Minor railways

It was never part of my formative years, but I have a soft-spot for London's long-demolished Broad Street station.

A cavernous building next to the more famous Liverpool Street station, Broad Street was the central London terminus for the North London Railway. Heavily bomb-damaged in the Second World War, by the 1970s it was reduced to a couple of short sections of overall roof and long, empty platforms:

Broad Street was fed by third-rail electric multiple units, like this EPB on a journey from the other end of the line at Richmond:

Unsurprisingly, this glorious dereliction has inspired a number of models including this, one of my favourites ever, Ripper Street:

Here the overall roof has been rounded, but the feel of neglect and decay is almost palpable:

The station approaches are also rather delicious:

The model is based on a design by the late, great designer of such things, CJ Freezer:

He called this plan "Minories" inspired, as it was, by an old station not far from Broad Street (here the viaducts of long-disused Minories form the approaches to the DLR's terminus at Tower Gateway):

Minories station was only operational from about 1840-1855, when it was replaced by Fenchurch Street station (for for much of its life it operated a rope-hauled railway):

Minories (the model) has been reproduced in various forms, but the basic design -- a dual track approach to a congested city terminus, broadening out into three platorms with a loco release bay -- is always the same:

Sometimes a kick-back siding is produced at bottom-right, and occasionally the loco siding is extended into a fourth platform, but these just demonstrate the flexibility of the plan -- though over-complicating it does remove some of its joy (here the multiplying lower platforms are all fed off a single approach, which defeats some of the object of the original):

Over the years, some people have produced absolutely remarkable interpretations -- here, Moor Street is in an ex-GWR style and the whole is elevated onto a viaduct rather than being buried in a deep cutting:

While I love the detailed modelling work, there's something not quite right about this Minories being operated by all-diesel traction...

Though it's hard to fault views such as this:

The final interpretation I'll show is Minories (GN), in homage to CJ Freezer, an attempt to produce a model as close to his original inspiration as possible:

That showed the rather neat treatment of the station end, but here's what Minories is, to me, all about -- the brick cutting at the station throat:

Minories (GN) is another diesel traction job, though I love the simplicity of it (and of those delicious colour light signals, too):

The model was photographed as a "work in progress" rather than a finished piece, and I am hugely attracted it. I wish I had the talent to produce it.

As it is, in the great model railway clear-up that is scheduled to take place some time this year, I'm increasingly attracted to the idea of a Minories track plan. Compact yet compelling. It could still happen.

Actually, that would give me a great excuse to buy a few of Bachmann's new 2EPB units, which are due in the shops any day now...