So you have a coal mine on one side of a mountain or backdrop and on the other side you have a power plant. You drive the coal to the power plant. So you move the load into the plant with a switcher. Now it is magically appearing out of the coal mine. Now I don’t know coal mines. Are the cars automated or is there an engine that puls them forward for filling? If there is an engine, then you have to move both engines together.
What about the empties? It seems silly to pu***he empties into a mine and out the other side.
Use smoke and mirrors? The “illusion” is mis-direction like the high wire or trapeeze act over head while they scoop up after the elephant act in the center ring that just ended. This “illusion” saves an immense amount of switching loads for empties between or durning operating sessions. ie. we have loads to be picked up at the mine and empties to be picked up at the power plant for the next “cycle” of operations without having to run them all the way to the proper “setup” location.
Bill
Well on Mike Ziegler’s Conowingo Central, featured in the July issue of RMC (and for a track plan and operating info see the website at http://www.conowingo.auclair.com/)
There is a mountain which is part of a scenic divider between two parts of the layout
The coal mine is opposite the power plan and it is several tracks. If you removed the mountain it would look like a small double ended yard, like two forks attached at the splines.
As the switcher delivers coal loads at the power plant, they appear under the coal tipple on the other side. The assumption I guess would be that the mine has a car puller (an electric motor and pulley – you are very likely to see one at a grain elevator that lacks its own engine). Thus when the local shows up at the mine the loads are there ready to be picked up. And if the local has empty hoppers for the mine, it backs them in – and the empties appear on the appropriate track at the utility, also ready to be picked up.
Frankly I never even notice the “magic” appearnce of the cars at the mine. The key is some kind of divider so you cannot see both the mine and the utility at the same time, and to have both shipping and receiving tracks at both for loads and empties.
Dave Nelson
I was thinking of doing this for a 12" wide N scale shelf layout. That’s why I was concerned about the magically appearing cars. Itty bitty can have it’s disavantages I think.
Cars are moved just about any way imaginable at a coal mine. Since most are in hilly terrain the easiest way of moving them is by gravity with the receiving line up hill and the departure yard downhill. An emplyee will use the handbrake on a car. Car pullers are also used which are a loop of cable with a hevay steel cast eye in it somehwere top hook on a car and pull it where you need it. A huge mine might also have its own switcher. for our purposes since we model very small mines you need two tracks. track one receives the empty hoppers at the mine where the magically show up at the power plant and track two where the full cars are shoved in at the power plant and magically appear at the coal mine. Keep it that simple and don’t worry about movement at either plant.
One more thing. Position the industries so you can’t see them at the same time and use a view block of some kind (Mountain, buildings, etc. so once pass the mine and power plant you can’t see where they are going.
At many of the western coal mines the unit train coalporters are pulled slowly through the loader by the same road engines that are going to take them out onto the mainline.
Yeah that’s hard to do on a strictly linear layout - it really needs to go through some kind of divider, either a center backdrop or a mountain or something.
But what you could do is have a section of backdrop that is not against the rear. The mine and power plant tracks would both angle in towards the backdrop, and the connector track could pass behind the section that is set forward while the main continues along in front - maybe another siding or two serving a different industry to further block the power plant and mine from each other.
The illusion tends to work because typically the industries that complement each other are at opposite ends of the layout schematically. So you’re not switching the mine AND the power plant (or whatever, there are other possibilities) at the same time. So no one sees those loads you just shoved into the power plant magically appear at the mine - they’re just there the next time you run a train out to serve the mine.
I think I have the answer you are looking for! (Gasp!!!) [:0]
Now lets see if I can convey the idea in actual words.
Please fasten you seatbelt and extinguish all smoking materials. Please keep your hands inside the ride at all times.
The idea here is actually a John Armstrong one. Briefly, this scheme is a way to make it appear that open-top cars are actually unloaded at an appropriate industry. It is an alternative to shoving a loaded gondola into a power plant and then later picking it up claiming it to be “empty”.
The action you see on your model RR is that of a locomotive pushing a loaded gondola into an industry. A “day” or so later, after allowing time for the car to be unloaded, the car is pulled from the industry and it really is empty.
This is accomplished using two gondolas, one empty and one loaded. Inside the industry (actually beneath the mountains behind that industry) are two tracks, one to hold loaded gondolas, the other to hold empties. The loco simply pushes the loaded cars onto the appropriate track. The loco then backs up and is routed to the second track, via a turnout, and picks up the empties.
Now on the other side of the mountain (or viewblock, whatever) you have a matching industry. Examples of this might be a coal mine and a power plant, as you’ve already indicated interest in. Others might be a lime kiln and a plaster plant. The lime kiln receives empty gondolas and ships loaded gondolas full of white lime. The plaster plant receives loaded gondolas and ships empties. It would ship its product, plaster, in bulk or bags in boxcars, adding one more type of car to be switched.
Anyways, the loaded cars are pushed through the mountain on the loaded track from the plaster plant to the kilns. Vise versa as empty cars are pushed into the empty cars track on the kiln side, only to reappear at the plaster plant.
Now the track arrangement is like dknelson said, a double ended two track yard. Th
The two places I have seen this done successfully have enough hidden track between the two industries so that the “reverse arriving” cars are never seen. The tunnel entrance is also hidden on both sides. It isn’t until a locomotive shows up at the other industry and pulls the appropriate cars for their train that the cars are “seen” at the other industry. One seeing this would assume they had been there the whole time.
Further there are always two tracks between the industries. One for full and one for empty. That way one doesn’t have to shuffle cars with the incorrect “loadedness” ( making up words to fit the situation). To an observer they never notice that a train is never moving cars from the arrival track to under the tipple to be filled.
But I can truely say I don’t think that any public observing the trains would even notice anything wrong with empty cars “leaving” a mine. I guess I am saying I don’t know that the effort of the illusion is worth it.