Pacific231G

The original Minories was 5ft long in TT3 but as that also used 12mm gauge track I don't think I'd scale it down from that. I though it worth trying out the same size with Peco TT120 medium points ( claimed to be a B6) and it does comfortably fit onto two 30 inch x 9inch board (this is a 6inch grid) I've allowed an inch between the turnout at each end and the board end. In his original article CJF did say that it would be improved by plugging in another foot (or more) of parallel track at the end so I have . The next step will be to check coach and loco lengths with the Hornby catalogue and see what sort of train it could take. Update, with the one foot extension so 40 inches available (at least on platform 1) it'll take a Dutchess of Atholl (chosen only because, as a child, that was the HD 3 rail loco I had on my very first layout) and four Mk1 coaches reasonably comfortably . Personally- i think four coaches is a bit too short for a Pacific hauled main line express especially in this smaller scale so I'd want to add enough length for a five coach train (Odd numbers 3 & 5 always seem somehow more satisfying than an even number like 4) If Hornby ever bring out a loco (diesel or steam) more suitable for a loco hauled suburban service (or even a smaller loco for semi-fasts and locals- a Hall would be nice) then the origjnal concept of Minories kicks in.

I don't think so but there was a 3mm scale Minories at Ally Pally a few years ago.

Hi Gordon I assumed these were based on SNCF Reseau (ex RFF) access points (for PW etc) There clearly are anomalies with data from different sources- probably from different dates. It does for example show the combined carré and avertissement (as a CLS) on the line into Chinon from the south which has been disused for many years (though the signal post was still there the last time I looked) and the whole of the Chinon-Richelieu line is shown as disused with kilometrages when it is now a voie verte. There are a few places where a disused line is shown but the topographical map shos that it's now the route a residential road. . Nevertheless, I still think it's a useful resource and I like maps that show disused lines as well as those in service.

Possibly slightly off-topic but weren't the reasons that classes on British trains were 1st and 3rd for a long time after the railways went to two classes in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, something to do with legislation requiring certain minimum third class services to be maintained? ISTR that there were three classes on continental boat trains right up to the end of third class in 1956 because there were still three classes in much of Europe (I can remember while travelling through and around France in the 1970s learningm in second class, to avoid the ex 3rd class carriages in favour of those that had always been second class)

It's an amazing resource, produced as a personal project by Nicholas Wurtz It does only show passenger trains and their positions appear to be calculated by interpolating from their timetabled timings and the broadcast information about retards (he explains that in the ? pop up) It also shows the position and type of every (?) main line signal (though not their aspect), pancarte and PN notice. It even shows summits. I don't know if the track plans are accurate or just those that come up from the general topographic mapping. There do though appear to be some anomalies- I found a Ouigo whose route was down the main line through Perpignan apparently progressing down an abandoned section of the Narbonne-Rivesaltes line so I don't know how its engine defines routes. I also learnt from this that though we've tended to perceive the Cerdagne line as a touristique (le Train Jaune) it's trains are TERs. Possibly useful for spotters, it does show all the access points to lines (from where there may well be a views available from the public side of any gate or barrier without trespassing) as well as PNs (level crossings) This one is definitely going into my favourites.

Hi Keith I looked at some of my older ones and there were very slight variations but I think the fundamental dimensions and angles have remained the same as the whole lot are cunningly designed to be put together to produce fairly complex track formations straight out of the box without trimming (except for the timbering). I assume Sydney Ptitchard came up with that and they've stuck with it for H0/00 Streamline- even for bullhead. Their US 87 line range is totally different with a range of crossing angles as per the prototype. I've not examined their new TT trackwork in enough detail to know which approach it follows .

OK Phil I laid it out again far more carefully with brand new code 75 points ensuring the ladder was dead straight and using set squares etc and you are right ..by 1/5 inch ! perhaps a quarter of an inch as I only used one set of insulating rail joiners and it needs two. I would never though rely on any template with a clearance that tight, you always need a bit of wiggle room. I don't think CJF was telling fibs when he gave that dimension- a wooden baseboard is not a precision engineering structure ( even less so when he published it long before laser cut baseboards). In reality, whether the rail ends are flush with the baseboard end or very slightly proud of it they'd still be very vulnerable with a folding baseboard (to which I'd probably add a protective strip to the ends of a traditional frame). I 've generally reckoned on a couple of inches between the end of the last point and the board end probably using copper clad sleepers at the very end though I guess that could come down to an inch.

Well, as I said last night, it isn't impossible as I was able to lay it out on a table with just such points (I should have photographed it but trust me that I did do it and measured the result) Assuming a symetrical pair of boards, it did fit (just) into the 3ft 6ins of the right hand board. Possible yes, desirable probably not because of the vulnerability of the points at either end. In seven feet that would also give very short train lengths just three main line coaches with a loco and a four car EMU/DMU. If I really was trying to cram it into that length I'd face the dilemma of either accepting very short trains or lengthening the platforms by using sharper points and accepting the (very) excessive throwover- especially in the route between the inbound line and platform one. It depends a lot on what stock you're using. Geoff Pitt's Horn Lane uses a Minories throat (with a 3 way point for a fourth platform) made up from Peco small radius points and with Underground stock - both sub-surface and tube- it looks absolutely fine. I think the same would probably be true with pre-grouping stock but, with main line stock a similar throat looks positively toylike. I did a lot of practical experiments with a range of 'Minories Variations' a few years ago and the problem I found with the pure Minories throat with medium radius points was that the at least one point length straight between the reverse curves gave even main line stock an acceptably snaking flow. However, the one route with an immediate reverse curve (inbound to platform 1) didn't look good. I tried umpteen arrangements using Peco long Y as well as medium points (they're the same length) and found that using Ys for both of the back to back points gave a very bizarre wiggle on several routes as trains encountered a double reverse curve. However, if I used one for just the right hand of the two back to back points (and a second at the end of plattform one.) I improved the critical route considerably but at the expense of rather more but just about acceptable end throwover on most of the other routes. That arrangement also had the advantage of a less extreme overall S through the throat and the platform end coming off at a 6 degree angle allowing a single gentle curve to bring platforms 1 & 2 to parallel with 3 rather than the S of the original plan. I di use a large radius point for the entry to the throat but in practice it made relatively little difference. BTW I did try using Ys for both the back to back points but found that gave a very strange looking wiggle for trains coming from platform two or three to the outbound main line. On the critical inbound to platfrom 1 route, these were the worst throwovers I found. It's not pefect but there was no actual buffer lock so I could live with it. I think the best compromise depends very much on the actual stock you're using. The other thing I found was that if you mixed a large radius point with a medium radius in the same crossover you tended to get the throwover/buffer locking of the smaller radius point rather than the average between them. Again, this depended on coach length.

Hi Phil It is possible, though at first sight It appears not to be. Peco medium L&R points are 8 1/2 inches long so five would be 42 1/2 inches and therefore half an inch too long. However, I've just laid the plan out with those points and it does fit... just and with not a whisker to spare. It's the fact that three of the points in a row are at a 12 degree angle that makes the difference. I wouldn't build it though, at last not with those points, as you'd be right up to forty two inches* so would have the toes of the two endmost points flush with the board ends (Ask Danster Civicman why that's not a great idea. He described what happened when the entry point to Birmingham Hope Street snagged when he was moving it from the fiddle yard) It would though work more comfortably with SMP 3ft radius points as the ones I have in front of me are 8.1 inches long with I think a ten degree crossing angle. With those you'd have over an inch of plain track beyond the points at each end of the board which should be enough for some copper clad anchoring. However, with a seven foot long layout you'd have a maximum train length including loco of about 48 inches on platform 1 and 42 inches on platform three clear of the kick back siding point. *So the Great Question of Life the Universe and Everything turns out to be "How long must a H0/00 Minories throat with a kickback siding be with Peco medium radius points in inches." Who'd have thought that was the great question. We apologise for the inconvenience.

Funnily enough, I think some of the original attraction was the "axonometric" projection CJF drew it with (simply the conventional plan turned through 45 degrees with vertical elevations added at the same scale. With this plan it seemed to just bring the layout to life. I'm looking forward to the first folding Minories in TT120 .

Hi Harlequin I agree with you about the Minories "eye" being the defining feature of a Minories. Three or four platform MLT's with a double crossover have been around forever. It was CJF's genius way of arranging them that made Minories such an effective way of getting round the problem of main line trains lurching across sharp model crossovers with their buffers locking furiously instead of snaking in and out. Your plan is interesting but I think you may be giving yourself a slightly exaggerated problem in trying to fit the throat into 39 inches (aka 1 metre) Though the original plan in RM did quote a length of 6'6" for the layout. It appeared in early editions of 60 plans as 6'8" and carefully measuring the original plan against the rulers shown (fairly easy with a graphics programme) reveals this to have been the actual length- a typo in RM perhaps? it was of course designed as a 5ft folding layout in TT-3 and if you scale that from 3 to 4 mm/ft you duly get 80 inches (That's about right for going from 12mm to 16.5mm gauge as well) . i notice that all of CJF's later plans for Minories were 7 or 8 ft long with three foot radius points; Peco Streamline Medium now but also the nominal radius of the then Pecoway points along with others. The basic Minories throat does fits tightly into three feet and very comfortably into a metre with 3ft radius points but the kickback siding (I've never been sure what that's for operationally) obviously complicates that as you now need to fit five point lengths into the throat rather than four. With SMP 3 ft radius points I think you could just manage it in the forty inches but with Streamline mediums you might have to trim a bit . What coaches did you use with your Minories? I've experiments with various permutations of Minories and found that, with main line stock, using 2 ft radius points in a Minories throat or even on their own gives very excessive throwover between coaches (at the worst point a buffer on one coach tends to be aligned with the wrong buffer on the next coach and forget about corridor connections) so I'd not go below three foot radius.

That wasn't though the track that CJF designed it for and with HD 3rail you'd lose the real virtue of the Minories scheme. For plans like that, he seems to have followed the general guidelines favoured in the 1950s of 3ft radius points. This was the nominal radius of Pecoway points and those hand laid using Peco's track components before Streamline was offered (originally with 2ft radius points). Hornby Dublo 3 rail points were AFAIK about 15inch radius. The whole point of the Minories design was that it avoided the immediate the reverse curves (on all but one of the six routes) that the more usual arrangement of a facing and a trailing crossover would have so that passenger trains could snake rather than lurch through the pointwork. However, that breaks down if you use smaller radius points . I have seen a layout (Horn Lane) with a terminus based on Minories that used two foot radius points but that was with LT Underground stock so the sharp curves weren't such a problem. I've long wanted to see a layout based on such "heritage" equipment but built for proper operation rather than for simply running trains roud and round but, in terms of appearance, I think that for a three platform main line terminus ,with HD track, straight crossovers would actually look better but you may disagree. this is what the two plans look like with HD 3 rail I notice that the straight-crossover version is also rather narrower With Peco streamline "medium" 3ft radius points the comparison looks like this and the Minories version does have more of a flow to it and main line coaches are less likely to experience apparent (or actual) buffer locking. Operationally, and in signalling both versions are identical.

To honour mouse man, haggis for dinner with tatties (not neaps though- I have to draw the line somewhere) with a nice glass (or two) of single malt to help it down. I'm not usually a whisky (or whiskey) drinker but haggis needs it. Bit of a rush though as it needed 45' to boil and I had a Zoom meeting of the photo club at eight. Trouble is, I now have half a haggis that, because it was shop bought not homemade, I'm advised can't be fried up again so it's cold haggis for breakfast or the recycling bin for it tomorrow. It was only £2.50 (Tesco) so chucking it won't be a great loss but I do hate wasting food.

Why on earth would Charles Church's ghost be looking for revenge? He made Popham the brilliant and welcoming place it is today. After buying the airfield in 1978, he developed and expanded it from the small grass strip that the previous owner Jim Espin and fellow members of the Popular Flying Assciation had developed over several years. I actually made my own first flight in a light aircraft there in the early 1980s (when there was still just a single runway (08/26 and shorter than it is now) and you had to drive across it to reach the small car park) I was directing a film for South Today about a Microlight event there and we were using the light aircraft, a Bolkow, as our camera ship. There was only room for the pilot and cameraman but, after we'd finished filming, the pilot took me up for a short flight. That must have planted a seed because a dozen or so years later, having learnt to fly in 1991/92, I eventually became the part-owner of an aircraft based there. Charles Church had his own private strip for his restored Spitfires at Roundwood just outside the Popham circuit and very difficult to find by road. I'd actually filmed him there while covering his restoration of a Spitfire but didn't make the connection with Popham. That was the only time I ever met him as sadly he was killed when his own Spifire (G-MKVC) crashed in July 1989 while he was trying to reach Blackbushe Aerodrome following an engine failure.

I get about three like that a day. I normally forward new ones to report@phishing.gov.uk before deleting them. I don't know what they do with such reports but preumable it helps them to build up a picture. Though the local plan has been around for a few weeks, I've only just heard the very worrying news , that Popham Airfield in Hampshire, where for thirty years I did almost all my flying from, has been designated in the Basingstoke & Deane revised local plan as a site for the development of 3000 homes in "Popham Garden Village- a healthy and sustainable place with a strong, clearly defined and coherent village character, which maximises the opportunities presented by its attractive rural setting in a sensitive and positive manner”. In reality, by the time the developers have muddied the water, that usually ends up meaning an isolated housing development with few facilities. The airfield runs along the north side of the A303 dual carriageway (a very attractive rural feature!) with only narrow country lanes providing any other access and a fifty minute walk (on a country road I'd be very reluctant to walk down) from Micheldever Station. There's no mention in the plan of current aviation activities on one of the most popular airfields for grass-roots flying in the country (the sort that ordinary people like me could afford that are disappearing rapidly) as if they don't want to admit that they'd be destroying it. There is a mention in the plan of a "brownfield site near Overton"which presumably means the airfield. If this is a brownfield site* then so is most of the British countryside (the site to the right of the main runway on the A303 is a filling station and cafe - nothing to do with the airfield). The only permanent buildings on the site are the three hangars on the left of the picture, another hangar used by an aircraft maintenance firm and a small clubhouse and cafe. *I've delved a little and apparently airfields ARE automatically defined as brownfield sites, and therefor "preferred" locations for development, even if like Popham they're basically large grass meadows with some strips of the grass carefully mowed and no more buildings than an average farm. Agricultural buildings dont apparently count as "previous development" though so if that large area of grass had been the site of a row of intensive farming sheds then it would be less favoured for development. For developers of course, a flat, open, well drained site with access, ninety five percent never built on and almost no buildings to demolish or industrial pollutants to remove is something they drool over.

I go to see layouts with trains operating on them and for me at least, the layout is probably more important than the details of what is running on it. I couldn't agree more. For me- and this is obviously a personal thing- I don't find the vast layouts with long trains simply running through them as engaging as smaller (but not necessarily small) layouts with a lot of operation. What i don't like, whether as operator or visitor, is the situation where the operators are too busy keeping constant movement going to interact with anyone. If I see a layout that inspires me I want a chance to talk to the person who built it and, for a visitor who is shyer than me- perhaps just getting into the hobby- it's very easy to get the idea that they're simply not allowed to talk to the builders/operators. The MRC's mini exhibition at Keen House just before Christmas was very good for this and, though I specifically went to see Minories (GN) once more, there were at least two other layouts that I got a lot from by talking to the builder.

But is the downsized show helping to inspire fellow modellers and create interest in others? Possibly it is in which case that's fine. The problem I was referring to in that post wasn't that clubs need exhibitions to survive, they shouldn't, but rather that they may think they do and seeing their annual exhibition primarily as a fund raiser was getting in the way of what I think should be its primary function, which is to share the hobby with others both existing and potential (that includes the general public!) It's not really an either/or but more a matter of emphasis. I agree with others that the hobby is probably healthier now than it's been for quite some time but the emphasis may be changing- as it often does. Modelmaking has after all been a human fascination forever and railways do hold their own fascination. As a side note: I was always a bit doubtful about the sign at one exhibition which had two halls with the words "More Trains" . Not "More layouts" so giving the impression that the interest in an exhibtion is just seeing trains running (so trains must always be running) and not appreciating the art and craft of creating a layout.

It's a blurred distinction but I'd see "real steam" as fulfilling a real transport function at normal rates rather than primarily providing entertainment. in other words getting people or goods from a to b rather than the journey between a and b being their main purpose. I doubt if many people use the WHR just because it's a convenient way to travel from Porthmadog to Carnavon. The dead giveaway would be whether they're fulfilling that transport function midweek in winter. I'm not sure what the current status of the Darjeeling Railway is in that regard.

The CMRA used to also organise a modelling/bring what you're working on day in Watford just for members of affiliated clubs. Although I'm in an affiliated group, I've never been too sure how the CMRA worked in that regard but the show was always well worth going to and it seemed to make sense for a number of groups to combine to put on a bigger show than they'd probably manage individually. Loss of venue (twice) seems to have stopped the CMRA show but I don't know if anyone is working on it for the future.

I was amazed to get a fairly good image of the ring around the moon a few weeks ago with my iPhone. (Especially in suburban West London which is the exact opposite of a dark sky site. but then took my "proper" camera out into the garden with a tripod and did multiple shots with umpteen different exposures (mostly to get a composite image with the rings clearly visible and the moon iself not burnt out) It actially did quite well in the camera club's next digital image competition so it is horses for courses. Interestingly though, when it comes to photographing model railways I almost invariably get better results with my phone (I have a tripod mount for it) than with my big camera. There are technical reasons for that to do with sensor size and focal length (It can't possibly be that the computer in my phone is also better at phortography than me!) .

Worth noting that this seems to have been the philosphy adoptet by John Ahern and Peter Denny, in their cases of course with models they were buiding from scratch. Once they'd reached a standard they were happy with, everything they subsequently built fitted with everything else and neither of them threw much if anything away (though presumably some models went wrong and never saw the light of day.) The result is that both their layouts (happily still with us) work as a complete picture. I think you can compare that with other arts and, if you see the model railway as a complete scene, rather than as a stage on which to view superdetailed models of rolling stock (which clearly some people do and that's fine) then a level of consistency is important. This isn't just about the level of detail. I've found with the buildings on my own layouts (and I have no pretensions to fine scale perfection) that those built from plastic, those built from card and those moulded from plaster or resin, just don't look well together. It's not that one if inherently "better" than the others but, a bit like water colour and oils, they are different media. There is of course the factor that a model you've built yourself can be far more satisfying than one you've simply bought.

The Czech station used for the French Maigret episode wasn't much better. It was a small wayside station that showed no sign at all of being a border station.

I always rather enjoyed Adam Adamant Lives which was I think supposed to be the BBC's answer to The Avengers (and is widely available online). Most episodes were fairly unmemorable but frustratingly the one episode I'd love to see again is the one episode from series one that seems to be completely lost. Ticket to Terror is the one where a crowded Waterloo and City train disappears with its 400 passengers including Adamant's manservant William Simms (Jack May) somewhere between Waterloo and Bank. The train later reappears but its passengers are now skeletons. Later on the train disappears again, this time with Georgina Jones (Juliet Harmer) aboard. It turns out that the trains had been diverted into an old tunnel near Bank (the points might have been a bit of a giveaway) and the passengers used as slave labour by a gang tunneling into the vaults of the Bank of England. I don't remember whether any of the other episodes had a strong railway presence but several of the early Avengers episodes did (including a miniature railway) . What I also didn't know was that three episodes of Adam Adamant Lives were directed by Ridley Scott at the start of his directing career.

I know that the last two British series of Maigret (Michael Gambon and Rowan Atkinson) used locations in Hungary partly because Budapest now looks more like 1950s Paris than does modern Paris (though location costs were probably also relevant). That didn't though work when Maigret and Madame Maigret were strolling along the Seine with large hills (not Montmartre) in the background It also didn't work when Maigret arrived on a very Hungarian looking carriage to save the local schoolmaster from a miscarriage of justice. I'm not sure if Czech towns and cities make quite such good simalcre of 1950s Paris. 1960s France in the BBC's Rupert Davies series does though looks just like 1960s France. The BBC set their adaptation in the present when Simenon, who was reportedly very happy with the series, was still writing Maigret stories. I've never been too sure though whether he set his stories in whatever was the present at the time of writing or set them all in the interwar period when he first started writing the character)

Even if her name did always sound to me like something inflicted by the Inquisition. If you think we have athenticity problems, I've just been watching "Un meurtre de première classe" a 1999 episode from the long running French TV production of Maigret with Bruno Cremer currently being shown on Talking Pictures TV. In this story a man is murdered in the first class carriage of an international train during its 50 minute stop for customs and immigration at Jeumont on the French side of the border with Belgium. You'd think that a French production would have little trouble finding a suitable French station and train to use but the series was actually filmed in Czechia (Czech Republic) and the locomotive, station and rolling stock are distinctly Central European and distinctly not French even to the sounds of steam loco whistles. Genuinely French railway scenes (though not many of them) are to be found in the BBC's original Maigret series with Rupert Davies made in 1960-1963 whose filmed exteriors were all shot in France (interiors wer recorded electonically in the studio) so a valuable trove of authentic street scenes and vehicle types for anyone modelling French railways of that time and also being shown by TPTV.