Theory of General Minories

[The Stationmaster]

Oh well, Mike, just for the hell of it...

 

...and I was so full of good intentions today.

 

 

That's a bit more like it;) Have you looked at the Windsor link I posted above (Swansea is even worse) where that is exactly what starts to happen. Below is another freight 'heavy one although it involves passenger lines as well and shows how pointwork can be crowded into curvature (there's no telephoto effect in this view) in order to fit a site

 

 

While delving into the postcard collection produces this - probably fairly well known - view from around 100 years ago shows how slips save a tremendous amount of space compared with ladders of crossovers

 

[Joseph_Pestell]

To get back to a station that is more like Minories, another French station comes to mind - Lyon St Paul. Back in the day, it had a more interesting variety of services than Paris Bastille. St Paul cheats a bit though by having pointwork inside the tunnelmouth.

[bluebottle]

Invaluable gen in this thread on prototype station design, and I love the voluptuous curves of the track diagrams. Good luck to the original poster in fitting Paris-Bastille into his target layout size of "12ft by 1ft, including some kind of fiddle yard"...

(edit to correct typo)

Edited August 17, 2012 by bluebottle

[kevinlms]

 

 

Modern British layouts have undergone an interesting series of developments over the past 40 years with a move beginning in the late '60s of using as few diamonds and slips as possible except where unavoidable (which usually meant some London termini - but not all).

 

Newcastle has to be THE classic example of that. Now there is almost nothing left of them.

 

http://wikimapia.org/#lat=54.968614&lon=-1.612466&z=20&l=0&m=b

[kevinlms]

Knew I couldn't resist playing around with Bastille, with a few mods to bring it in line with an earlier ET plan as there are similarities. I've added a headshunt and the two bay roads and then reversed the image as picked up by Orion. I like the overall feel of the plan and it flows well.

 

I'd welcome any comments....This is purely a paper exercise at present, but it did get my creative juices flowing.

 

 

Glasgow St Enoch, must have been somewhat similar to this.

[Tequila Sunrise]

Glasgow St Enoch, must have been somewhat similar to this.

Glasgow St Enoch had 12 platforms, a triangular junction, various locomotive release roads, numerous single slips, 3-way points, scissors crossings, access to a loco shed, a turntable etc

 

I am afraid it was frighteningly complicated - sorry!

 

See http://www.wbsframe.mste.co.uk/public/Glasgow_PWI.html for a taster - this was a simplification of the earlier version, I believe.

Edited August 19, 2012 by Tequila Sunrise

[kevinlms]

Glasgow St Enoch had 12 platforms, a triangular junction, various locomotive release roads, numerous single slips, 3-way points, scissors crossings, access to a loco shed, a turntable etc

 

I am afraid it was frighteningly complicated - sorry!

 

See http://www.wbsframe....lasgow_PWI.html for a taster - this was a simplification of the earlier version, I believe.

 

Thanks for that, I knew it was a complex station on a relatively sharp curve, but had never seen a track plan before. Unmodelable then, except for those with a spare aircraft hanger going begging and time & funds to suit.

[Joseph_Pestell]

Thanks for that, I knew it was a complex station on a relatively sharp curve, but had never seen a track plan before. Unmodelable then, except for those with a spare aircraft hanger going begging and time & funds to suit.

 

Agreed that it would need a big budget except for someone who can scratchbuild all their own trackwork. But, like a lot of city stations, it is quite compact. I have not tried drawing it yet but I am fairly sure that an N gauge modeller could get it to fit in a standard 16' x 8' garage.

 

The plan is also shown in detail in one of the Historical Surveys of the LMS books. Signalling was awesome. How a driver could identify which signal he needed, I don't know.

[Pacific231G]

[

Oh well, Mike, just for the hell of it...

 

...and I was so full of good intentions today.

 

That looks pretty neat Mike. You've kept the flow of Bastille while adding two more platforms and still got parallel working between any two of them. You've also managed to have a trailing crossover for the final entry to the main line even though the plan is a mirror

.

With simple turnouts only, the theoretical minimum throat to accomodate simultaneous arrival and departure from any two platforms seems to be the length of two turnouts plus one for each platform. So, a two platform station needs a minimum of two crossovers (as at Windsor Riverside) three platforms need five and so on. Bastille is one more than this at eight pointslengths (counting the one single slip in the final design as two points) for five platforms but is very smooth.

 

Your plan is ten turnouts long for seven platforms but if you wanted the release at the top of the terminus to be an eighth platform you could easily get parallel routes for all eight with no extra length.

[gordon s]

Thanks David, I'm Gordon by the way not Mike, but no offence taken....

 

Your original picture started out as a challenge for me, as so often original plans mean so much compromise be it in overall length or turnout radii. I've been battling away for years between a through station with shorter platforms or a terminus that will take 7/8/9 coach trains but at the cost of losing continuous running without bringing gradients into play. Add to that 3' minimum radii turnouts and a modest 18' to play with in overall length and most plans have been doomed to failure from the outset.

 

Perhaps it was the elegance of the original layout or the sheer enginuity of the design that motivated me to open up Templot again. For some reason, it all slotted into place in an hour or two whereas previous designs have had to go in the bin after three or four weeks concentrated effort to accommodate the fundamental design. That's the plus side....

 

The down side is that all the turmoil of previous layout builds have returned with the compromises that have been made.

 

The demons are saying 'go on build it'.....you know you want to....

[Orinoco]

This has been a very interesting subject, even if it has strayed far from the original query. Having viewed it up to now as a guest, I just joined RMWeb so I could make a small contribution.

 

My strong impression is that track plans were rarely elegant on the real thing - especially at places where the station had been substantially expanded to cope with additional traffic. Some, like Euston, were a complete mess. It was rare to have the opportunity to completely remodel a station's trackwork in the steam era. Many were modified in a fairly higgledy-piggledy way.

 

St Enoch was effectively 2 stations side by side, so could be reduced by a third or so for modelling purposes without losing the atmosphere of the original. It would still be very large though. The northern-most 2 platforms (platforms 1 and 2) would make an interesting model in themselves. They appear to have been designed for 2 trains to use each platform without impeding each other - a feature rarely modelled. Here is an extract of the signal and track plan from around 1900.

 

 

Whilst large termini are exciting to contemplate, they require a huge amount of effort to operate - far more in the realm of a group than an individual - especially in the steam era, when there would be lots of light engine movements on top of the service itself. Even platforms one and two on their own would require a lot of concentrated effort to work realistically.

Edited August 21, 2012 by Orinoco

[Ian_H]

Hi Mike,

 

This is a very interesting thread, for which I thank you. Of course it seems to have gone a long way from the Minories track plan that you required but a lot of interest and useful information being supplied.

 

I know that you originally asked for the Minories track plan but would something similar be of interest such as John Elliott’s/The Laird’s Bradfield Gloucester Square? It is only a couple of ft longer than what you have and such a design may be able to fit into your space if suitably trimmed. It also has a lot of operational interest with shunting of stock etc. If by chance you were interested in copying his design it could be an idea as well as polite to drop him a line and ask for permission although I doubt there would be a problem - Imitation being the highest form of flattery. FYI John has produced some interesting videos that you may like to see.

 

http://www.rmweb.co....re-br-1962-ish/

 

Regards

Ian

[Ian_H]

Thanks David, I'm Gordon by the way not Mike, but no offence taken....

 

Your original picture started out as a challenge for me, as so often original plans mean so much compromise be it in overall length or turnout radii. I've been battling away for years between a through station with shorter platforms or a terminus that will take 7/8/9 coach trains but at the cost of losing continuous running without bringing gradients into play. Add to that 3' minimum radii turnouts and a modest 18' to play with in overall length and most plans have been doomed to failure from the outset.

 

Perhaps it was the elegance of the original layout or the sheer enginuity of the design that motivated me to open up Templot again. For some reason, it all slotted into place in an hour or two whereas previous designs have had to go in the bin after three or four weeks concentrated effort to accommodate the fundamental design. That's the plus side....

 

The down side is that all the turmoil of previous layout builds have returned with the compromises that have been made.

 

The demons are saying 'go on build it'.....you know you want to....

 

Hi Gordon

 

I hope Mike doesn’t mind me hijacking his thread but I’ve got to say that I like what you’ve done with the Bastille plan and of course I’ve read with great interest your progress with Eastwood Town and whereas I liked what you were doing with the terminus I understand your move to the current project with a through station, you have acquired some beautiful station buildings that deserve to be shown off to their best potential and that’s probably with a through station but for myself, like Mike, I’m interested in a terminus station but particularly the station throat. I have a similar space to yours (18 x 17½) and propose to build the bulk of the train shed/platforms area on a 90° curve. A 4ft (or maybe 3½ft) rad = approx. 6ft circumference and if I have say a couple of ft of straight platform before the curve with a road bridge above the platforms à la John Elliott’s/The Laird’s Bradfield Gloucester Square then I should be able to get a seven or eight coach train in that space.

 

 

Of course the platform/train shed on the other side of the road bridge is off scene and doesn’t need to be built phew! This could allow more space for the approach roads to be modelled, although what I really like the idea of, and have thought about it for some time, as Orinoco has shown with St Enoch’s, is a terminus Junction.

 

Regards

Ian

[Ian_H]

This has been a very interesting subject, even if it has strayed far from the original query. Having viewed it up to now as a guest, I just joined RMWeb so I could make a small contribution.

 

My strong impression is that track plans were rarely elegant on the real thing - especially at places where the station had been substantially expanded to cope with additional traffic. Some, like Euston, were a complete mess. It was rare to have the opportunity to completely remodel a station's trackwork in the steam era. Many were modified in a fairly higgledy-piggledy way.

 

St Enoch was effectively 2 stations side by side, so could be reduced by a third or so for modelling purposes without losing the atmosphere of the original. It would still be very large though. The northern-most 2 platforms (platforms 1 and 2) would make an interesting model in themselves. They appear to have been designed for 2 trains to use each platform without impeding each other - a feature rarely modelled. Here is an extract of the signal and track plan from around 1900.

 

 

Whilst large termini are exciting to contemplate, they require a huge amount of effort to operate - far more in the realm of a group than an individual - especially in the steam era, when there would be lots of light engine movements on top of the service itself. Even platforms one and two on their own would require a lot of concentrated effort to work realistically.

 

Hi Orinoco

 

And welcome to the forum. The plan of St Enoch’s is very interesting and has caused me to look further. A LMS signalling plan for 1932 may be of interest from the following web address http://www.wbsframe.mste.co.uk/public/Glasgow_PWI.html

 

Regards

Ian

[gordon s]

I'm pleased you like the plan I knocked up Ian. Quite clearly starting with a prototype made life so much easier and it just fell into shape. I'm really interested in your own plans as I've been torn between watching trains run (through station with compromises on platform length) or terminus (with long platforms but then with either a short, flat run to a fiddle yard or the possibility of a continuous loop underneath), which means gradients and I've had my fingers burned there, either with the complexity of construction or steam locos failing to climb the gradient.

 

The continual to and fro between the two ideals has largely been responsible for my failed attempts and ultimately loss of motivation.

 

What struck me about the Bastille plan is that it did flow really well with no slips to worry about and with a bit more creative thinking a 1:100 gradient could be possible to take a continuous loop underneath. The issue here is that the most you could gain is 70mm clearance and with Tortoise motors taking 85mm, it needs a lot of very careful planning to ensure there are no clash points under the terminus.

 

What you are proposing to do makes a lot of sense and does remind me of Waverley West, another super layout that has also been inspirational in my thinking. I won't go down that route as I still want to use the station buildings from Great Northern, although in a terminus scenario. Once again a compromise, but they are too good not to use.

 

Without the building restraints, your plan makes a lot of sense.

 

How many lines would emerge the other side of the station? Potentially you have eight going in and to reduce those to two on a curve may provide a few challenges, particularly if you stick to my goal of 3' minimum radius turnouts. Add to that, most of them would be hidden from view under the station infrastructure and I can envisage some servicing/repair issues.

 

Again, apologies that we have moved away from the original question, but hope the discussion on terminus design and construction is proving of interest. I've certainly found it invaluable..

[Pacific231G]

My strong impression is that track plans were rarely elegant on the real thing - especially at places where the station had been substantially expanded to cope with additional traffic. Some, like Euston, were a complete mess. It was rare to have the opportunity to completely remodel a station's trackwork in the steam era. Many were modified in a fairly higgledy-piggledy way.

I think that's why I find Bastille and Minories so attractive as station layouts. I do see similarities between them and they're both elegant designs. There was nothing higgledy-piggledy about Bastille. Despite using double deck carriages and maximising train lengths by installing traversers. the Est's traffic department faced severe undercapacity during the rush hours in the "roaring twenties" Expansion or electrification were ruled out on cost grounds and the company hadn't adopted push-pull working so its traffic department did some fundamental thinking about both the track layout and the operating pattern to be able to turn trains round as fast as possible. They published learned papers about it and these are full of complex equations, diagrams, platform occupancy charts and so on. The rationalisation did involve a certain amount of track relaying and I suspect that one reason why it was made up almost entirely from standard turnouts was to allow this to happen over a short occupancy.

 

St Enoch was effectively 2 stations side by side, so could be reduced by a third or so for modelling purposes without losing the atmosphere of the original. It would still be very large though. The northern-most 2 platforms (platforms 1 and 2) would make an interesting model in themselves. They appear to have been designed for 2 trains to use each platform without impeding each other - a feature rarely modelled. Here is an extract of the signal and track plan from around 1900.

 

It is an interesting design. Were these two platforms used particularly for suburban services rather like the almost separate suburban station on the western side of Kings Cross ? That also had the parcels depot alongside.

 

Whilst large termini are exciting to contemplate, they require a huge amount of effort to operate - far more in the realm of a group than an individual - especially in the steam era, when there would be lots of light engine movements on top of the service itself. Even platforms one and two on their own would require a lot of concentrated effort to work realistically.

 

I think it's as much the intensity of services as the size and that does vary. After all Penzance, Marylebone and Fenchurch Street all had four platforms in the steam era. Penzance could probably be operated to timetable by one person but I doubt if Fenchurch Street could.

 

I know that Cyril Freezer published Minories largely to show that a busy city terminus could be just as feasible a layout for a lone modellet to buil and in much the same space as the BLTs that most people seemed to be building at that time. The MRC group who built and operate their EM gauge Minories for the fiftieth anniversary operate it pretty intensively with loco hauled trains with just two operators.

Edited August 21, 2012 by Pacific231G

[gordon s]

Had a quick play around this morning and Bastille could be turned into a through station. With more time, I would move the through pointwork further out to improve the platform length and curve all the platform roads into smooth transitions, but it could be done within the 18' dimension....

 

There would also need to be some tidying up/realignment of pointwork at the throat end, but it could be done.

 

More food for thought...

 

Edited August 22, 2012 by gordon s

[RJS1977]

But at that you can't make parallel moves at the "other" end,,,,

[roythebus]

I remember talking to Cyril Freezer many years ago about the original Minories plan and asked him why the loco spur requires an additional shunt move. At Moorgate widened lines the arriving loco, when released by the train departing, had a simple move along the platform into the loco spur, then back out onto the train.

 

On Minories, the released loco had to go beyond the point, set back into the loco spur, then when the next train had arrive, out onto the running line and set back into the station.

 

Cyril's reply was to make the operation of the model more interesting!

 

Digressing a bit, Cyril was most impressed with my Tidmouth Junction plan, 10' x4', with double track main line, double track terminus, independent branch line, goods yard, loco yard with turntable, and a hidden loops to.. OK, it was one of the first Thomas layouts, but to work it properly, especially the terminus, took some careful thought.

 

Tom Cunnington of the MRC has built Minories in EM which has been at Ally Pally at least once.

[gordon s]

But at that you can't make parallel moves at the "other" end,,,,

 

This was only a sketch that I put together in a few minutes to see if the pointwork would fit within design constraints, nothing more.

 

Parellel movements could probably be achieved with a lot more work. Off the top of my head, a possible simple solution would be simply to mirror the left hand end, but I'd need to follow the lines through to see if that made sense...

[clecklewyke]

I think that's why I find Bastille and Minories so attractive as station layouts. I do see similarities between them and they're both elegant designs. There was nothing higgledy-piggledy about Bastille. Despite using double deck carriages and maximising train lengths by installing traversers. the Est's traffic department faced severe undercapacity during the rush hours in the "roaring twenties" Expansion or electrification were ruled out on cost grounds and the company hadn't adopted push-pull working so its traffic department did some fundamental thinking about both the track layout and the operating pattern to be able to turn trains round as fast as possible. They published learned papers about it and these are full of complex equations, diagrams, platform occupancy charts and so on. The rationalisation did involve a certain amount of track relaying and I suspect that one reason why it was made up almost entirely from standard turnouts was to allow this to happen over a short occupancy.

 

 

 

It is an interesting design. Were these two platforms used particularly for suburban services rather like the almost separate suburban station on the western side of Kings Cross ? That also had the parcels depot alongside.

 

 

 

I think it's as much the intensity of services as the size and that does vary. After all Penzance, Marylebone and Fenchurch Street all had four platforms in the steam era. Penzance could probably be operated to timetable by one person but I doubt if Fenchurch Street could.

 

I know that Cyril Freezer published Minories largely to show that a busy city terminus could be just as feasible a layout for a lone modellet to buil and in much the same space as the BLTs that most people seemed to be building at that time. The MRC group who built and operate their EM gauge Minories for the fiftieth anniversary operate it pretty intensively with loco hauled trains with just two operators.

 

I usually operated my OO gauge version of Minories (it was my first attempt at Bradford North Western) by myself. It had a train turntable for a fiddle yard a la Denny and also had a computerised version of Denny's Automatic Crispin (AC) which I called Digital Crispin (DC), which meant that trains were offered by the next signal box by proper bell codes. It was a superb layout to operate and gave me, and sometimes my son Simon, many happy hours.

[Orinoco]

But at that you can't make parallel moves at the "other" end,,,,

 

Applying the Bastille model to a through station may be invalid - some of the platforms are likely to be uni-directional to avoid conflicting movements in a through station.

[Ian_H]

which means gradients and I've had my fingers burned there, either with the complexity of construction or steam locos failing to climb the gradient.

 

 

I understand the difficulties in constructing the gradient but did you also have difficulties with the steam locos hauling the train up a 1:100 .... if so I'll have to revise my plans

 

The issue here is that the most you could gain is 70mm clearance and with Tortoise motors taking 85mm, it needs a lot of very careful planning to ensure there are no clash points under the terminus.

 

 

I see that you made some experiments with remote cabling for the tortoise motors, wire in a tube a bit like the brakes on a push bike, were they successful? Another idea is to use servos which seem to be gaining a popularity, much smaller than the Tortoise motors and heck of siight cheaper, I don't know if you have considered thier use?

 

For myself, I'm awhile a way from starting to construct my own layout. I started a loft conversion a couple of months ago. I thought at 8.3 x 4m it would make an ideal railway room, unfortunately with Fire Regs I can't have it as open plan as I proposed, so now it will be divided and used as additional bedrooms which I don't need so the cunning plan is a Home Cinema and the railway room will end up back in the room above the garage.

 

Regards

Ian

[gordon s]

No, rest easy Ian. The gradient problems were when I was using 1:50, hence my 1:100 objective.

 

The remote Tortoises work well but still require a fitting beneath the board which is probably 15-20mm from memory, unless you go the whole hog and mount them above the board. In some places that may be OK, others less so. So 70mm could become 90mm to clear the cranks etc adding another 6' to the gradient demand.

 

Perhaps now is the time to leave Bastille planning issues and return to the OP subject of Minories....

[The Stationmaster]

This was only a sketch that I put together in a few minutes to see if the pointwork would fit within design constraints, nothing more.

 

Parellel movements could probably be achieved with a lot more work. Off the top of my head, a possible simple solution would be simply to mirror the left hand end, but I'd need to follow the lines through to see if that made sense...

 

Yes - but do you want the complexity of the ability to reverse trains at both ends and for all platforms? I suspect in reality the answer is likely to be 'no' as very few through stations had that facility usually managing to keep at least one line unidirectional for train running moves. But if someone wants massive flexibility - with the signalling complexities which will result then fair enough.

 

Incidentally SNCF are as beloved of such things as complex equations and charts as were their various predecessors - they can be quite interesting but are often far from practical when the chips are down. Their terminal occupation theoretical work and charts are in fact nowhere near as effective as a train graph combined with a bar chart for platforming - a quick and simple process.