Harlequin

On the other hand the whole point of the Minories throat is that it allows the parallel inbound and outbound traffic movements of a busy commuter terminus. If the fiddle yard makes that impossible then why have that design of throat at all??? And on the control side, you can easily set an outbound train going which will stop automatically in the FY while you concentrate on driving the inbound realistically.

@ Chris Fletcher-Smith (letter published in BRM), Are you reading this? I can suggest a solution to your shed dilemma if you’re interested. I built a shed to my own specification, including doors, insulation and making and glazing my own window frames. My experience might be useful for you...??? It is still standing some years later . It’s a very useful space, no problems yet and I’m very glad that I’ve got it.

There is some room within the 4ft length(width) to push the turnouts further apart but it would make that board deeper. Not necessarily a problem just pointing it out. (BTW: I didn't really draw that board properly - the bypass is hanging in thin air at the moment.) Related to that do you think the viewer would see vehicles turning as they use the diversion routes from the bottom track? Even with the current design? If so, that might expose the magic to eagle-eyed viewers. You can imagine stock cassettes hooking onto the fiddle yard at roughly the arrow positions with fold-away or removable supports on the back to the two boxed layouts. The longest might be about 1170mm (3ft10in) but you could also attach shorter ones, which might do the job of temporary, turnable loco spurs. It would be really neat if the Interstitial could be made to fold up into a box the same size as the other layouts when folded. I imagine the fold line being horizontal this time but the board would then be 3.5ft by 2ft when unfolded. This would be a challenge for no practical benefit - just giving a sense of completeness to the OCD designers amongst us!

Back on the idea of connecting Minories to another terminus with each acting as the fiddle yard for the other... Here is a drawing of a whole system: (I improved my version of Seironim slightly to have smoother curves and to fold in the middle.)

I haven't got time to draw it but imagine a smaller branch terminus aligned roughly as above but with only one platform. From the top: Run round loop with connection to small engine shed area in the top right - Coal, water, ash, 45ft turntable (big enough for a small prairie), engine shed. Platform line Platform Goods line extending about 3/4 down the other side of the platform and through Goods shed backing onto the platform Splay for goods yard Back siding with optional kickback to make life interesting and use space inside the entrance curve.

Hi Bob, Yes I will post developments as they proceed but I haven't been able to spend much time on it this week, I'm afraid. I drilled one hole in the wrong place last weekend and I've been pondering if I can work around it or if I need to remake the piece from scratch. I think I have a plan now.

Minories + Interstitial + Seironim would be 18ft long (~5.5m). Big but not so enormous that it couldn't be set up at home somewhere. Hook it up to a Bambleweeny 57 sub-meson brain and give it a nice hot cup of tea... Sorry, I mean hook it up to DCC computer control system and you could easily run it single-handedly, in theory. (In practice, the hours of fiddling around with electronics and debugging computer programs might suck all the joy out of it.)

Actually my version of Seironim is very similar to something I drew for @Lacathedrale a while ago and is inspired by a real London terminus station he found called, "Greenwich Park". ( @t-b-g may remember this.) When I started drawing it last night, I very much lifted the central loco release / carriage siding idea from that plan but I had no intention to produce a similar throat, it just evolved that way. Greenwich Park had a scissors crossover outside the station and then some simpler crossovers nearer the platforms but all those elements have been compressed and combined due to the space constraints in this project . (You can see the scissors in my Seironim throat design.) Er, so what I'm rambling towards is that there's some real world precedent for a terminus of that overall complexity - although not quite so compressed, of course.

Thanks! I think it can handle trains of the same length. I reckon train length, excluding loco, for SP35 is just under 3ft. It can be used for either full length train storage or loco release but not both at the same time. Juggling this would be part of the fun. Good point but might be difficult to resolve. Is it so bad that it has to be shunted on the arrivals line? We can imagine that site constraints meant this was the only place for van traffic to be handled and that it is suitably signalled. I don't think we really need to worry about correct trapping in these highly compressed and stylised layouts, do we? A simple box with a straight connection ("TEE") is one of the givens, really. If we change that, then everything is up in the air and completely different solutions will be needed!

I'm afraid this is not very clever but here's an attempt at the anti-Minories, Seironim. It's another small double-track terminus in a cramped urban location but a different style. It's the same size as Minories SP35 - i.e. 7ft by 1ft. A central road can be used either for loco release or for carriage storage. At Seironim there's less need for pilots - locos can release themselves from their trains and quickly scuttle back to Minories. Van traffic has to be shunted across before it can depart. Long trains arriving at platform 2 should just fit but the loco will be trapped and either have to shunt the empty carriages back a bit or be released by a pilot. When connected to Minories it would work best with Zomboid's hidden FY access in between to expand capacity and allow shunting movements to remain hidden.

Slight miscalculation of scale.

The station facing Minories, "through the looklng glass" as it were, has a different set of problems to solve (assuming it's also double-track). For instance the inbound track will naturally turn to be closest to the platforms. (In Minories the outbound track is closest to the platforms, of course). This is a problem for parallel running because all outbound trains will have to cross the inbound track. So a design with similarly fiendish simplicity will be needed, and it should be called Seironim

I'm worried about using dowels at all because the ones I have used on my current test layout are very tight and really only want to move in one axis so they might be sticky or totally impossible to engage when rotated into position by a hinge. My current thinking is to just align the boards by hand and use flight-box clasps to then pull them tightly together. Friction would then prevent them from moving.

Here's my take on the requirements for the Theory of General Minories: (CJF's design is an interesting Special Example of the General Theory.)

Hi @kingmender, That's really interesting. What are the approximate overall sizes of the layouts you mention that use helices?

Very Neat Idea! If it was T shaped with the pivot in the same position as your double track turntable, but only supporting one offset track then the ends could be square and alignment might be easier. (It only ever needs to rotate 180°.)

I understand the concept of each station serving as the fiddle yard for the other but here's an additional idea: Imagine that the scenic break between them was wide enough to allow the connecting track(s) to diverge so that behind each terminus was a hidden "fiddle yard" - somewhere very simple just to add and remove stock from the layout unseen. That would be great for exhibitions. It would allow you to ring the changes so that the visible stock changes. it would even allow a train to depart one station and spend some time "travelling" before it finally arrives at the other. I think the scenic break could be cunningly arranged so that it would look like a magic trick to the casual viewer. You could send a few trains straight through, back and forth to set up the idea of the simple straight tracks(s) and then say the magic word and make a train disappear into thin air!

Is that a double-ended hockey stick traverser in yellow on the right? @DavidCBroad will be overjoyed!

Sorry Julian. Can I just follow up on this a little bit? I really want to know what the Graphite actually does! So Mark, are you saying that the graphite is primarily an oxidation retardant? And the fact that it is conductive is what allows it to be used in this context? Does it serve any purpose in preventing dirt building up above it, or in repelling dust? If not, then won't you sill get interruptions in pickup due to those things and have to clean the track to get rid of them (and then redeposit graphite again)?

What I meant about rationalising the yellow line is that: It passes through the main station but without making any connection to the main running lines. Even though it makes no connection there is an engine shed complex connected to the yellow line so there's no direct way for locos on the main running lines to access the shed - they have to run up the line to the crossovers on the other side of the room and then round or back again. On the other side of the room (North) the yellow line seems to have a passenger platform for itself but no traffic on the main running lines can access that platform. It's OK to spread the elements of one station around the room but they need to be connected in a practical way. (Your goods yard is bit too minimal, BTW.) It's a difficult puzzle to solve but as others have said the first step is to work out exactly what you want - the things that you are not willing to compromise on.

You can have 3 circuits if you want but to make it more plausible you could either: treat the third track as a long goods loop, keep it close to the double track and have some simple crossovers. or make it more distant and say that it's a completely separate line - almost a branch line. I'm sure people could suggest other ideas.

Hi Pete, You've got a great space there and you can certainly do something wonderful with it. If you were designing from scratch you might not make the baseboards exactly like that but, fair enough, they are what they are and will do a good job. You might have trouble reaching into the corners, though. If the fiddle yard really is for fiddling then you shouldn't cover it up because you'll need to get at it. If it's just storage loops then you could cover it but you will still need access somehow to clean the tracks. rescue derailments, etc. Covered tracks also need a bit more infrastructure so that you know what's in there. You can probably make some of the curves wider and if you make everything more plausiibly railway-like you're onto a good thing. My initial suggestions: Remove the outer light blue track and connect the FY loops to the two main tracks, dark blue and purple so that traffic can reverse Remove the scissors crossovers and bring the two main tracks together as a parallel pair of main running lines, as far as you can. Add simple crossovers as needed. Rationalise the yellow line so that it' serving a clear non-passenger role, maybe a goods-only line, maybe a long neck connecting the main station with it's goods yard and/or engine shed. (Maybe not forming a full circuit.) And then maybe make the passenger station more interesting - make it longer with maybe some more platforms. (You can start the platform loops in the curve.)

No experience of graphite but I am suspicious of it for two reasons: 1. Adding a substance periodically means it will gradually build up, move around and start to collect in places. 2. No one has yet been able to explain to me how it works...

Thankyou everyone for contributing! I am going to do the classic road bridge covering the hinges. Maybe with a horse-drawn omnibus on the road as a twist on the old cliché. I cut the two front sides of the box this morning. Not as neat as I'd like but they'll do: The frames at the ends of each section of the box will be held rigidly by being glued to the front and back side panels. The idea is and give something really solid to fix the hinges to. Hence the diagonal cuts and rounded inner corners for bracing.