldn't be a problem.  In fact a train shed cut right back and replacement canopies on the platforms is quite characteristic of late steam and post steam eras.  Incidentally CJF's Dugdale Road uses a short overall roof for practical reasons. 

[t-b-g]

9 minutes ago, RJS1977 said:

A friend of mine has got round the problem by modelling Cannon Street in the post-war era (after the station roof was destroyed by enemy action but before it was replaced by an office block.

 

Done that one too!

 

 

Still very much under construction but the walls are done, to indicate that there used to be an overall roof.

[Schooner]

Alternatives to inner city inspirations are available:

[Flying Pig]

31 minutes ago, t-b-g said:

 

Done that one too!

 

 

Still very much under construction but the walls are done, to indicate that there used to be an overall roof.

 

You can even demolish part of the curtain wall if need be. It all adds to the run down atmosphere if that's the kind of ambience you like. This is reminding me of Halifax King Cross which, while by no means a Minories, probably took the decayed theme as far as anyone would want to go!

Edited October 20, 2022 by Flying Pig

[Jeremy Cumberland]

41 minutes ago, t-b-g said:

 

We manage with three link couplings on this version of Chester! A gap is left in the glazing for an uncoupler to come down from above but in the event of difficulty, the roof has a hinge at the back edge and can be lifted. The missing glazing panels are hardly noticeable in normal viewing.

 

 

 

If your layout were set in an era more traditionally associated with Minories, the missing panes would be entirely prototypical.

[t-b-g]

14 minutes ago, Jeremy C said:

 

If your layout were set in an era more traditionally associated with Minories, the missing panes would be entirely prototypical.

 

Can you imagine the fallout if I updated Buckingham to post WW2 condition!

[Gilbert]

2 minutes ago, t-b-g said:

 

Can you imagine the fallout if I updated Buckingham to post WW2 condition!

I'd rather not.........

[Lacathedrale]

1 hour ago, t-b-g said:

 

We manage with three link couplings on this version of Chester! A gap is left in the glazing for an uncoupler to come down from above but in the event of difficulty, the roof has a hinge at the back edge and can be lifted. The missing glazing panels are hardly noticeable in normal viewing.

 

 

 

 

I almost gave myself an aneuryism trying to hook up screw links on my brighton coaches with tweezers - do you have a particular tool? 

[t-b-g]

Just now, Lacathedrale said:

 

I almost gave myself an aneuryism trying to hook up screw links on my brighton coaches with tweezers - do you have a particular tool? 

 

I have a number of keyring torches and pen torches with hooks attached. They are just a simple fish hook shape. We don't couple anything under the roof. We just uncouple the train loco. Any coupling on is done in the platform beyond the end of the roof.

 

I used to use three links on everything but with my eyesight not being as good as it used to be I switched to homemade Sprat and Winkle type couplings about 15 years ago. When Buckingham came my way I had to re-learn three links again but with my reading glasses on, I manage well enough.  

[New Haven Neil]

6 hours ago, Clive Mortimore said:

located on the north bank of the Tyne, using those lovely LNER articulated EMUs, of course with a connecting ferry so people can make their first steps south and to civilisation. 

 

Ah yes - South Shields!

[simon b]

4 hours ago, RJS1977 said:

A friend of mine has got round the problem by modelling Cannon Street in the post-war era (after the station roof was destroyed by enemy action but before it was replaced by an office block.

 

Any links to his layout? I'd love to see that.

[Phatbob]

I came across this topic earlier, so I thought I'd chip-in with my effort.  I drew this Minories varient a few months ago while teaching myself to use SCARM.
12 feet long scenic section, 20 inches wide and intended to run with up to 8-car multiple units and six coach loco hauled trains.  Plenty of NPCS action with a continuous parcels doc all along the back of the layout.

[Pacific231G]

On 19/10/2022 at 21:46, woodenhead said:

And TT is that much bigger?

 

It's not that small, I can't see that well myself and I'm happily playing trains in N 😀

 

 

Well yes it is signiificantly larger. Why do many modellers prefer S over both 00 or H0 and 0 scale? Sometimes the intermediate scales can seem just right. 

I inherited some British N gauge stuff (GWR mainly) when my father died and did think of using it to build a small layout. However I simply did find it too small for the way I like to relate to my miniature worlds. I do though also have some TT stock (Zeuke and Berlinerbahn) acquired for H0m and, for me that wouldn't be too small.

I know that many people are happy with N gauge and find it large enough for the way they perceive model trains fine but I'm afraid I'm not one of them. I did have  TT-3 as a youngster and it was large enough for me (though I found Tri-ang's products unsatisfactory in other respects)

Edited October 21, 2022 by Pacific231G
punctuation

[Nearholmer]

The scale/size thing is peculiar, and which one “does it” for each of us seems to be different.

 

There are the eyesight and dexterity issues that make some things simply too fiddly, but I reckon there’s also something about suspension of disbelief, or ‘convincingness’, and personally I find N/2mm unconvincing, as well as fiddly, for ‘close up’ or ‘shunty’ layouts like Minories. It works for me as “train passing through broad scenery”, and I’ve seen some wonderful broad-sweep N gauge layouts at exhibitions, but compact they definitely are not.

 

Where TT might fit in this for me personally, I don’t know, which was part of why I fancied a bash at it.

 

TBH, I think even 4mm/ft has to be done very well indeed to allow ‘convincingness’ in close-up. I get on better with 0 and ‘garden scales’, which convey ‘railwayness’ to me even without the faintest attempt to make them look photo-realistic.

 

 

Edited October 21, 2022 by Nearholmer

[Flying Pig]

1 hour ago, Nearholmer said:

I get on better with 0 and ‘garden scales’, which convey ‘railwayness’ to me even without the faintest attempt to make them look photo-realistic.

 

A good garden railway is a railway and doesn't have to pretend.  Mind, I've seen a live steam indoor BLT which was fun, so perhaps an SM32 Minories would work too...

 

8 hours ago, Pacific231G said:

Why do many modellers prefer S over both 00 or H0 and 0 scale.

 

Don't tell Hornby - they'll be wishing they'd gone for S instead, to capture all those grey pounds fleeing to 0 gauge.

 

[Pacific231G]

On 18/10/2022 at 15:05, Flying Pig said:

 

Good idea - CJF designed it for TT3 after all.  Would have to be modelled as a closed station if you wanted stay British, at least for the time being, but presumably there's suitable stock for a German or Czech (Polish? Russian?) layout?

I think Minories was designed (or at least published) to be used with the Tri-ang LMR 060Ts and suburban stock (and with Peco spiked or Gem RTL track and points) that were in the first tranche of Tri-ang's TT offering. It was after all published in RM in April 1957, the month after the edition that launched the new scale. The 060T was not perhaps the most convincing loco for an intense suburban turnover loco based service (though mine ran with three chocolate and cream WR coaches) but it was what was available.

From its dimensions the original Minories probably wasn't designed for Tri-ang's "trainset" track but rather for Peco spiked or GEM RTL Flexitrack and points.   Peco's current medium radius points are 180 mm long so a bit longer than the 15" radius and 19" radius points offered by Gem and Peco respectively in 1957 but the Minories throat would stil fit on the right hand 30" long baseboard of the original TT Minories design. I suspect though that anyone building it now in 1:120 TT using its original folding format (and not forgetting the hinge and train length concealing overbridge) would use a pair of three foot or metre long baseboards.  

[Flying Pig]

14 minutes ago, Pacific231G said:

The 060T was not perhaps the most convincing loco for an intense suburban turnover loco based service (though mine ran with three chocolate and cream WR coaches) but it was what was available.

 

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).