Minories Holborn viaduct

[danstercivicman]

I gotta say your plans look great! I can just pass on my tiny experience and say that if all the complicated plans I have ever drawn I found that the simplicity of CJF's minories and his other plans in small layout plans exceeded all my crazy ideas and my minories has been the best and most simplest plan I have operated so far!

[danstercivicman]

If I could just add one further idea?

 

One of the theories behind my layout is that the terminus is a GCR extension to Birmingham and semi fast trains leave bound mainly for london London Marylebone. They connect to the GCR main line via the Woodford Halse triangle... which also allows for trains heading to Nottingham but... this is off scene along with Birmingham's GCR shed and goods yard...

 

The terminus serves these destinations and is very busy at peak but the layout looks more realistic as. He junctions are off scene?

 

I hope that's of some use?

[David C]

Looks a lot more prototypical, but unless you lose the station/parcels office and extend the headshunt into that space, then you are only going to be able to shunt 2 or 3 wagons into the goods yard at a time. The average 0-6-0 tender loco is about 9 - 10 inches (2-8-0s are obviously longer) and it looks as though your headshunt is about 18 inches on your plan. I suppose you could leave part of your goods trains blocking the station throat whilst you shunted the first raft of wagons into the goods yard. It depends on how many wagons look like a reasonable train to you. On my ex GW BLT, I reckon on 8 wagons plus a brake van looks about right behind a small praire or pannier.

 

An alternative scenario is to assume that there is a large yard a mile or so up the line to which long distance freights all arrive/depart from from which short trains are tripped by an 0-6-0T to various other destinations in the town, including the big warehouse at the rear of the terminus.

 

David C

[Satan's Goldfish]

Well i'll try and cover all those responses.

 

Electronics not an issue. This is a 1 user at home plan but with the ability to have a friend play too!

 

Ref platform 1 only accessable from 1 route, the same applies to platform 4 (although 4 can depart to all routes) to balance that.

 

Ref freight, yes the imagined situation is anythig at that location would have been a trip working for further down the line. Short head shunt to the goods shed but longer sets could fit in the lower siding.

 

Moving on and taking comments into account, scrapped the junction and ignoring the fiddleyard portion for the moment. Still want a bigger appearing approach than the standard minories though so got this with a 3 track approach (centre road bi-directional). Can't help but feel it needs a loco stabling siding and now i'm not happy with the goods sidings:

 

 

 

(can't help but feel i'm getting lazy with my plan art)

[Flying Pig]

Moving on and taking comments into account, scrapped the junction and ignoring the fiddleyard portion for the moment. Still want a bigger appearing approach than the standard minories though so got this with a 3 track approach (centre road bi-directional).

 

Not too keen on the bi-directional (or is that strictly reversible?) centre road for your stated 1900-1985ish period. I'd have thought that (reading from the bottom) Down Main, Up Main, Up and Down Relief might be more likely?

[Satan's Goldfish]

That would make freight access easier....

[danstercivicman]

Can I have some help?

 

CJF designed an extension to minories- Holborn viaduct goods yard and shed, I'd like to model this in the future...

 

My minories is a terminus. The CJF plan for the goods yard has a facing point from the down main (presuming minories is London and therefore up...). Would and empty coaching stock stabled in this goods yard have been propelled backwards out of the goods yard onto the down main then the loco run to the terminus loco first?

 

Also would the facing point to enter the yard have been allowed?

[leopardml2341]

Don't see why a facing point would be a problem as it's a low speed junction. On the protoype, it would need a fpl if passenger trains used the junction.

[danstercivicman]

Awesome, that's a relief mainly goods traffic will be into the yard and back up towards the fiddle yard, it's only ECS which will have to back onto the main and then run back to the station, I guess with a signal protecting the move it should guarantee safety

Edited December 14, 2016 by danstercivicman

[bescotbeast]

Well i'll try and cover all those responses.

 

Electronics not an issue. This is a 1 user at home plan but with the ability to have a friend play too!

 

Ref platform 1 only accessable from 1 route, the same applies to platform 4 (although 4 can depart to all routes) to balance that.

 

Ref freight, yes the imagined situation is anythig at that location would have been a trip working for further down the line. Short head shunt to the goods shed but longer sets could fit in the lower siding.

 

Moving on and taking comments into account, scrapped the junction and ignoring the fiddleyard portion for the moment. Still want a bigger appearing approach than the standard minories though so got this with a 3 track approach (centre road bi-directional). Can't help but feel it needs a loco stabling siding and now i'm not happy with the goods sidings:

 

Double Minories AL2.jpg

 

 

(can't help but feel i'm getting lazy with my plan art)

I am very taken with your latest plan Satan, the three track approach really gives it that City terminus approach for me.

[Satan's Goldfish]

This Minories business is starting to get messy....

 

 

Treating it as per Flying Pigs recommendation of track usage, top line is more pilot road than relief with access to a freight branch and loco facilities (design needs work there).

 

What appears to be a bridge separating the 2 parts can be a tunnel of x length (a hidden tight 90 degree corner for example).

 

A difference in the throat of this one is the addition of diamond crossing, even though there's no requirement for that change, my reason is 2 fold; 1, it makes the throat look busier without using much space. and 2, it seperates some of the shunting moves using the pilot line from needing the mainlines.

 

Services as before with mostly passenger and parcels, arriving in platforms 1, 2, and 3. Platform 4 is departures and parcels. 

 

Trip freight needs to arrive from the mainline into either platform 2 or 3 and either heads down the freight branch (docks?) or is shunted to the warehouse and loco facilities. Freight coming back from the branch doesn't need to enter the station as it can go direct from the Pilot line to the Up Main.

 

 

Other than 'a lot to operate for just 1 person', critique away!

 

(no set location or era)

[halsey]

More progress has been undertaken, I have added yet morescale scene arches and have added the wiring to allow the platform tracks to be unpowered so that I can use the station pilot to pull the stock out (I have removed the turnouts before ballasting as these will be under part of the canopy).

 

I have also heavily weathered the tracks using sleeper grime! It's not perfect but it looks ten times better!

 

Pics next week.

 

Love those station names

 

Thanks for the compliments- 'youm a goodun'

Or yow am a goodun??

 

I'll interpret - rather clicking on "like" .........................its "bostin!"

Edited February 4, 2017 by halsey

[Satan's Goldfish]

One of these days i should start trying to build one of these Minories inspired layouts....... Here's my next plan!

 

I've gone back to scratch with this and started with original Minories plan (which you can just about make out feeds platforms 3,4,and 5):

 

 

One of the points on the throat's trailing crossing has been replaced with a single slip and has opened it out to 5 main platforms but still within 4 point lengths. There's also 4 tracks arriving at the station throat but all arrivals/departures can access the 2 mainlines in the centre.

 

The freight facilities in my previous couple of designs have been replaced with loco facilities again. Not prototypical for the cramped urban environment but i'm thinking from a 'playing trains' perspective this time and somewhere to show off the loco fleet.

 

I've added a short extra bit the other side of the standard view-block bridge to give an idea of what could be further down the line and how the whole of the approach could operate so the 4 approach tracks make a bit more sense.

 

The plan has been drawn 'straight' as opposed to the usual Minories S curve, but I have listed on the picture that replacing 2 points will put the whole throat on a curve, and only departing platform 1 would look ugly.

 

Criticise away! I quite like this one...... 

[Chimer]

It occurs to me that if the crossover between tracks 1 and 2 to the left of the bridge was reversed by using two left hand points, one immediately above the slip and the other above the two points labelled with an x, the pilot loop would double as an up relief for trains leaving platforms 5 & 6, in the same way you already have the branch track doubling as a down relief for arrivals at platforms 1 & 2.

 

Two arrivals and two departures simultaneously ....... !!!

 

Cheers

 

Chris

[Satan's Goldfish]

Good Spot! Completely missed that.

 

Would create a bit more shuffling to get to the locomotive facilities so that might need a little attention, but no issue if it's just trailing access to another goods/parcels dock instead.

Edited February 9, 2017 by Satan's Goldfish

[Pacific231G]

I can take no credit for this design but it's the neatest example of a very compact throat for a busy urban terminus I've ever come across.

 

This is the trackplan of the old Bastille terminus in Paris that served a very busy suburban line that in the rush hour could have trains departing every one or two minutes. All five platforms, as well as the sixth track next to platform one and the loco shed, had direct access to both up and down lines and the station could handle simultaneous arrivals and departures from any two platform roads. Beyond the throat the main line was signalled for up and down working (using semi-automatic mechanical block signals) rather than bi-directionally.

 

To achieve maximum traffic density, particularly during the busiest period of the evening rush, five trains would depart in turn from platforms 5 to 1 to be replaced by arriving trains that would enter the now vacant platforms in turn from the up  line to form the next wave of departures. The first complication was that until the early 1960s there was no push-pull working so the Prairie tanks that then operated the line had to get from the arriving train they'd just brought in to the front of a later (but not much later) departure as fast as possible . Electric traversers, similar to those ar Birmingham Moor Street,  were fitted to maximise available train length but the releasing crossovers between 2-3 and 4-5 were retained. The other complication was that the line ran onto a viaduct wide enough for only two tracks very soon after leaving the station. The viaduct was over a mile long and there was no room for carriage sidings on the very cramped terminus site so all ECS movements had to use the main line and had to be hauled not propelled. 

 

I drew this plan for Continental Modeller using Peco large radius left and right hand points with just the one single slip and a three way in the small MPD as per the prototype. Rather to my surprise, the total length of the throat was about the same as that of the real terminus. This had been laid in pointwork with an unusually sharp 7.5 crossing angle (tangent 0.13) normally only used for sidings and apart from the slip seems to have been made up entirely from standard turnouts. The designers had been able to do this by using the angle between the station site and the viaduct to arrange the throat pointwork so that no passenger train ever had to negotiate a reverse curve. From all accounts it was a bit lurchy for passengers but it could handle full length corridor coaches.

 

I'm fairly convinced that when the station was first built, the smaller train shed occupied by platform one and its loco release track was intended to be a goods depot . It was a much plainer structure than the main shed and it was the norm in those days to have goods facilities at city termini. This would make for an interesting four platform terminus with goods.

 

The Bastille terminus was faithful to steam and mechanical signalling till it closed at the end of 1969 and though it was in Paris I could see it as an equally busy urban station in London or any other large connurbation. Though it has five rather than three platform faces it's also the closest thing to a real Minories I've so far discovered.

Edited February 10, 2017 by Pacific231G

[Budgie]

The first complication was that until the early 1960s there was no push-pull working so the Prairie tanks that operated the line had to get from the arriving train they'd just brought in to the front of a later (but not much later) departure as fast as possible.

They were 141TB 2-8-2 tanks, so they were Mikado, not Prairie, tanks.

[Northroader]

The 282T tanks were used on the services out of Gare de l'Est. The 131TB 262T worked the Bastille services, which was a fairly independant local system.

[Budgie]

The 282T tanks were used on the services out of Gare de l'Est. The 131TB 262T worked the Bastille services, which was a fairly independant local system.

Sorry, you are right. The 141TB class replaced the 131TB locos at Gare de la Bastille in 1962.

[BobM]

Hi

I can take no credit for this plan for a station,,,but it inspired me.....

 

 

Regards

Bob

[Pacific231G]

They were 141TB 2-8-2 tanks, so they were Mikado, not Prairie, tanks.

I do take my research seriously so, just to clarify, the Chemin de Fer de l'Est's 11 series 2-6-2 Prairie tanks were fifty locos specifically developed for the line and delivered in 1925. These became SNCF class 1-131TB. They were more powerful than the preceding 0-6-2 and 2-6-2 tanks (latterly SNCF 1-031TA and 1-131TA)  and were part of the Est's plan to handle the then rapidly increasing commuter traffic without significant infrastructure costs. That plan was largely based on a detailed analysis of the most efficient way of operating such a terminus and line.

 

The 131TBs were never push-pull fitted and hauled trains of the four-wheel double-deck coaches nicknamed "Bidels" until the arrival in 1948 of the ex DRG bogie coaches that soon became known as "Bastiilles". The Prairies were replaced by the Mikados between 1961 and 1962 and after 1964 all services were operated by auto-fitted 141TBs and bogie push-pull sets cascaded from the Gare de l'Est's suburban services when these were electrified.

Bastille and its line were largely ignored by enthusiasts until its last few years so the vast majority of photographs and films of it show it operated with push-pull stock and 141TBs. That includes this atmospheric film marking its closure made by SNCF's film unit https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwn8DzI0rpU .

 

Because it was supposed to be replaced by the planned RER for several decades before that actually happened at the end of 1969, Bastille became something of a living museum of pre-war steam commuter railway operation so it's a shame it wasn't better known. Push-pull operation did away with the daily ballet of locos using the traversers and charging around the terminus to get from the train they'd brought in to the next one they were taking out .

 

Hornby-Acho produced a fairly good model of an Est 1-131TB in SNCF livery but for some reason matched it to a set of the Est commuter coaches that so far as I know were never hauled by them. These did though form the basis of the reversible (push-pull) sets handled by the 141TBs but there's not been a mass market model of that.

Edited February 10, 2017 by Pacific231G

[Budgie]

the ex DRG bogie coaches that soon became known as "Bastiilles".

If anyone is interested in these REE modeles make them, and they are available from A&H Models in Brackley, Northants.

[Pacific231G]

If anyone is interested in these REE modeles make them, and they are available from A&H Models in Brackley, Northants.

Hi Budgie

I've just been looking at Loco-Revue's review of these in their February edition. I understand that they're a special series made for REE by ESU of their model of the DRG type 36-37 coaches.  I'm afraid REE is a bit above my pay grade (and they wouldn't half show up the age of the Hornby-Acho 131TB) but I do have a set of the Roco Bastilles - which for me are "good enough" and the earlier and much cruder Lilliput versions which are not and seem to be based on the earlier DRG type 30 with visible rivets which were not the coaches used on the Vincennes line. Apparently SNCF received these coaches in fairly poor nick but compared with the elderly four wheel double deck "Bidels" that had worked the line they must have seemed pure luxury for the commuters coming in and out of the Gare de la Bastille.

Edited February 12, 2017 by Pacific231G

[Satan's Goldfish]

Question from an armchair designer;

 

Assuming a Minories terminus is at the end of a secondary line, and that line has a few sidings both up and down along its length for wagon load deposits/collections from a daily trip goods. The terminus itself sees most passenger action during the morning and evening rush hours, the daily goods avoids those times but needs to cover the entire length of the line as there is a simple warehouse and coal siding along side the terminus.

 

Reference to the almost minories plan below, and knowing that unfitted trip goods can be very slow, would it be acceptable for said daily goods to use a platform in the middle of the day at the completion of it's 'down' leg when it's quiet (station pilot draws wagons back to release goods loco for turning and coal/water as required, pilot shunts wagons, reforms wagons in a platform, goods loco couples up then commences 'up' operations)?

 

Expanding a bit further, if as drawn there's also a nearby freight branch requiring a more regular bulk freight, which has its own loop from the mainline for access, would this loop more likely also be used for reversing the trip freight back up the line to keep it clear of the platforms rather than the operation described above?

 

 

Or, complicating it further, if space restrictions were such that the down goods loop wasn't there, but a trailing point for a freight branch just outside the terminus was, would the reversal of a bulk freight in a platform (outside peak times!) be acceptable?

 

Moving on to the plan itself, I know the turning facility would more likely be down the line a bit, but there's a prototype for everything and it adds a little more operation as well as freight. As can be seen from my notes on it, catch points are needed, and I'm not sure where would be best for water columns (by coal stage, platform ends, both?) I'm also not sure if I'm happy with the curved point creating a kick back siding for the coal stage or whether to keep it simpler and more space constrained by removing it and putting the coal stage between the Goods siding and the Pilot Road by the turntable access point. If my first example above of trip goods handling above is acceptable then the goods loop will probably get unplanned too.

 

Thanks for watching!

[Zomboid]

I don't know about the turntable era, but they would have reversed the Holybourne oil tank trains in the platform at Alton until they stopped running them - no alternative run round on the branch, unless they propelled them from Bentley (which would be a different run round in the platform scenario).