Theory of General Minories

[thegreenhowards]

As far as I’m concerned, my favourite type of layout is very different depending on whether I’m viewing or operating.
 

For operating, a terminus style layout with plenty of shunting/ loco movements etc. is ideal. I prefer mainline or Minories style termini to BLTs as I like to see decent length trains - the longer the better. My club’s O gauge Minories style layout will be (just) capable of taking a full 8 car quad art set which I regarded as the minimum credible length.

 

However for viewing at an exhibition I like plenty of action and I love to see lots of locos and rolling stock. So the Stoke Summit style layout is my ideal with trains based on prototypical formations. Perhaps even better than that are the likes if Grantham or LSGC which offer the same parade of trains but with some shunting on top.

 

I’m operating Two Bridges up sidings at the Bexhill show on Saturday. This is a classic roundy roundy with little shunting possibility apart from an occasional loco change. I think I will need plenty of breaks from operating! Hopefully, it will be popular.

 

Andy

[Zomboid]

I think my ideal would be a system type layout, where I'd have the full length of a light railway or US style short line, where I'd then run the daily mixed train, stopping to shunt the various industries and sidings along the way.

 

I think that would be highly unpopular at an exhibition though, with one train pottering around on a 60' layout...

[Pacific231G]

2 hours ago, JohnR said:

For some reason I've got a hankering to do a Minories as originally intended - in TT using the Triang Jinty and suburban coaches. Has anyone else done this?

I don't think I've ever seen that done and it sounds like an excellent idea. Cyril Freezer reckoned that it would require 4-6 locos to run the intensive service that would be its key.   You could follow his original plan to the letter (though to avoid trains lurching rather than snaking through the throat I think I'd use rather longer turnouts rather than the 15" radius points that Peco were offering for Individualy and Wren were offering RTL when TT-3 first appeared )  

You could even follow CJF's idea of simply using a balloon reversing loop (with a couple of section breaks)  rather than a fiddle yard on the basis that one tank loco with a set of suburban coaches looks much the same as another and a solo operator could focus on operating the terminus rather than spending half their time with the fiddle yard*

 

ISTR a 3mm/ft scale Minories at Ally Pally a few years ago when there were several Minories in the show but that may be my memory playing tricks.

The late Colin Cook's Shepherd's Bush- GWR  (6ft scenic+ 3ft sector plate fiddle yard)  was closely based on the original goods version of Minories but a miscalculation of turnout lengths led to it having only a single track throat but I've never quite figured out how that happened.

 

 

 

 

The layout was based on the planned terminus of the GWR's Ealing and Shepherds Bush railway that would have had a subway connection with the Central London Railway's then terminus. In the end the GWR decided that it could achieve a better connection to the West End and City by granting running powers to the CLR into Ealing Broadway station. After much delay that happened and is now the Central Line from White City to Ealing Broadway.

 

*I do know of a French modeller, Daniel Combrexelle,  who effectively did that with a model of Paris Bastille-about which he also wrote the best researched book-  equipping some fairly ancient Hornby Acho 131TB Prairie tanks with DCC. He actually used a low level dogbone to wihch the two roads from the terminus connected and which alwso gave him a continuous run.

 

[Regularity]

33 minutes ago, Pacific231G said:

The late Colin Cook's Shepherd's Bush- GWR  (6ft scenic+ 3ft sector plate fiddle yard)  was closely based on the original goods version of Minories but a miscalculation of turnout lengths led to it having only a single track throat but I've never quite figured out how that happened.

It could have had a double track approach, but with only two platforms accessible to arriving trains, requiring some pilot working to get coaches across to the “departure only” platform, which would have gingered things up a bit!

[Nearholmer]

There’s discussion of Minories and universal pointwork spread across a couple of threads currently.

 

Here are pictures of David Holt’s absolutely beautiful retro-Minories, showing Wrenn Universal track. This layout really is worth travelling to see when he brings it to TCS meetings; a true nostalgia-fest, with all ‘period’ rolling stock and accessories.

 

 

 

[JohnR]

7 hours ago, Pacific231G said:

I don't think I've ever seen that done and it sounds like an excellent idea. Cyril Freezer reckoned that it would require 4-6 locos to run the intensive service that would be its key.   You could follow his original plan to the letter (though to avoid trains lurching rather than snaking through the throat I think I'd use rather longer turnouts rather than the 15" radius points that Peco were offering for Individualy and Wren were offering RTL when TT-3 first appeared )  

You could even follow CJF's idea of simply using a balloon reversing loop (with a couple of section breaks)  rather than a fiddle yard on the basis that one tank loco with a set of suburban coaches looks much the same as another and a solo operator could focus on operating the terminus rather than spending half their time with the fiddle yard*

 

 

I'm afraid I don't have the space for a return loop, it was the idea of a small folding box layout that appealed. 

 

I suppose N would be even smaller, and with a wider range of RTR stuff to run.

[Pacific231G]

13 hours ago, Zomboid said:

I think my ideal would be a system type layout, where I'd have the full length of a light railway or US style short line, where I'd then run the daily mixed train, stopping to shunt the various industries and sidings along the way.

 

I think that would be highly unpopular at an exhibition though, with one train pottering around on a 60' layout...

It's interesting that Maurice Deane's Culm Valley Branch, from the early 1950s was just that and in a very modest space.  The line ran from sidings representing the junction (but fully modelled and with a run round etc. so not "fiddle sidings" as such) to Uffculme, Culmstock and finally Hemyock with each station's trackplan faithfully reproduced. It was a saucepan shaped layout on a main holllow baseboard of 6ft 6ins by 6ft with a 4ft 6in extension accomodating Hemyock.

[Clive Mortimore]

On 10/08/2021 at 23:56, t-b-g said:

 

If I had the space to model a main line with 14 coach trains, I wouldn't want to do it!

 

Hi Tony

 

When viewing Sheffield Exchange Mk2 a visitor commented, "would an 8 platform station have such short trains? " after he had commented on how much space there was to move around the layout. Afterwards I had a ponder on his comment, if they could take a 14 coach train would the operation be any different? No, I would just have longer platforms with nothing on them. An 8 car DMU fills all platforms, and it looks good when crossing the station throat, so to me that is long enough, any longer and the illusion would not be any different.

Edited August 12, 2021 by Clive Mortimore

[t-b-g]

19 minutes ago, Clive Mortimore said:

Hi Tony

 

When viewing Sheffield Exchange Mk2 a visitor commented, "would an 8 platform station have such short trains? " after he had commented on how much space there was to move around the layout. Afterwards I had a ponder on his comment, if they could take a 14 coach train would the operation be any different? No, I would just have longer platforms with nothing on them. An 8 car DMU fills all platforms, and it looks good when crossing the station throat, so to me that is long enough, any longer and the illusion would not be any different.

 

I agree entirely. Given unlimited space and resources, I still wouldn't want 14 coach trains!

 

In model form, they just don't look as good to me as shorter trains. For a main line long distance train, many real ones were 7 or 8 carriages long and it was only a very few exceptions and in many cases only for short periods of railway history, that these monster 12 or 14 coach trains ran anywhere. Even then, unless you are modelling one of a tiny number of main lines, which actually represent a tiny proportion of all the trains that ran, a 14 coach train is very untypical.

[t-b-g]

9 hours ago, Pacific231G said:

It's interesting that Maurice Deane's Culm Valley Branch, from the early 1950s was just that and in a very modest space.  The line ran from sidings representing the junction (but fully modelled and with a run round etc. so not "fiddle sidings" as such) to Uffculme, Culmstock and finally Hemyock with each station's trackplan faithfully reproduced. It was a saucepan shaped layout on a main holllow baseboard of 6ft 6ins by 6ft with a 4ft 6in extension accomodating Hemyock.

 

One of my favourites of that type was Jas Millham's lovely S gauge "Yaxbury". I saw it at a show once or twice and although relatively small, the concept of having three stations with a train working along the branch really worked well. It too had no real fiddle yard, just a partly modelled junction with the branch platform and an exchange siding for goods traffic for the branch. I watched it for ages and was fascinated by the way it was operated.

[Flying Pig]

7 minutes ago, t-b-g said:

 

One of my favourites of that type was Jas Millham's lovely S gauge "Yaxbury". I saw it at a show once or twice and although relatively small, the concept of having three stations with a train working along the branch really worked well. It too had no real fiddle yard, just a partly modelled junction with the branch platform and an exchange siding for goods traffic for the branch. I watched it for ages and was fascinated by the way it was operated.

 

I remember watching that layout at a show in Bletchley with friends and we practically had to be kicked out at closing time.  Apart from the scenic beauties (some pictures of a later version here), the junction at Bishop's Yaxford had already appeared in MRJ and greatly impressed me.

 

A variant in the whole branch scheme I sometimes ponder has the branch passenger train terminating in the bay of a large station with the fiddle yard hidden in a train shed.  One incidental advantage of this is that the large engines that folk can't resist acquiring, but have no place on branch line, could convincingly potter around the bays of a moderate sized station.

 

Alternatively, you could arrange the layout in Maurice Dean style to allow for continuous running when the mood struck, though losing the modelled branch terminus.

[Pacific231G]

21 hours ago, Regularity said:

21 hours ago, Pacific231G said:

The late Colin Cook's Shepherd's Bush- GWR  (6ft scenic+ 3ft sector plate fiddle yard)  was closely based on the original goods version of Minories but a miscalculation of turnout lengths led to it having only a single track throat but I've never quite figured out how that happened.

It could have had a double track approach, but with only two platforms accessible to arriving trains, requiring some pilot working to get coaches across to the “departure only” platform, which would have gingered things up a bit!

I agree and Geoff Ashdown's EM Tower Pier is a bit like that though it's platform two that is departures only and I have happily spent hours watching that in operation. Apart from paltform two it's operationally equivalent to Minories though with a straight in throat.

 

This is as close to Geoff's plan as I could get with RTL Streamline in the same 2+1 metre length (though 26 & 30 in the goods area are actually interlaced crossovers and not a double slip)

 

With Shepherd's Bush I think I'd have put in at least a dummy second track by inserting a trailing point beneath the facing point at the entrance. I suspect Colin was building it for an exhibtion and when the plan went wrong with his handlaid pointwork just stuck with what he had.

 

Had the real Shepherd's Bush actually have been built I suspect it would have been at street level and probably not unlike the Hammersmith terminus of the Hammersmith and City line which, with three platforms and a retaining wall at the back still has a decidedly Minories feel about it (especially so when Steam on the Met was there) and I'd bet Cyril Freezer was familiar with it. It even still has some GWR platform seats.  

 

[KingEdwardII]

1 hour ago, t-b-g said:

a 14 coach train is very untypical.

I agree with that - most trains on the main lines were not that kind of size. But they did exist - and on the GWR, the King class locos were created for them. If I had the space and finances to model somewhere like Taunton or Newbury, a full sized Cornish Riviera would certainly be part of my agenda, even though all the other trains would be much shorter.

 

Yours, Mike.

 

PS Just to make fans of the other grouping railways feel at home - I have a picture in front of me with a 15 coach "Flying Scotsman" thundering up the ECML in the mid 1930s. I suppose the modern equivalents are the Eurostar 16 car formations that ply between London and Paris or Brussels - and they run many times every day.

[Flying Pig]

34 minutes ago, Pacific231G said:

I agree and Geoff Ashdown's EM Tower Pier is a bit like that though it's platform two that is departures only and I have happily spent hours watching that in operation. Apart from paltform two it's operationally equivalent to Minories though with a straight in throat

 

Another strength of Tower Pier is a variety of trains run to a number of different off-scene destinations.  This costs nothing in terms of layout size or complexity, just a little imagination, but imo adds greatly to the interest of a simple terminus. Of course you may need to acquire more trains, but that doesn't seem to be a burden to most of us.

 

Many well known layouts work like this, but it first struck me when I saw the MRJ article about Borchester Mk1.  There was a short bay platform in the station which appeared in two photos, once with a DMU and once with a N1 tank and a couple of carriages, each captioned as having a different destination, in this case real places in the East Midlands.  Actually, I think a fictitious station in a real hinterland is probably my favourite arrangement.

[Regularity]

2 hours ago, Clive Mortimore said:

An 8 car DMU fills all platforms, and it looks good when crossing the station throat, so to me that is long enough, any longer and the illusion would not be any different.

Real stations were built to cope with the longest possible/likely train, but with unit trains and limitations on how many units can be controlled in multiple, they would be shorter if built new - as rebuilds often are, in fact.

This makes complete sense to me, and if you wished to show a train that was shorter than the platform, then a 6- or 7- car DMU is always possible.

I can’t recall, but is the make-up and splitting of DMUs part of your operating pattern? 

1 hour ago, t-b-g said:

One of my favourites of that type was Jas Millham's lovely S gauge "Yaxbury". I saw it at a show once or twice and although relatively small, the concept of having three stations with a train working along the branch really worked well. It too had no real fiddle yard, just a partly modelled junction with the branch platform and an exchange siding for goods traffic for the branch. I watched it for ages and was fascinated by the way it was operated.

I have been privileged enough to operate it at a couple of exhibitions before it was retired to Jas’ loft. It has since been expanded to have two levels, and looks really good. Which reminds me, I must arrange to see it in the flesh.

The other feature of this layout, as with, for example (I presume, from video footage) Buckingham is that it works, and works reliably and well.

21 minutes ago, Flying Pig said:

Another strength of Tower Pier is a variety of trains run to a number of different off-scene destinations. 

The power of fiddle yards!

Quote

Actually, I think a fictitious station in a real hinterland is probably my favourite arrangement.

Back to Buckingham and Yaxbury…

23 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

Here are pictures of David Holt’s absolutely beautiful retro-Minories, showing Wrenn Universal track. This layout really is worth travelling to see when he brings it to TCS meetings; a true nostalgia-fest, with all ‘period’ rolling stock and accessories.

That is truly wonderful.

[Clive Mortimore]

42 minutes ago, Regularity said:

Real stations were built to cope with the longest possible/likely train, but with unit trains and limitations on how many units can be controlled in multiple, they would be shorter if built new - as rebuilds often are, in fact.

This makes complete sense to me, and if you wished to show a train that was shorter than the platform, then a 6- or 7- car DMU is always possible.

I can’t recall, but is the make-up and splitting of DMUs part of your operating pattern? 

 

Hi Reg

 

The 8 car train is the maximum. The layout looks just as good with a couple of two car units looking very lonely at the buffer stop ends, like a run down soon to close station.

 

I can make-up and split DMUs, provided the coach with the motor is within the isolating section used to isolate locos on incoming hauled trains. A DC minor problem, but as it is something I do very rarely so I can live with it.

 

1 hour ago, Flying Pig said:

 

Another strength of Tower Pier is a variety of trains run to a number of different off-scene destinations.  This costs nothing in terms of layout size or complexity, just a little imagination, but imo adds greatly to the interest of a simple terminus.

Hi FP

 

I agree, I have limited Sheffield Exchange (both Mk1 and 2) to destinations mainly north of a line from the Mersey to the Humber. I do however have a pair of chocolate and cream coaches that somewhere on their journey join a train to Aberystwyth Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays in the summer, returning on a Monday, Wednesday and Friday. A pair of Gresley coaches work the opposite journeys.

[Flying Pig]

6 minutes ago, Clive Mortimore said:

Hi FP

 

I agree, I have limited Sheffield Exchange (both Mk1 and 2) to destinations mainly north of a line from the Mersey to the Humber. I do however have a pair of chocolate and cream coaches that somewhere on their journey join a train to Aberystwyth Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays in the summer, returning on a Monday, Wednesday and Friday. A pair of Gresley coaches work the opposite journeys.

 

Hi Clive - Sheffield Exchange is one of the layouts I had in mind. 

[Flying Pig]

1 hour ago, Regularity said:

The power of fiddle yards!

 

Partly, but also the power of imagination.  

[Pacific231G]

3 hours ago, Flying Pig said:

 

Another strength of Tower Pier is a variety of trains run to a number of different off-scene destinations.  This costs nothing in terms of layout size or complexity, just a little imagination, but imo adds greatly to the interest of a simple terminus. Of course you may need to acquire more trains, but that doesn't seem to be a burden to most of us.

 

Many well known layouts work like this, but it first struck me when I saw the MRJ article about Borchester Mk1.  There was a short bay platform in the station which appeared in two photos, once with a DMU and once with a N1 tank and a couple of carriages, each captioned as having a different destination, in this case real places in the East Midlands.  Actually, I think a fictitious station in a real hinterland is probably my favourite arrangement.

I'm pretty sure that Tom Cunnington did the same with Minories (GN) in EM. 

I agree about trying to place the layout in a real location though changing the nature of that location - for example by turning a market town into a cathedral city as Peter Denny did with Buckingham or by adding not just a station but a whole imaginary town or city to a real hinterland - is perfectly legitimate. (Didn't someone locate an imaginary city  roughly where the real Bletchley and Wolverton lie in Buckinghamshire. They named it after a local village but though I know there is a real village of Milton Keynes - I've seen signposts pointing to it-  there is certainly no city with that name.)

[t-b-g]

5 hours ago, KingEdwardII said:

I agree with that - most trains on the main lines were not that kind of size. But they did exist - and on the GWR, the King class locos were created for them. If I had the space and finances to model somewhere like Taunton or Newbury, a full sized Cornish Riviera would certainly be part of my agenda, even though all the other trains would be much shorter.

 

Yours, Mike.

 

PS Just to make fans of the other grouping railways feel at home - I have a picture in front of me with a 15 coach "Flying Scotsman" thundering up the ECML in the mid 1930s. I suppose the modern equivalents are the Eurostar 16 car formations that ply between London and Paris or Brussels - and they run many times every day.

 

I have operated layouts with very long trains (up to 15 coaches and 100 wagons) and have generally found them not as enjoyable visually or operationally as those with shorter trains.

 

My most enjoyable operating experiences have been with Buckingham. 5 coaches maximum. So I know what works for me and what I enjoy and have experienced enough different layouts to form a pretty strong personal preference. But that is all it is, my own personal preference. If other people like different things, then good luck to them.

 

Each of us has our own views on what would or wouldn't make for a good layout and it is good that we do. If we all wanted the same things it would be very dull.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Zomboid]

Long trains are generally out of reach, but being into American modelling I have occasionally had an opportunity to run something really big on a large modular layout (I think I had about 40 freight cars on one move), and there was a different challenge in getting it going with my two locomotives and then keeping it from stalling or slipping to a stand. I really enjoyed that, but since I don't have a large village hall to build a layout in it's kind of irrelevant...

 

Operating on the edge of haulage capacity is probably a different matter to how long a train you can believe.

Edited August 12, 2021 by Zomboid

[DK123GWR]

1 hour ago, Zomboid said:

Long trains are generally out of reach, but being into American modelling I have occasionally had an opportunity to run something really big on a large modular layout (I think I had about 40 freight cars on one move), and there was a different challenge in getting it going with my two locomotives and then keeping it from stalling or slipping to a stand. I really enjoyed that, but since I don't have a large village hall to build a layout in it's kind of irrelevant...

 

Operating on the edge of haulage capacity is probably a different matter to how long a train you can believe.

It's easy to get this to the edge of its haulage capacity - no village hall required.

[Bittern]

On 11/08/2021 at 19:49, Zomboid said:

I think my ideal would be a system type layout, where I'd have the full length of a light railway or US style short line, where I'd then run the daily mixed train, stopping to shunt the various industries and sidings along the way.

 

I think that would be highly unpopular at an exhibition though, with one train pottering around on a 60' layout...

There was a very long model of the Hayling branch, which modelled from the edge of Havant to the end of the line. It made various appearances in the 1990s (IIRC I saw it in 1995 and 1996 in straighter arrangements, and possibly in 1999 or 2000), but mostly at local history or community events rather than model railway shows.  Apparently it was given to Hampshire Museums but I don't know if it still exists.

[john new]

On 11/08/2021 at 11:19, Zomboid said:

I think my ideal would be a system type layout, where I'd have the full length of a light railway or US style short line, where I'd then run the daily mixed train, stopping to shunt the various industries and sidings along the way.

 

I think that would be highly unpopular at an exhibition though, with one train pottering around on a 60' layout...

Ah a good point BUT should the be all and end all of a layout design be exhibition use?
 

One of the inspirational layouts for me in my youth was the LMS Sherwood Section (by Norman Eagles?)  not for the scenery but for the idea of running a section of a railway. If/when I ever get the garage replaced and suitable for a railway either the (fictionalised) ex-NER Galtres loop or a rewrite of the east of York scene to encompass the York Walmgate terminus will come into existence. Home use and all about running trains for me not for a paying audience.

Edited August 16, 2021 by john new

[Zomboid]

1 hour ago, john new said:

a good point BUT should the be all and end all of a layout design be exhibition use?

Well no, I have been involved in exhibiting a couple of times and if I never do it again it'll be too soon.

 

I'd build whatever layout I built for operation pleasure and not for viewing.