Like many folks I have the New River Mine from Walthers on my layout. There are several other coal mine structures on the market as well. But, there are no HO scale miners. OK, so most of them are underground and can not be seen, but surely there would be some wandering around topside with their helmets and Davey lamps on their heads? The only miners I have found in HO are a single figure from Alexander scale models and some turn-of-the-century floppy hatted folks from Rustic rails that don’t fit the 30’s-60’s shaft miner look at all.
If some company produced a set of miners who would be in the market for some?
Is it just me, or are others looking for workers?
Feb 12th. I have come up with somewhat of a solution, look at page 2
Preiser’s “Track Workers” and “Track Workers with Ties” are wearing yellow safety helmets. They are way too clean to be miners coming off duty, but with a lot of grimy black they could be quite presentably filthy.
Yes, absolutely. I’ve been looking and with the 100s of figures out there, I have found next to no miners. You would think that woodland Scenics with all of their figure sets would have something btu so far I haven’t found anything.
My father was a miner for the Reitz Coal Company in Windber, PA. Reitz No.5 is a memorial to my father and is the focal point of the layout my grandson and I are having a ball building.
I read this forum nearly everyday however this is my first post and I’m very happy to include both my father and grandson in it.
Have you inquired into WS to see if they have anything planned. Also, would one of their other figurine kits work - i.e. once you adequately dirty them up a bit?
I remember a few months ago there was a thread here on the forum of someone’s fairly average -looking layout that was being sold on eBay for a sizable amount of money. The one really cool feature and idea that I liked and took away from it was that they had a cutaway subterranean mine that was visible on the side - including a string of lights. It sort of remined me of the ant farms terrariums that we used to have as kids.
I have a colliery that will need a couple of skip loads of underground miners and twenty or thirty surface men (helmets, no lamps) before it can achieve full production. I’d love to be able to buy them rather than make them (John Allen method - wire armature, wax, then paint.)
OTOH, my other colliery is run by two men, three women and one very dirty dog. The men dig, the women wash and sort and the dog jumps on visitors and covers them with coal dust while licking their faces. (If this sounds like a mine I visited in Japan in 1959, you got it in one!)
I want miners to populate a model of Mount Olive, Illinois #15. It was in this mine in the 30’s that my Wife’s Grandfather suffered a crush injury that resulted in his death 10 days later. Her Father was 6 at the time. This and the surrounding miners cottages is one of the focal points of my layout. There is an enormous amount of satisfaction to be gleaned from this type of a project. My Father-in-law, Louis darned nearly shed a tear when he saw the model of the 4 roomed house that I made, in which his Mom raised 8 children living on a mine widows pension, which as you might imagine was not a lot! Adding family history makes this a lot more meaningful than “just playing with trains”.
I wish that they were! Because there are no pictures posted of the Rustic Rails miners I had an-e-mail conversation with Musket Miniatures to try and find out what I would be buying, to make sure that they were correct. I even told Jim that there was a potential market for some real mid-west 20th century coal miners. I don’t know if he believed me though?
I think you’ve made a good point, because although I haven’t specifically looked for miner figures, I have never truely seen a large variety of those type of figures. I’m sure someone, maybe even Preiser makes this type of figures, but I haven’t checked.
The Preiser Sewer/Road Construction Crew, Fireman in Action, German Railway Shunters, German Technical Services (2 sets), Federal Technical Workers and probably others are all male figures in helmets, generally with some form of protective clothing on. Again, they’ll need some paint, but only you know what the label on the box said. OK, so some of them don’t have green cards…
I would buy them. I have a sand and gravel pit on my modules. Can you believe that no one makes an HO scale dirt bike or ATV? Ive made my miners from a W.S. train mecanics set and used putty and paint for hard hats. I like the blue coverals they have. Thats what we use at work for working on the plant. Just be creative and use what you think would look good.
I have the Alexander figure “Mike the Miner” He looks good, but it’s just one guy and he’s better suited for pushing something. My “Mike” came unpainted but I think they come painted now.
I’d sure buy some to put around the New River Mine. As Simon says, not all miners would be underground all the time – they have to have a shift change.
The problem is, there would probably not be enough of a market for a company like Woodland Scenics to produce them.
I’d bet they’d sell more miners than “Artists and Models” or “Roofers.” They make plenty of “boutique” figure sets. This is much more mainstream. Coal and railroads go together. C’mon, WS, there’s a crying need here.