Minories (model railway)

As tender locomotives avoid running backwards where possible, mid-size termini may have a small turntable as well, but coaling and ash-dropping would still be elsewhere.

There may also be a small spur for a station pilot loco; which moved rakes of empty coaching stock to and from carriage sidings elsewhere, as needed to cope with extra rush hour traffic.

The low-level urban setting of the Metropolitan was surrounded by a retaining wall which provided an obvious scenic break to the model.

Choosing a terminus instead of through platforms allowed a major space saving, as the layout no longer required a room-filling large radius running loop as well.

However this also required the hinges to be above 'ground level' to allow height for buildings etc., usually difficult to achieve for rural scenes, but easily done here with the retaining wall and bridge.

The cutting location gave a plausible excuse to fill every inch of the baseboard with trains and the assumption of an exit via cut-and-cover lines also explained the abrupt scenic break.

Requiring two working locos was not a problem for a busy urban station and it was a virtue to the modeller looking for excuses to run more stock in less space.

[4][8] In 2007 the Diesel and Electric Modellers United (DEMU) ran a small layout competition to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the plan's publication.

A number of exceptionally high quality layouts were entered including "Ripper Street",[8] "Minories GN" and "Westonmouth Central".