Harlequin

Even contemporary plans in current magazines sometimes look a bit suspicious to me - especially the curve radii used in freehand sketched plans. I have shown at least that Minories can be done using Streamline turnouts in the original 7ft by 1ft space. It's somewhere further back in this thread I think, and in my blog. I'm actually thinking of making a version of Minories in the original form, folding in the middle and I've got an idea for a period treatment that would suit it. All the versions of Minories I've ever seen have changed or expanded on CJF's original concept in some way so maybe something close to the original would have some individuality now?

That's a grey area and I'm not sure what RMWeb's position on that is (although I admit I have done that myself). Give it a go.

If there's a copyright claim at all that will almost certainly prevent reproduction in any form. If it's a very modern book you might find some fair usage statement or reference to a public license scheme. Thanks Pete. I know it's a pain but you've done the right thing! I'm sure that people who can answer your questions will have all the same books, and more, so you should still get some great info.

Hi Pete, Do your books allow the images to be reproduced?

HI Steve, You really do need to start your own thread but in the meantime this is the only place to continue the discussion. So, having advised against gradients and hidden track, here's a rough idea that uses gradients and some small sections of hidden track! The thinking is that if you are going to angle the terminus station then you will have a space in the top left corner (because you wouldn't want very deep baseboards there) and so why not use that deep space to form your return loop. The neat thing about doing that is the access space serves double duty - it allows you to get to the back of the terminus board and to get at trains and track for the outer circuits and the return loop. There's no attempt to have hidden storage loops - the return loop is just a single track that crosses under the terminus as directly as it can to minimise conflict with point motors on the level above and then runs along the front edge for easy access. The exact levels would have to be thought about but you have plenty of running length to make it work. Three quarters of the space is scenic with just the storage loops non-scenic in the remaining quarter. (Admitedly the main double track roundy doesn't stay in the scenic parts for very long.) I don't think it quite holds together to be honest, but it's food for thought anyway.

Hi Ian, I used Rockwool in the wall panels. Cheaper than wool, medium eco-friendly (not petro-chemical). and breathable. The roof was insulated with rigid foam partly because I had a lot left over from work on my house but also, importantly, to make a "warm roof" structure to avoid condensation problems.

I think you should use that picture as your desktop background!

Thanks Steve, It looks like you could have either a straight or curved throat. I'm always worried when people talk about "storage loops under" because that really multiplies the constructional and operating problems up to a new level (hah hah!) It will eat space in the middle of the room, give you access problems and gradient problems. My suggestion would be to try to create a roundy-round all on the level with the station either inside or outside the main circuit. Quick sketch to scale with a 305mm (1ft) grid and 7 coaches @ 260mm each over the buffers to give some idea of platform length and where the throat might be positioned:

Storyboard of the construction of my workshop 5 years ago: I designed it and built it all except for the concrete base and the fibreglass roof covering.

The inbound line only seems to be directly connected to the two lines nearest to us in that photo. Minories, of course, gives direct access inbound to all platforms. Using the natural angle of the first trailing crossover to turn the running lines across the face of the platforms is one of the key characteristics of Minories. It’s entirely valid to remove it and solve the problems in a different way but then it’s not Minories any more, IMHO.

Hi @SteveyDee68, Can you tell us the dimensions of the space available for the station and ferry dock and the position of the double track connection to the rest of the layout, please? A sketch would be great.

The trick is - not to upload videos to RMWeb... ! What most people do is to upload to YouTube and then paste in a link to the YouTube video. RMWeb recognises YouTube links and expands them automatically. You will need to create a YouTube "Channel" but don't worry that doesn't mean anything much and you can use it as you see fit - there's no obligation to upload regularly or to host adverts. https://www.youtube.com/create_channel

Steve S said he was investigating a throat-on-a-curve but his long platforms will almost certainly impose a very shallow angle on them and the connection to the rest of the system is not angled at all. So, this is much more like the traditional linear Minories design, I think. Depending on how much space is available some reverse curves may be unavoidable.

Here you go: Full Minories throats: The top one gives 12° platform lines and the bottom one uses Large Ys to give 18° platform lines. But note that that's just the initial direction and you can turn in any direction you want after that - which is what CJF did, of course. If you've got room you could use Large radius turnouts and Large Ys in the crossovers to make the formation even smoother and give a different platform angle: The natural angle for the platforms from this throat would be 6° but I continued to change direction to give an angle of -6°. (This is from Pacific Terminus.) P.S. The problem with using a single slip in the throat is it's a much sharper turn than you can achieve with separate turnouts.

Yes, the orange points are Streamline Mediums. Sorry the slip is confusing. It's part of the general solution for arbitrary numbers of platforms but CJF's solution is minimal so you don't really need a slip there. The platform angle depends on what points you use to connect the running lines crossing the platform faces to the platforms and you can, of course, introduce curves to make the platforms more interesting. Those drawings are just part of the the throat not the whole thing. Let me draw some more to make it clearer. Hold on...

Well, that's the natural lie for a Minories station and the crossovers being combined into the turn across the face of the platforms is what Minories is all about. So it should be very easy to arrange the platform lines to be oriented the way you want, it's just a question of how far you turn:

Hi, I can't quite picture what you're trying to do. Do you want the station running basically NW to SE or SW to NE? And then the inbound and outbound tracks are horizontal (I.e. EW), as in all the above plans, right?

There's an 18 inch by 3ft-something bit of board doing nothing...

You could do the same as the TV production companies - just use any old loco from any era hauling BR Mk1 coaches...

Fine to create a new thread in "DCC Help & Questions" and start that with the design you've arrived at. All the layout design discussion would be inappropriate in that forum.

I read an article once where a turntable was driven by a motor controlled by a DCC loco decoder. The guy said that he didn’t worry about indexing because he could just use the fine motor control to stop the TT where he wanted and joggle it to line it up. I think he said it was very easy once you got used to it. This always struck me as a neat idea because it’s simple, it uses technology we’re already familiar with, the TT moves more realistically, it’s easy to bypass exits you don’t want and you control it using your existing control system. But note that I’ve never actually seen this done so in practice maybe it’s no good? It feels like it would work well combined with St Enodoc’s edge drive.

For the model with bunker steps, best to pick the photo of the loco with bunker steps, no? (Of course, it doesn't really matter because it's not a real Prairie - it's only one of the grubby BR Black ones... )

I'm not sure if you said you were going to use Code 75 but Code 75 3-way points are asymmetric. You really need to draw it to scale to see if it will actually fit and give the required clearances. And I hope you don't mind me saying this but it's a bit dull with all the tracks parallel to the board edges and each other. The (sub)branch line would be more clear if it had a different alignment to the main line and it would be great fun if the platform was an odd shape. Edit: What is the new kickback siding for?

Why do they always release BR Black ones first?