Theory of General Minories

[Orinoco]

In 1930 It looked like this:-

 

Many thanks for the timetable. I assume you have seen the 1914 Sunday TT on Wikepedia? - only one way though.

 

Yes, I noticed the pattern - also that within the 5 departures they leave in order of furthest distance before the first stop, with the slowest train just reaching its destination before the next fast train gets there.

 

Quite how you could operate such an intensive service in model form without a team of helpers, I don't know!

[beast66606]

Quite how you could operate such an intensive service in model form without a team of helpers, I don't know!

 

http://www.freiwald.com/pages/traincontroller.htm

[The Stationmaster]

In 1930 It looked like this:-

 

What does strike me about this pattern is that there is absolutely no room for error so what happened if there was a breakdown I've no idea.

If French methods of the 1930s were anything like those of the 1990s they would have been some incredibly mathematical 'contingency plans' to show just how much could still be operated when there was some sort of perturbation. However if the ideas of the 1930s were anything like those of the 1990s such plans would have born absolutely no relationship to the actuality and something far more simple would have existed and been used - if it fitted the actuality. And that would be that - the idea of ad hoc adjustment and 'instant' replanning to meet whatever is happening as an unplanned event simply does not exist in the SNCF way of doing things - they just run whatever will or can run when it's there to run (if you're lucky) and emergency timetable planning is an almost closed book to them.

[The Stationmaster]

 

Quite how you could operate such an intensive service in model form without a team of helpers, I don't know!

And that of course is part of the key to using Minories to its optimum extent. It is a small urban terminus which can handle a pretty intensive service (although obviously things could be much quieter off-peak) so you need a carefully designed fiddle yard (or layout) and do it the way Beast has just pointed to or have a team of trained operators to really make it sing along. On the other hand you could run a Sunday service (not of the Paris Bastille kind).

[trisonic]

How did the "Jazz" timetable operate and how did they cope with what Mike calls "perturbations" (presumably these can build up over a day)?

 

I remember my Grandad telling me that prostitutes loved the service off-peak because they could perform their tricks between Liverpool Street and Bethnal Green and then return pronto. Saved a room too. I'm not sure that this (little known?) fact would be mentioned in any formal history....

 

This may be a complex question to answer on here.......

 

Best, Pete.

Edited August 26, 2012 by trisonic

[The Stationmaster]

How did the "Jazz" timetable operate and how did they cope with what Mike calls "perturbations" (presumably these can build up over a day)?

This may be a complex question to answer on here.......

Best, Pete.

 

The Jazz service basically worked on using turnover engines at Liverpool St and getting trains cleared and out very quickly in order to free the platforms - works like a dream as long as everybody is on their toes and up to it (which they were on the GE - for instance in the peak incoming engines were invariably uncoupled before more than a handful of the detraining passengers had reached the platform barriers).

 

Sorry to use 'perturbation' but it sums up just about anything that can go wrong (which is how I got to like it as word even though it was far too popular with Ops Research people when 'testing' one of my train/infrastructure plans). The simplest way of recovering in an intensive suburban service is to take out trains (which also works in other service patterns as well) but the trick is in doing that properly so you keep crews and stock in the right places for either the next peak or the start of the next day. It's sort of like playing 3 dimensional chess where you have to think very quickly and know what you are playing with in terms of resources as well as knowing what you are doing and it is important to ignore some areas of fine detail but to work to certain principles to make sure it will work or at least won't get worse - great fun if you like that sort of thing (and oddly not all that many people did for some reason).

[Pacific231G]

Many thanks for the timetable. I assume you have seen the 1914 Sunday TT on Wikepedia? - only one way though.

 

Yes, I noticed the pattern - also that within the 5 departures they leave in order of furthest distance before the first stop, with the slowest train just reaching its destination before the next fast train gets there.

 

Quite how you could operate such an intensive service in model form without a team of helpers, I don't know!

 

The 1914 Sunday timetable is in the French Wiki article "Ligne de Paris-Bastille à Marles-en-Brie" and not the English "La Gare de la Bastille" which if you follow the references is more or less an unauthorised précis of my articles in CM (even down to some of my sentences). I suppose I should be flattered and my work is at least identified in the bibliography but articles taken from a single source will always tend to magnify and add to any errors and as a Wiki editor I did need to make several corrections where the "author" had misunderstood what I'd originally written.

 

The 1914 timetable is interesting and I don't have it myself but with seventy four trains it was pretty busy all day. It is of course rather poignant as a lot of the men going off for a carefree day in the country would all too soon be on very different trains going to the front.

 

The basic idea of "flighting" groups of trains wasn't new of course but rather than simply running the fastest limited stop trains first and the all-stoppers last the Est's traffic department perfected it for 1925 so that some trains ran all-stopping (omnibus) to a nearer point before turning round whilst others ran non stop to an intermediate station then stopped at all stations. By doing this they managed to get five trains into each batch rather than the previous four. Also, almost every evening rush hour train spent just ten minutes on the platform between arrival and departure whereas in 1923 that had varied between ten and thirty minutes. Looking at the improved platform allocation bar chart I suspect that not having coach sets hanging around on the platforms required far less use of the traversers to release locos as they could take on water at the concourse end and then follow their previous train out and the train on the opposite road would only clear two minutes earlier. That does follow Cyril Freezer's concept for Minories where there are no loco releases at all.

 

Towards the end of its life Bastille 's small Saxby box seems to have been operated by a lone signaller but by then the service was far less intense. I've got the 1960 timetable, two or three years before push-pull working was introduced, and on weekdays there were only thirty two trains in total. A shorter evening peak from 17.48-19.29 included just fifteen trains- with only three or four trains going out in quick succession in each batch. For the rest of the day the line was served by a less than hourly "omnibus" service. You could almost run that service on Minories with a couple of operators and maybe the extra line to enable parallel working between all three platforms.

 

I think Cyril Freezer's original idea, that he used in several other plans, was that with services run by almost identical suburban trains and locos, Minories could be connected to a simple reverse curve so that every departure quickly turned into an arrival without the need for a fiddle yard operator. Even one man (or a driver and a signaller) could then have all the fun of running an intensive commuter service. Maybe not such a bad idea even now as the loop could be folding and plugged in for operating sessions.

 

I don't know how many operators Bastille itself would have needed in earlier times nor how many operational staff on the ground apart from train crews. I suspect though that the long gap after the last peak hour train was to take up any slack and give the operational staff time to get their breath back.

Edited August 26, 2012 by Pacific231G

[trisonic]

The Jazz service basically worked on using turnover engines at Liverpool St and getting trains cleared and out very quickly in order to free the platforms - works like a dream as long as everybody is on their toes and up to it (which they were on the GE - for instance in the peak incoming engines were invariably uncoupled before more than a handful of the detraining passengers had reached the platform barriers).

 

Sorry to use 'perturbation' but it sums up just about anything that can go wrong (which is how I got to like it as word even though it was far too popular with Ops Research people when 'testing' one of my train/infrastructure plans). The simplest way of recovering in an intensive suburban service is to take out trains (which also works in other service patterns as well) but the trick is in doing that properly so you keep crews and stock in the right places for either the next peak or the start of the next day. It's sort of like playing 3 dimensional chess where you have to think very quickly and know what you are playing with in terms of resources as well as knowing what you are doing and it is important to ignore some areas of fine detail but to work to certain principles to make sure it will work or at least won't get worse - great fun if you like that sort of thing (and oddly not all that many people did for some reason).

 

I think perturbation is a great word to describe small incremental delays that build over a period of time, the guy slow to decouple, driver staring at the view when the signal changes etc., etc.

 

Thank you, Mike.

 

Best, Pete.

[clecklewyke]

With reference to the working point rodding on a P4 version of Minories

 

As someone said: Heroic. Is it a travelling layout, I wonder?

 

Best, Pete.

 

Wow!

 

I cannot find any other references to this layout. The slip makes it clear that the track plan is not the original Minories, which is probably good, as CJF's was always a compromise to make a quart of layout out of a pint of standard turnouts.

 

Does anyone know where to find more about this project? I would love to follow its progress.

Edited August 26, 2012 by clecklewyke

[Orinoco]

Browsing through Scaleforum, this seems to be the main thread.

[Karhedron]

The slip makes it clear that the track plan is not the original Minories, which is probably good, as CJF's was always a compromise to make a quart of layout out of a pint of standard turnouts.

Indeed, Minories was a nice job with the tools CJF had available RTR. Today we have slips and 3-way points available RTR and a compact station like this would be a logical place to use them. Iain Rice's "Harestone" (mentioned somewhere above) does a good job of updating Minories using a few slips to compress the station throat further and give a very compact and workable suburban terminus while adding a coal siding and loop for those who want a bit of frieght as well.

[SRman]

As I mentioned earlier, I added a (Peco code 100) double slip to my mirror-image Minories-based branch to allow locomotives to shunt into the shed from the platform road rather than having to use one of the goods sidings (which, in my case, were nearly always occupied anyway!). If a single slip had been available at the time that would have been better suited to the job.

 

The branch was actually the oldest part of my previous layout, the whole lot lasting over 20 years but the weakest part of it was that double slip, which had to be replaced twice in that time (making the last one the third item to be placed there). Since that time I have avoided using the double slips in all of my current and future plans, although they are undoubtedly a great space saver.

[clecklewyke]

Browsing through Scaleforum, this seems to be the main thread.

Yes, I found this. It's a marvellous thread focussed on track building but does not tell us much about the whole layout. Trackwork alone does not a layout make.

[trisonic]

I don't think he has had time to do anything else!

I don't want to insult the chap (who probably is totally normal and charming - for a model railway guy) but it is almost like a "savant" thing!

 

Best, Pete.

[martin_wynne]

Yes, I found this. It's a marvellous thread focussed on track building but does not tell us much about the whole layout. Trackwork alone does not a layout make.

 

Howard also has a topic about his project here: http://85a.co.uk/for...1433&forum_id=6

 

Martin.

[kevinlms]

As I mentioned earlier, I added a (Peco code 100) double slip to my mirror-image Minories-based branch to allow locomotives to shunt into the shed from the platform road rather than having to use one of the goods sidings (which, in my case, were nearly always occupied anyway!). If a single slip had been available at the time that would have been better suited to the job.

 

The branch was actually the oldest part of my previous layout, the whole lot lasting over 20 years but the weakest part of it was that double slip, which had to be replaced twice in that time (making the last one the third item to be placed there). Since that time I have avoided using the double slips in all of my current and future plans, although they are undoubtedly a great space saver.

 

Yes that's because the Code 100 double slip was always a dog's breakfast. My club actually had one & it was always causing derailments. I volunteered to make one and made a start and then spent the next few months wondering how I was going to finish it off.

Then, Peco brought out their Code 75 version & I talked the club into buying one. We also replaced a couple of points around the DS, as we partly damaged these points, removing the old 100 DS.

 

The result is that the code 75 version, is still in frequent use and has long outlived the code 100 version. An excellent product and vastly superior to the old code 100, version.

[trisonic]

Howard also has a topic about his project here: http://85a.co.uk/for...1433&forum_id=6

 

Martin.

 

Thanks, Martin. Howard has more threads running than Jim S-W, is that possible?

 

Best, Pete.

[HAB]

Thanks, Martin. Howard has more threads running than Jim S-W, is that possible?

 

Hello Chaps,

 

Martin alerted me to this thread and I find that I do have a valid log in hereabouts! Some really good stuff in this thread I see - and I discover my own efforts referenced.

 

I am not sure if I do have more threads than Jim but I do have a few it is true!

 

To just add a few words about my own Minories layout which seems to have been smoked out of its hiding place over on the Scalefour Soc forum buried deep (but not deep enough it seems!) in the Nottingham Area Group.

 

Here is my back-story:-

 

The plan is exactly as per the larger of CJF's plans for a small terminus in 60 Plans for Smaller Layouts (which I was give as a boy of 8, 50 years ago!) and which only later got the Minories name. Of course, I compressed the individual crossovers to overlap, which means that I can actually fit scale track into a shorter length than Peco would occupy! Beyond that, there are only 2 changes to CJF's concept. Firstly, the two sidings are used as carriage sidings, rather than as goods sidings, and secondly, rather than being a GE/LNER branch, it is a branch off the East London line just north of Wapping, heading eastwards under the London Docks, to terminate in Minories - about 150 yards north of Fenchurch Street. In my version of history, the LBSCR, rather than losing interest in the ELR - as they did in reality - extended a branch to Minories as a way of accessing the City more directly than by means of London Bridge. The Old Kent Road spur - rather than being lifted in 1916, providing access to the South London Line and therefore,the branch was Electrified on the Overhead as part of the South London Scheme, which the Southern subsequently converted to thrid rail. Ironic, that after 40 years of slumber under the District, then LU, this has actually become the reality of the East London line in the last few years!

 

Because of the Location, the line was built as cut-and-cover, with the station located in a hole in the ground (a-la Whitechapel Met-District) hence the cramped layout. The terminus is mechanically signalled from an LBSC "South London" Syle box with a 30 lever Saxby and Farmer "Rocker"frame. Block working is by Sykes Lock and Block to Wapping Junction, which is a power box with a 55 lever Westinghouse frame. Intermediate Block Signals are provided in both directions giving a 3 minute headway between trains. The layout at Canal Junction gives access to both New Cross and New Cross Gate stations and hence, at peak hours, services operate not only to Central Section, but also to Kent Coast destinations. Off-peak services comprise a 20minute frequency to Victoria alternately via the South London or via Thornton Heath. If I were really greedy, I could have a triangular junction at Wapping giving me access to Liverpool Street and the whole of the ex. GER as well - but I am not....

 

I am setting the period as 1959 so that I can use the Bachman 2-EPBs and also 4 CEPs - at that time running Central Section services pending completion of the Kent Coast Electrication - which therefore allows steam worked peak hours services to the North Kent.

 

The bottom line of that load of old crxp is that I can make 5 movements in every 3 minutes without stretching any real life operating rules, and with almost any ex SR stock I can build!

 

As it is currently, the platform will take 6 car EMUs in platform 1 and 2 plus 6 coach plus two locos (one at each end) in platform 1. But the idea is to extend this to eight cars in due course.

 

I might add that the "scenic" bit will a little under 9 feet long and 16" wide.

 

Personally, I feel that the Minories concept is a great basis for a layout as it is very simple yet offers infinite scope. This is my second attempt - the first one I over complicated which may be a trap awaiting others who have posted here.

 

I have gone to town a bit on the track and the point rodding as - for me - one benefit of doing something small is that it can be done in detail - and, as I mention in my other threads I am out to establish that such things as scale track, working rodding etc can be done and without excessive effort. But it does mean that you can't run trains until quite a bit later than more conventional approaches allow.

 

Just in case anyone is thinking that my approach is complete madness (which it is of course!) let me say that this is probably my LEAST crazy hobby!

 

 

Best Wishes

 

Howard

[trisonic]

Howard, Thanks for the explanation. I really like the railways of east London and it makes a lot of sense. The east side is kind of London's Cinderella, if you get my drift!

 

Cheers, Pete.

[t-b-g]

I don't think he has had time to do anything else!

I don't want to insult the chap (who probably is totally normal and charming - for a model railway guy) but it is almost like a "savant" thing!

 

Best, Pete.

 

I met Howard a couple of months ago and he is, indeed, as normal as many other modellers and more normal than some I could think of...... We compared notes on adapting Minories and he showed me some photos of the work in progress. There isn't much (any) more than track at this stage. One novel approach is that each bit of rail for all the pointwork had been cut, filed/shaped and had chairs attached but nothing was stuck down yet. Funny how many different ways there are to do these jobs.

 

If the rest of the layout is built with the same attention to detail and application, it will be a bit of a "wow" when it eventually appears.

 

Tony

Edited August 27, 2012 by t-b-g

[HAB]

Thanks for the kind words Tony!

 

Maybe not too normal, though I do find time for other things - here is my complete antidote to point rodding madness

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8xcfsvT8R8

 

For my sins, I appear between minutes 6 and 10.

 

Back (roughly) on topic, Ian asked for a copy of my track diagram over on Scale forum. and here is one - a bit rough, but it shows how the layout is exactly as per CJF's original but with the crossovers squeezed together.

 

 

 

The issue has been raised about operating a layout like this, and I think it would require a minimum pf three operators to do any kind of intensive operation. Also, I am still very uncertain about fiddle yard options - I have thought about cassettes, turntables, train lifts and all sorts, but I am still in two minds - who has practical experience for a layout like this?

 

As to finishing it, my rack record is not good: I tend to get bored when the trains start running!

 

Cheers,

 

Howard.

[trisonic]

Howard,

Tell me about it! The build is the thing for me too....

Thanks for posting the "movie", very interesting indeed. Now I understand why you enjoy threading complex trackwork together (not to mention the point - rodding). Has anyone else done that in 4mm?

I'm a musician btw.

 

Best, Pete.

Edited August 27, 2012 by trisonic

[clecklewyke]

Thanks for the kind words Tony!

 

Maybe not too normal, though I do find time for other things - here is my complete antidote to point rodding madness

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8xcfsvT8R8

 

For my sins, I appear between minutes 6 and 10.

 

Back (roughly) on topic, Ian asked for a copy of my track diagram over on Scale forum. and here is one - a bit rough, but it shows how the layout is exactly as per CJF's original but with the crossovers squeezed together.

 

Thank you, Howard.

 

Amazing how paths cross. This is one of my other passions. It was built as an Arkwright-style cotton mill with a big water wheel in 1784 and rebuilt as a wood-working mill in 1879, with the wheel replaced by what is now the world's oldest working water turbine. It will also feature in a TV programme with Guy Martin who will be seen "repairing" our turbine and "building" a replica wooden bicycle. (In fact he just added the finishing touches, the main work being done by our directors - sorry to spoil any illusions!)

 

Please finish your Minories. I find that now my layout is operable i am spending far too much time playing trains and not enough finishing it! If your trains aren't too long and you have enough room I would recommend a Denny-style train turntable, otherwise I would go for cassettes.

 

Ian

Edited August 27, 2012 by clecklewyke

[Miss Prism]

Also, I am still very uncertain about fiddle yard options

 

And there's the key to Minories. I'm always surprised at the amount of discussion over the visible part, but it's what's hidden that will determine success for an intensive operation. The minimum operational requirement would be for trains to arrive and depart simultaneously. Traversers/turntables won't satisfy this unless an empty incoming road is guaranteed to be adjacent to an outgoing road. Cassette ergonomics get complicated. Maybe the old-fashioned (but lengthy) scissors with double slips might be the best compromise.

[Clive Mortimore]

Hi All

 

 

The basic Minnories layout will only allow for a train arriving and one departing when the departing train is leaving the platform that directly exits on to the down line and an up train is entering one of the other platforms. A train departing the other platforms will have use the cross over from the up line to the down line meaning any train entering the station will have to wait until the crossover is clear. Likewise a train entering using the up to down crossover will block all the trains in the station. Therefore with careful timetable planning using a traverser/turntable is feasible as only a few services can arrive and depart simultaneously. I worked that out while planning my proposed model.

 

Many moons ago DEMU had a layout challenge based on the Minnories theme. A friend and I spent many hours working out how we could get everything in the space constraints and do it in P4. It was decided that the two crossovers would be best made into a scissors crossover. The point leading off to the loco siding would be added to the scissors as a tandem point with one of the points forming said scissors crossover. To get the point in for the third platform we would have ended up with a platform that could take a two coach train. So to save space a double slip was suggested. Now the country end blades of the double slip and the station end crossing of the diamond in the scissors would have been at the same place. This is a practice I have never seen, switches with a crossing V. The solution was found by having an offset scissors crossing. Templot was fired up and a track plan printed. That is as far as we got.

 

A couple of years ago I revisited the plan and redrew it in MS Paint for OO. Last year I started to make the point work, life got in the way so it wasn't to last week that I finished the basic track work. It does need to be refined but that will come in time. The plan is for it to be a GNR terminus just in the City, next door to the Barbican. It will be on a viaduct and will have a station building in the same ER style as Harlow, and Colchester. To be set in the sixties with Cravens DMUs, Mk1 suburbans, maybe a Mk 1 corridor train for Cambridge and Peterborough. Parcels and a van train of perishable goods to fill in the mid-day action. A large part of the arches under the viaduct will be a parcels depot. I have to have a reason for all those BR road vans I have. The working title is Cripplegate, this is the only gate in the old roman city wall that does not have a station or major road named after it.

http://en.wikipedia....ki/Cripplegate

Edited August 28, 2012 by Clive Mortimore