Theory of General Minories

[trisonic]

I agree about Finsbury Square Pete, the thread is well worth reading, and the need for a bit more variety. A few years ago Bryan Thomas invited me to operate his excellent "Newford" 0 scale layout at Watford Fine Scale. Newford was closely based on the original Minories and I did feel the need for some goods facilities to add variety. OTOH if you operate with loco hauled trains and try to run a fairly intensive service I'm told it can be quite challenging. I believe that's how the MRC team ran their EM gauge tribute layout.

 

 

I did not wish to appear hyper-critical of Minories as a plan - I’ve always liked it.  A lot of people will really enjoy it.

I think my perception of it has altered since being exposed to the USA - I would cheerfully run a freight only line!

 

From my point of view over here (and it is most certainly a sweeping point of view) I feel that the “British" (and I’m still one of you) are fixated on building layouts centered on a passenger station (real or fictional)  - I just decided that it is now not necessary...

 

I digress and I apologize.....

 

Best, Pete.

[Satan's Goldfish]

Pushing the theme then to help with variable operation; the standard minories is 2 track mainline into terminus, without increasing the throat size too much could it be turned into 2x 2 track mainlines into a terminus? Then it's a terminus serving 2x commuter routes with services to both locations having to fit around each other. Probably more of an excuse for carriage sidings on site rather than a goods yard but trip freight from 1 line to the other could be reversed in the station. Space pending, the overall plan could be terminus - balloon loop with FY - back to terminus which would also handle the 'turning trains around' issue (Below).

 

Double junction just outside the throat would be 1 way of creating the 2 lines, but that would use another couple of point lengths of space and part of the minories concept is having the 'complex' point work in the throat. So how short a point length could the 2 lines meeting at the throat and some potential of simultaneous arrivals and departures be fitted into?

 

[Satan's Goldfish]

I did not wish to appear hyper-critical of Minories as a plan - I’ve always liked it.  A lot of people will really enjoy it.

I think my perception of it has altered since being exposed to the USA - I would cheerfully run a freight only line!

 

From my point of view over here (and it is most certainly a sweeping point of view) I feel that the “British" (and I’m still one of you) are fixated on building layouts centered on a passenger station (real or fictional)  - I just decided that it is now not necessary...

 

I digress and I apologize.....

 

Best, Pete.

 

I kind of agree, i like the minories potential and i enjoy playing around with the plan. However my personal operating and viewing preference would be a layout with freight shunting to keep the operator entertained with a passing mainline for passenger services to go by 'at speed'. Stations can do a good job of 'hiding' trains, goods facilities can be arranged to leave them more visable. I think the attraction here though is the fact that most of the services run in the UK are passenger and 'at the station' is probably most peoples biggest exposure to the railways.

[Pete 75C]

Having spent some time in the States, I remember endless heavy freight but can hardly recall seeing a passenger train! The opposite is sadly true in the UK - it's just one dreary DMU after another. Spend time at almost any station and you'll wait quite a while to see a freight train, if at all. As has been said, the average Brit's preoccupation with passenger stations is probably just borne of familiarity. Anyway, with an eight foot long piece of ply, what else am I supposed to put on it...?  I do certainly agree though that some kind or freight/parcels interaction does liven up the operating process.

[leopardml2341]

Having spent some time in the States, I remember endless heavy freight but can hardly recall seeing a passenger train! The opposite is sadly true in the UK - it's just one dreary DMU after another. Spend time at almost any station and you'll wait quite a while to see a freight train, if at all. As has been said, the average Brit's preoccupation with passenger stations is probably just borne of familiarity. Anyway, with an eight foot long piece of ply, what else am I supposed to put on it...?  I do certainly agree though that some kind or freight/parcels interaction does liven up the operating process.

Something 'like' this ?

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=idawDayXf4Q

[Flying Pig]

I got to discuss Minories with CJF at one of the Chatham shows. He was rightly proud of the plan but for goods far preferred his later version with a kick back yard occupying the empty space in front of the throat.

minories with goods CJF.jpg

 

 

A slightly different treatment that gives a more generous runround at the expense goods departures being wrong-line.  I'm loathe to solve this by using Peco tandem turnouts in the throat (dotted blue line) as the radii are rather tight and it would involve one of the passenger routes, so I'd probably imagine another trailing crossover just off-scene.

 

[Pete 75C]

Something 'like' this ?

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=idawDayXf4Q

 

Yup. That's quite an impressive "piece of ply"...

[Flying Pig]

Or bite the bullet, use medium points and flip the whole lot round:

 

 

I'll shut up now and go and do the shopping...

[HeavyDuty]

Or bite the bullet, use medium points and flip the whole lot round:

 

MinoriesSep14a_wee_reverse.gif

 

I'll shut up now and go and do the shopping...

 

That could be quite wonderful using a fleet of DMUs or EMUs...

[Flying Pig]

For a post-steam layout, I'd remove the engine siding and fill in the resulting hole, which would increase the length of the bottom platform face.  I'd also demolish the goods shed and lay a couple of carriage sidings over it, perhaps with the foundations of the shed and odd patches of stone setts still poking through.  Remaining newspaper, mail and parcels would be handled in the station.  MUs would dominate of course: the platforms will easily hold a pair of two-car trains.  The atmosphere would be of general dilapidation and grot.

 

By the time Sprinterisation came along, the place would likely be heavily redeveloped or closed,.

 

 

From my point of view over here (and it is most certainly a sweeping point of view) I feel that the “British" (and I’m still one of you) are fixated on building layouts centered on a passenger station (real or fictional)  - I just decided that it is now not necessary...

 

All true, but if well imagineered, busy urban termini like Minories give a great deal of operational interest in a small space, at least as much as a shunting yard of equivalent size.  For many home users this is an significant factor.

[Enterprisingwestern]

That could be quite wonderful using a fleet of DMUs or EMUs...

 

Or boring depending on your point of view!

 

Mike.

[Joseph_Pestell]

Pushing the theme then to help with variable operation; the standard minories is 2 track mainline into terminus, without increasing the throat size too much could it be turned into 2x 2 track mainlines into a terminus? Then it's a terminus serving 2x commuter routes with services to both locations having to fit around each other. Probably more of an excuse for carriage sidings on site rather than a goods yard but trip freight from 1 line to the other could be reversed in the station. Space pending, the overall plan could be terminus - balloon loop with FY - back to terminus which would also handle the 'turning trains around' issue (Below).

 

Double junction just outside the throat would be 1 way of creating the 2 lines, but that would use another couple of point lengths of space and part of the minories concept is having the 'complex' point work in the throat. So how short a point length could the 2 lines meeting at the throat and some potential of simultaneous arrivals and departures be fitted into?

 

2x option.JPG

 

Inspired by this thread, I did do a bit of doodling for just such an arrangement (based on a City station shared between the GW and GE somewhere in the Barbican area). If one accepts that all the platforms are not accessible from all the approach tracks, the throat can still be quite short. It also depends on whether one is willing to use slips, tandems, etc. When CJF designed Minories, Peco Streamline was in its infancy with only three types of point available.

[Pacific231G]

Inspired by this thread, I did do a bit of doodling for just such an arrangement (based on a City station shared between the GW and GE somewhere in the Barbican area). If one accepts that all the platforms are not accessible from all the approach tracks, the throat can still be quite short. It also depends on whether one is willing to use slips, tandems, etc. When CJF designed Minories, Peco Streamline was in its infancy with only three types of point available.

Though I think he'd been playing around with that particular throat arrangement for a while,  Minories as a layout design was originally designed by CJF as a TT-3 terminus that would fit into five feet of length. It was first published in RM in April 1957 a month after the new scale was announced to the public (though obviously the relevant trade and editors had known for months) by Tri-ang. That does explain the very odd orignal dimension of 6ft8ins in 00. Streamline didn't arrive until the 1960s and Peco's new TT-3 range of fibre based track and 19" radius left and right hand points also announced in March 1957 was in kit form.  I assume that Freezer designed the layout around that. TT-3 never became as popular as everyone expected, especially after Arnold introduced commercial N gauge in 1962, and later published versions of Minories by CJF grew in 00 to 7ft and then to 8ft based on Streamline medium radius points.

Edited September 7, 2014 by Pacific231G

[Mutley]

I started building a Minories-type layout a few years back: http://www.rmweb.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1148  but added a couple of extra platforms, a goods siding next to the loco siding and some Carriage Sidings in front of the Fiddle Yard for a bit of added interest.  

 

I also used Medium 'Y' points to reduce the severity of the reverse curves and that seemed to work well.

 

It never got finished in the end but it was enjoyable to operate   

[kevinlms]

There was a plan for a "Minories Mk2" which included a goods shed next to the station along the lines of the one at Birmingham Moor Street. I think the plan would have been for parcels and van traffic (serving the local shops with perishables for example).

 

http://i234.photobucket.com/albums/ee199/Karhedronuk/minories4.jpg

 

 

Nice plans, but don't the MPD versions have a problem where the 2 lower platforms, are only accessible for arrivals & departures, by shuttling back & forth via platform 3?

[griffgriff]

Nice plans, but don't the MPD versions have a problem where the 2 lower platforms, are only accessible for arrivals & departures, by shuttling back & forth via platform 3?

Parcels or sundries depot methinks?

[Pacific231G]

There was a plan for a "Minories Mk2" which included a goods shed next to the station along the lines of the one at Birmingham Moor Street. I think the plan would have been for parcels and van traffic (serving the local shops with perishables for example).

 

http://i234.photobucket.com/albums/ee199/Karhedronuk/minories4.jpg

 

In a city, most bulk freight would probably have been handled at dedicated yards rather than at a station. The one exception that spings to mind would be perishables such as fish, vegetables and milk. Bottling plants were often close to stations as they needed to reach the populace quickly while the milk was still fresh. The IMS plant at Marylebone is a nice example that could easily be incorporated into a compact urban Terminus. There were 4 platforms for pasengers and 2 platforms for milk, fish and parcels.

That was one  of the two plans in Cyril Freezer's original April 1957 article. 

Birmingham Moor Street's goods depot was quite extensive and ran alongside the passenger station and I suspect this may have been the inspiration for the arrangement in CJF's second plan. On the upper level it included a large goods shed alongside the passenger platforms with two tracks running through it and two mileage sidings parallel to and behind that along with some shorter sidings. There was further goods accomodation below the goods shed served by wagon hoists. From photos it seems to have handled most types of wagon including vans, high and low sided opens (mostly sheeted). There are specific references to bananas and perishables but also to bulk petrol supplies so it does seem to have been a fairly complete goods yard handling timber and bricks as much  as perishables and sundries. The only traffic not in evidence was coal and  in large cities this was often handled in a separate yard from the main goods depot. Looking at a plan of it I also notice that Moor Street goods depot had no internal run rounds.

[Peter Kazmierczak]

The west end of Sheffield Victoria would make an interesting "throat" for a terminus.

[t-b-g]

The west end of Sheffield Victoria would make an interesting "throat" for a terminus.

 

Very interesting!

 

I had wondered about doing something similar with one end of Leicester Central but I think your idea is even better.

 

Is it just me or does it just look more railwaylike than many of the pure model plans put forward?

 

Tony

[Joseph_Pestell]

I have sketched up the Sheffield Victoria option using Trax2. I have got as close as I can with Trax2 to Peco dimensions but obviously it would be better if there were an outside slip leading to the arrival platform. Dimensions in this form 12' x 2' but there is scope to reduce at the west end. I have not been able to find a trackplan for the east end of the station yet for if one wanted to extend it as a through station (but that is taking us OT).

 

I have also added some carriage sidings rather than what I think was a simple loco spur on the original.Scan0001.pdf

[MikeHunter]

I built a very successful Minories based terminous a few years ago. You'd probably all love the location, it was built in a wine cellar when I lived in Spain. The original poster was asking about turnout sizes, my layout was 14 ft long, with a curve at the end leading to the rest of the layout. Opening the plan up by using medium radius points really improves the appearance. My total station length was around 9 ft including the station throat, and I built the wider version (with goods facilities), only replacing the goods shed with a run round loop, and then sidings alongside the running lines running away from the station. I could manage a maximum pacific plus 5 57ft coaches in the main platform, and 4 coaches in platforms 2 and 3. It was real fun to opperate. Actually too much fun, because I didn't progress the scenery very far once it was running! It was so good that I'm likely to have another go at it for my next project. CJF described Minories as deceptively simple, and I agree. The right hand side begs development of loco facilities, on my latest version, which has been scuppered by a house move, I had a siding off the loco spur leading to a turntable and loco shed. CJF did a copy in RM in the late 70s 1977 I think with loco facilities added. It used three baseboards, 1ft 6 ins wide, with the third board offset to give space for a turntable alongside the running lines. It was about 3ft 6ins per board if I remember correctly.

 

Reversing the goods facilities makes it much more viable for freight. I had a general goods siding, a coal siding, and a short siding to a small goods shed, with cattle dock at the platform end.

[Pacific231G]

I built a very successful Minories based terminous a few years ago. You'd probably all love the location, it was built in a wine cellar when I lived in Spain. The original poster was asking about turnout sizes, my layout was 14 ft long, with a curve at the end leading to the rest of the layout. Opening the plan up by using medium radius points really improves the appearance. My total station length was around 9 ft including the station throat, and I built the wider version (with goods facilities), only replacing the goods shed with a run round loop, and then sidings alongside the running lines running away from the station. I could manage a maximum pacific plus 5 57ft coaches in the main platform, and 4 coaches in platforms 2 and 3. It was real fun to opperate. Actually too much fun, because I didn't progress the scenery very far once it was running! It was so good that I'm likely to have another go at it for my next project. CJF described Minories as deceptively simple, and I agree. The right hand side begs development of loco facilities, on my latest version, which has been scuppered by a house move, I had a siding off the loco spur leading to a turntable and loco shed. CJF did a copy in RM in the late 70s 1977 I think with loco facilities added. It used three baseboards, 1ft 6 ins wide, with the third board offset to give space for a turntable alongside the running lines. It was about 3ft 6ins per board if I remember correctly.

 

 

You didn't take any photos of the layout or draw up a plan did you?  Scenery or not it sounds interesting.

Cyril Freezer's "Minories Mk II" was in the June 1976 RM and as you say he offset one baseboard so that the goods yard on the left hand board could be in front of the platforms and the stabling point with its 60 to 65 foot diameter turntable behind the essentially straight main line. He quoted the three identical baseboards as "3ft 3ins by 18 ins ", or 1m by 0.5m if you are metricated"  and it was intended as an exhibtion layout.

Apart from having three platforms with a retaining wall backing them and no releasing crossover between the two opposite platforms, it was very different from Minories. It didn't use the characteristic back to back points, required a double slip and had a far longer throat. The straight design means that trains passing from platform two and three to the down (outbound) main line do have to negotiate an unseparated crossover but I guess it could be worked with the important corridor expresses using the longest  platform one at the back and suburban and local trains on two and three. I've drawn it out with Anyrail and medium points fit easily. The turntable is 12 inch diameter so the 60-65 ft diameter in the original plan wouldn't be as tight.

 

I think CJF had based all his later versions of Minories on three foot radius but it seems anyway to have been the "standard" point size for  most modellers in the 1950s and 60s who built their own track.  

Edited September 24, 2014 by Pacific231G

[Pete 75C]

Thanks for the memory jog. I remember "Minories Mk2" but have always thought it didn't quite "gel" with the original concept. Not surprising, really, once you start to extend... Looking at the AnyRail plan above, I can't quite put my finger on it, but something's not quite right.

[Pacific231G]

Thanks for the memory jog. I remember "Minories Mk2" but have always thought it didn't quite "gel" with the original concept. Not surprising, really, once you start to extend... Looking at the AnyRail plan above, I can't quite put my finger on it, but something's not quite right.

I drew up the AnyRail version very quickly last night so may have lost something in the translation but rather agree. Though it avoids the reverse curve for platform one (the top one) it does seem to me to lack the elegance of the original Minories. I'm not sure if that's because of the way the two main platforms branch off the main line- though John Charman did that with Charford in single track-  or because the TT rather dominates the centre of the layout. The TT in the original plan was smaller at about 10 ins- a 12 inch TT was the smallest I could find in AnyRail- so maybe that's a bit overemphasised in my rendering. Also would a real terminus really have the ashpits of its stabling point quite that close to the main passenger platform for the "Top Hat" trains? 

The other thing I don't like is the double slip. A lot of people have suggested that Minories mk 1 was constrained by the pointwork then available off the shelf but I think it's maybe more relevant that in those days far more modellers built their own track and a simple turnout is a lot easier to build than a more complex formation ( At the time that Minories was first published Peco were selling kits for points rather than RTL)

 

OTOH  If you have a bit more length - and this was designed as an exhibition layout- there are advantages in a longer throat so that you actually see a bit of main line running before trains disappear into the fiddle yard and the three tracks running up to the platform ends might help with the general sense of busyness. The goods arrangements are also perhaps rather better. The great advantage of Minories mk 1 is that it enables a main line terminus in minimum space, especially the length that is the real issue in most of our homes, but a couple of feet wouldn't make that much difference at an exhibition.

I'd be interested to know whether anyone actually built this layout and if so how it looked in practice. 

[Karhedron]

I'd be interested to know whether anyone actually built this layout and if so how it looked in practice.

In 2007 there was a competition to build Minories based layouts which produced some stunning entries and shows just how adaptable the basic layout is. You can see the top entries here.

 

http://www.newrailwaymodellers.co.uk/Forums/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=23304#p287782