simon b

2 hours ago, nightstar.train said:

 

Good, I'll be glad to see them reused. Such a crying shame to see new stock sitting in sidings not being used. I hope they get a nice livery, I don't really like the Chiltern grey. And it's all done swiftly enough for Accurascale to include in their next production run of Mk5s. 

I assume the mk5's are painted silver with vinal over the top, in which case they are half way there already. I like the silver and grey, but the blue livery on the 165's is good looking too. Silver with a blue window band?

Apparently Chiltern have now put a bid in for the the MK5 fleet with locos. More 68's is just fine with me.

4 hours ago, Darius43 said:

There’s an awful lot of boilerplate padding in these reports.  Section 4.1 on the implications on actually constructing the new route, i.e. knocking down buildings and actually realigning away from the original route is particularly short considering the acres of pages devoted to non specific statistics.

 

I followed the route on Google Maps and the thing that struck me was the extent to which the trackbed has been built over.  Took three minutes to form the conclusion that this project is a non-starter.

 

The cost section also illustrates why this is extremely unlikely to happen.

 

Still, that’s more public money for Atkins to produce a spectacularly padded-out report rather than spent for the direct benefit of the Council’s constituents.

 

Cheers

 

Darius

I thought the same about the lack of detail. The part about the suggested new route was very vague, you would think that was the part that needed the most effort. A couple of things that I did learn from it was the way in which they decide if a scheme is worth it or not, and the amount of unnecessary spending they budget for.   

They did mention that to use it as a through route the Aylesbury branch may need to be doubled in places, I don't think it does but there is now provision for that with the new bridge they have built. And an extra platform at Bourne end and High Wycombe isnt really needed either. Surely just build the line and extend the existing service to Wycombe would be enough.

The idea of reopening of the Bourne end to High wycombe line seems to pop up every few years, and when it does it is often mentioned that Wycombe Council commissioned a study to see if it was worth doing. I'd never seen the outcome of this or heard anymore about it, until a link to it popped up on Facebook recently.

Enjoy: https://www.facebook.com/share/p/qyvQqXn1Eu3bXezr/

Good to see your making progress, as long as your happy with the track plan it doesn't matter what anyone else thinks.

But if your keeping the plan as is, the one thing I would suggest is that the front track needs curving a little. It stands out from the rest of the layout as it is dead straight, and parallel to the board edge. Bullhead points will bend a little, perhaps swap the two points left to right thereby putting the whole line on a gentle curve?

1 hour ago, johnhutnick said:

I have seen posted here a copy of a plan "South for Moonshine".  It is apparently from the Model Railway Constructor 1979 annual.  Does anyone have a copy to scan this article?  I can buy it online.  However, with me being in the US, the shiping costs that I am finding are very high.  Thanks for any help.

You have a PM.

1 hour ago, Dr Gerbil-Fritters said:

 

I actually built this a couple of years ago.  It was pretty good, and a lot of fun to operate, but it had a couple of insoluble problems to do with fitting it into my shed ( two duckunders for a start) and I dismantled it.  I can post some pics if any one is interested.

Yes please, pics are always great to see! Any parts of the plan that didn't work, or things you would change?

1 hour ago, Pacific231G said:

It still is! It was exhibited in terminus mode at the MRC's "mini exhibition" during the  Christmas period. and was just as good as ever (though I still think the retaining wall is too high as the bridge doesn't then break it so well into two separate scenes) 

I like it in Minories format, but as a continuous run it does nothing for me. As the others have said it's so much layout for such a small scene, perhaps it needs the right side curve scenicing with a few rail served parcels warehouses.

I do think the wall is too high. When I look at Barbican and compare it to the layout it seems 1/4 too high, unless its just an illusion because the board is narrow?

3 hours ago, RobinofLoxley said:

The funny thing is that having mocked it up in Anyrail, as i tend to do to give myself a ready made library of classic layouts, I found that the throat section was over long and the platform roads laid out so that there would be some gaps between the likely end of a platform and the first turnout, that didnt sit so well with the idea of a compact layout. It's possible to compress things substantilally without losing anything of the flow, while still using longer spec turnouts on the main lines. This could be important if space is at a premium, as it usually is.

If you wouldn't mind posting your work I'd love to see how much space it actually takes up, seems to be a reoccurring theme that these plans take up more space than quoted.

6 hours ago, St Enodoc said:

That was part of it (not helped by the fact that the fiddle yard had to be removable to give access to the garage in which the layout lived - whadda mistake-a to make-a). Mostly, though, the problem was with sending trains to and from myself, which is something I've always disliked.

Was it that it was just yourself operating it, and you would prefer to send trains to another operator? Or the terminus to fiddle yard layout arrangement itself? 

58 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

Now this has departed from Minories on a short(?) excursion, can I raise something that has always made me wonder about these more complex model termini?

 

Would you really want to operate one on your own? 
 

I seriously wonder, because unless the capacity is effectively wasted, by running very few trains, the intensity of operation of a steam age, particularly pre-grouping, terminus ramps-up significantly as the number of platforms increases. TBH, keeping the show on the road with just a two platform terminus at each end of the run on my former layout was enough to keep me entertained, by the time light engine movements, adding and detaching vans, and shunting the daily goods train were included. For a one person layout, while I’d have loved to expand to allow better goods siding provision, and some carriage stabling, I’m not sure I would want to go significantly more complex topologically.

 

 

I suppose it depends on how much bigger you go. If you've just tacked one or two extra platforms onto the basic Minories it should still be manageable for a solo operator. You are only varying which platform trains arrive and depart from, the pointwork will still only allow one simultaneous arrival and departure.

But if you've now added goods lines, branch line, parcels depot, cattle pens, ect, it might be a struggle to fit those movements in between passenger trains. It's at that point you start to need another operator for the pilot loco, or the goods facilities.

If I had the room to do it I'd have the station connected to a large out and back loop, but divided up into electronic sections. A train runs over a sprung switch and cuts power in that section, another train does the same behind, and you can queue several trains on that loop so it's self feeding. Let's you concentrate on the station without worrying about the fiddle yard.

1 hour ago, Lacathedrale said:

 

As an aside, I feel that this thread deserves re-factoring and putting into a couple of blog entries to summarise the work and then closing off, because the ratio of progress to pages is pretty ridiculous!!!

 

EDIT: I appreciate the irony of another no-content post in this one! 

I wouldn't worry about the progress to pages ratio, we've got over 135 pages in the Minories thread just talking about building it. 

1 hour ago, t-b-g said:

 

If you did away with the complex scissors plus slips station throat and replaced it with a couple of curved crossovers, you can do Buckingham with RTR track. At an exhibition a while ago, I was shown photos of a layout based fairly closely on Buckingham where somebody had done just that. Such a layout would be far more complex and physically bigger than Minories but the operational potential is many times greater.

 

If you went for an earlier version, such as the double tracked version of Buckingham Mk. 2, it becomes even easier.

 

However, Buckingham was never really about RTR.  It was more about the freedom from being constrained by what was available commercially that you get by making things for yourself. When it was started in 1947 there was almost nothing you could buy that could be used, apart from rail, wheels and motors and a few castings for axle boxes and suchlike. Not relying on RTR is a philosophy that I have always liked and which I follow myself, so even when I build a layout that could be done with ready to lay points and track, I prefer to make my own, so it can be based on my chosen prototype. 

If you take out the complex trackwork it becomes close to this: 

Just to be clear I'm not knocking Buckingham, for what they had to work with back then it's a work of art. But it doesn't come across as an intensive worked commuter terminus which is what Minories set out to represent, with all the extras it has the operation moves to something else. 

24 minutes ago, Pacific231G said:

That reminds me of the enlarged version of E.R. Carrroll's Victoria.I recall it had the Terminus (Victoria) then a very long convoluted run with a couple of holding sidings that eventually brought trains back to Victoria (though there was a branch)  

That was a good way to design a layout. Operate it with a few freinds, or leave the route set to act as a return loop for solo operation.

The above plan is a winner as it seems perfectly doable with off the shelf track, that's where something like Buckingham falls down.

1 hour ago, D-A-T said:

My “enlarged” Minories (when it gets built) will be based on ‘South for Moonshine’ which I think has more than hint of Borchester Market about it as well. 

Now that I like alot. No reverse curves to worry about either.

2 hours ago, Pacific231G said:

He did! There's a complete plan for it in his 1993 book "Model Railway Operation" ch 10 The City Terminus. In fact, the plan includes (from South to North) the south bank approach to Blackfriars, Blackfriars (formerly St. Paul) Ludgate Hill (original and new) and High Holborn, which for some reason is what he called Holborn Viaduct, with the tracks down to Snow hill and the Widened Lines. 

 There are actually only three double slips in the entire three station complex (one of them at Holborn Viaduct but a lot of scissors crossovers. Holborn Viaduct has a very Minories like set of loco spurs off the easten end of platform one which presumably is where he got the idea from. . 

He didn't turn the complex into a dimensioned layout plan because he reckoned the whole thing was far too big- even in N, but did say that any of the three stations would be eminently modellable though his preference was for Blackfriars. That chapter them went on to include three plans for city termini, one of them Minories (with a kick back goods shed) followed by two five platform types one of them a Southern Railway/Region north of the river terminus straight off a viaduct over the Thames and clearly inspired by Charing Cross and Cannon Street.   

 

There is an excellent image of the Holborn viaduct approach amongst others including some very interesting then and now images of Farringdon and the Snow Hill tunnel  her http://www.abandonedstations.org.uk/Holborn_Viaduct_station.html   

 

The odd thing about Holborn Viaduct is that I must have seen it and the approach bridge over Fleet Street a hundred times but never noticed that it had gone when it did. There's absolutely no trace now that there ever was a railway there. Is the Thameslink Station actually on the site of Hoborn Viaduct low level and it is very pleasing to actually be able once again to travel through the Snow Hill tunnel and onto the widened lines (I last did it to get from Blackfriars to St. Pancras and it was also very strange to get to Blackfriars from the entrance on the South Bank.  

Now that's interesting. I've never heard reference to that plan before, or the book for that matter! Will have to get a copy and have a read.

The thameslink station is built between the old low level station and Ludgate hill station. If you come out of Smithfeild sidings you can still see the old low level platforms before you reach the new station. There was an interesting period when the snowhill tunnel had been reinstated for thameslink traffic, but Holborn viaduct was still in use. The old platform at Ludgate hill was demolished so the tracks could be slewed over and the junction put back in.

And this pic which I forgot I had earlier.

1 hour ago, Jeremy Cumberland said:

What used the short platforms? They're not electrified, I see.

They were too short to be used by passenger trains after electrification, so mainly used by parcel vans. I would imagine loco's would sometimes wait in them to haul the parcel trains back out, as there was no runaround at that time.

They were little used and done away with after a few years.

1 hour ago, Lacathedrale said:

 

Lovely, but hardly Minories!

You could argue it was in it's final years....

A great picture which I cant post for copyright reasons, but here's a link for you.

https://di262mgurvkjm.cloudfront.net/e67f128b-abca-43cd-9aa6-44a89c36f633/Holborn_Viaduct_station-SM1956_ARCHIVE~2_xgaplus.jpg

1 hour ago, Annie said:

Definitely interesting. (1900s OS map)

 

It got a little simpler as time went on, but there is scope for a very interesting layout there. I did lay it out using Tilling slip points once, it worked very well as they have a more shallow curve.

1 hour ago, Edwin_m said:

 

 

There might be some potential for visitors to arrive by train - lots do at Bicester Village.  But it most likely needs a frequent London service without a change  

Like a London to Bedford service that use's the Aylesbury link?

13 hours ago, SM42 said:

Well it seems that the Stewartby brickworks site may become a major tourist attraction as its been bought by Universal? Studios 

 

It seems good transport connections to London were a clincher. 

 

Obviously never used the Bedford Bletchley service those studio moguls

 

Andy

 

 

I was listening to a phone in on radio 4 about this, they were asking people's thoughts on Universal building their studios and theme park there. Not once was the railway mentioned, everyone was complaining about the extra traffic and the new roads that would have to be built. Even the local MP didn't mention anything about EWR going past its doors. I'll bet the Americans are planning for a station, even if our lot aren't.

The one that I'm surprised CJF never tried to imitate is Holborn Viaduct. That has alot going for it with overall roofs, 6 platforms, and a very compact track layout. 

Obviously he didn't have the slip points to work with that we do now, but that is the one that most screams comutter terminus to me.

7 hours ago, St Enodoc said:

Not as built but the four-platform layout with direct access between all four and the turntable would be a good feature to incorporate.

It's a good exercise in track building, but if you lay that out in streamline how much space does it really take up? I seem to remember something about very sharp curves being used in part of it.

30 minutes ago, Schooner said:

As per

?

Great layout, but it's not really an urban comutter terminus.