Finished the track plans, and the base plate onto which the coal mine will be built. Now I need to turn my attention to the left and down that long ramp that will take the trains down along that side of the layout to connect back to the mainline. At the bottom of that ramp there will be an intersection of turnouts that will allow the trains to access the refinery area. The refinery area is going to fill that opposite corner, and include both oil products and propane products,…so oil and propane tank cars will be loading and moving around on these tracks on either side of the refinery.
Early on I had wanted to possible find a location for at least a small cryogenic plant along with a spherical storage tank for those liquefied gases. It stems from my long time fascination with those cryogenic tank cars. I bought at least 8 of them when BLI finally bought out those plastic ones. Up to that time I figured the only way I would be able to afford those brass cars was to kit bash them like Bobby Pitts did such an excellent job on.
Lets see, can I fit something in that space between to two opposite ends of the layout, and outboard of that ramp of track? First off I needed a long track parallel to the ramp track that could allow for staging some of those tank cars that would be coming and going from the refinery. Perhaps I should have two such ‘staging tracks’ for the variety of tank cars involved, plus even some coal loaded cars might pay a visit.
By happenstance I placed some turnouts and spur tracks at angles off of one of those staging tracks. Here is what that looked like.
Just thinking out loud,…I need to kitbash a couple of larger spherical tanks like those shown in the TomyTec kit,…rather than those Kibri ones. One of those Kibri tanks would barely fill up one car,…maybe.
Lets see I need to keep a lookout for a larger spherical ball of some sort…?
Well, you may be able to get away with plain old large cylindrical tanks - here’s a link to Google View of the Air Liquide Ghent, Kentucky plant. I wouldn’t be surprized if there’s serious amounts of underground storage as well. There does look to be a row of SMALL(relatively-ish) spherical tanks toward the SE, but they’re small enough you don’t need to use toilet floats to model them (maybe in O scale…).
Interestingly enough, the loading sidings’ layout somewhat resembles your track layout, if you consider the main storage facility “in the aisle”. In any case, expect to use lots of piping…
I’m trying to figure out what might be done to ‘disguise’ that ramp of track running down that side behind the cryogenic plants. The ramp can be seen rather clearly in those previous photos, ie,
I did NOT want to make it some sort of man-made steel structure, but rather an ‘earthly’ structure. But it is pretty tightly sandwiched in between that mainline track running along the wall, and the siding/staging tracks for the refinery et al. That would make the sides of that ramp-roadbed/mound pretty steep?
Regarding the ramp, I’d be interested in reading innovative solutions to disguising it other than building the traditional retaining wall. I’ve got an open mind.
Is David Copperfield looking for a job these days?
You’ve got lots of track in a small space, which says urban scenery to me. Eventhough I’m not a big fine of retaining walls, it should look like it belongs, IMO.
I’m NOT looking to hide the track, just didn’t want to use an urban style retaining wall.
I’m imaging that nether the refinery, nor those gas plants are located in a city area,…they are in the country. So I guess you might say I’m looking for a country style retaining wall,…what ever that is?
So I would say your coal mine is the oddball industry relative to the gas plant and refinery. Not the other way around.
Of course, I would see a ramp up to a power plant, which would use the same coal cars as your coal mine, only as a destination point and not the origination point. Power plants are in urban settings, and so are tunnels through mountains if you’ve ever been to downtown Pittsburgh.
One of the rail cams I check out is located in Waupaca, WI. The CN main line is about 14’ (?) above street grade. There is an embankment on each side of the track that is steep, 45 degrees or more, and it’s just earth, covered with shrubs, weeds and tall grass.
On one side, there is siding that leaves the main, and goes down to street grade. On that side, there is an old concrete retaining wall, about 6’ high, and from the top of that wall, the ground angles up a steep grade to the main track, same as other side, covered in weeds, shrubs and tall grass.
Here in philly, the Reading, PRR, B&O, philadelphia Beltline rr. all have situations like that in spades. They used cutstone walls, arch viaducts, and steep earth embankments. Because of of how tight that is, i would use the earth embankment as far as possible to the soils angle of repose. Switch to cutstone wall then to arch viaduct. That would produce the most architectural appeal. Would also build in history to say an old industrial area got a new use
Timber grid terrace wall. This was a grid of timber with open space in which the backfill rock was clearly visible. The modern version would use concrete beams. All in a terrace style. Vegetation over time would take hold.
There is one other wall type i have never seen modeled but it is realtiv new. Earth mse walls. Gabion Cages of soil in block form are stacked at a steep angle. Grass is grown in these blocks to stabilize it This allows for a very steep earth “wall” embankment
Thanks for the link. Actually, the siding connects back to the main, it’s the track that is being used to store hoppers full of coke that ends up in a back yard.
Look at the satellite view, and follow the siding west.
