Yeah Thanks alot guys, I wasn’t planning on having a coal mine on my layout, but i am now. I’m going to have a big bridge, and a coal mine, a yard, street running, and a fair amount of operations. At the rate i’m going, I’m gonna need a big space!
I can think of far worse things to put on a layout. I have two coal flooders and mines.
Can’t speak for the coal trucks, since all the coal at my colliery moves on conveyor belts. As for where the outbound coal goes, on my layout I load out unit trains (run to down staging after interchanging with the local Class I and a motive power change from tank steam to catenary motors) and loose cars, both hoppers and drop-side gons. Loose cars are distributed by waybill, but all of them run to the interchange point at Tomikawa. There they may leave with originating local freights, either up or down, be cut into through freights (ditto) or delivered locally (JNR coal dock, KMT coal dock, local coal dealer’s yard.) Except for those which never leave Tomikawa, all loaded cars eventually end up in down staging, where they are emptied before being returned to the mine.
I’ve been operating this scheme bare rail on plywood for, literally, decades. Now I’ve acquired the New River kit to kitbash into something resembling the prototype crusher-sorter that I photographed near Fukuoka almost half a century ago (time flies when you’re having fun!) After carefully examining my photos, I may need to get the Glacier Gravel kit as well - some of those conveyors
Ok, at long last I finished the kit. Here are some pictures with both coal loaders.
No weathering yet. I am still contemplating it.
Very nice mine.
I am working on the ADM Elevator.
I used pernament marker on the window panes. One or two are blocked out.
I took a box with a cover, dumped the windows into it; added Braxton Mills powder to simulate grain dust. Shook the box with the lid on until the windows were done.
I also have the mine, at this time I cannot decide what to paint it.
MIKE0659, great explanation on the coal operations on your club layout. [tup]
You mentioned that you run live loads of real coal, and it’s easy to tell the loads and empties when drilling a loader. Since you are using real coal, how do you get it to scale size and where are you getting this real coal?
Mine just came in today. In N Scale. I ordered it through my LHS and it took a week. I was supposed to be notified by an on-line company when they would have it in stock. Although they assured me I would be the first person to be notified of its availability I never heard from them so I went with my LHS. A good lesson for all of us.
SUPPORT YOUR LHS!!!
The on-line price might appear cheaper at first glance but when you factor in the S & H charges and consider the extremely slow or non response of some on-line companies, your LHS might be the best way to go.
FritzvB
Here’s a few pictures at night with the building and yard lights.
Nice night scene, Jeff!
I’ve had my kit for years and hopefuly soon will start construction. I’m planning to build the smaller version described in a MRR issue and was going to paint all the walls with a metalized paint first, then construct and weather. Silver might need to be toned down a bit too much.
My next challenge is to figure out what to put in front of the coal loaders on the layout.
the area in front of the hill between the tunnel tracks and the coal loader tracks is around 8" x 32" in size. All the way to the left will be the beginning of a small town. I am up for suggestion on what to put in this area. It can’t be too tall because that area faces the front of the layout and would block everything behind. I am thinking of a parking lot for the workers at the coal mine and then a road leading towards the town for the workers and trucks coming from the mine. A parking lot is low but just doesn’t seem like the best usage of space.
Suggestions anyone ?
A small depot for bus/truck and perhaps a diner combined in one building?
Hi Ryan,
Uh, sorry, I was being a bit facetious with the “easy” comment. It’s real easy to tell them apart, especially in comparison to those loaded and empty boxes, tanks, and covered hoppers.
Yes, we do run live loads of real coal. We were inspired by Tony Koester’s ramblings in his “Trains of Thought” columns way back when he was still modeling the AM. It sounded cool, and we figured it would be different and make the crews work a little harder and pay a little more attention. We ran some tests with cars loaded with all the ballast and sand we could come up with at the time and were impressed enough to commit to the live loads concept. A 15 car loaded coal train of triple hoppers is pretty heavy, I don’t right now recall the weight per car, but we did weigh them once just out of curiosity. I want to say a 15 car train, with the weight of the cars, is somewhere in the 4+ pounds range, but can’t swear to it. Everybody is surprised by the weight when they try to move a train by hand.
We actually have pulled a little weight out of some of our locomotives and cut back their top speed using programming functions in our Railcommand system so no one will be tempted to cheat and try to make a run at the grade. They’ll stall and just get the dispatcher ticked-off. They have to wait for the pushers to get them up the grade. And as you can imagine, lifting a loaded train up the grade takes some good teamwork between the h
Dale, the mine looks great but so do the trees in the above picture. What’s your technique for making them?
Jarrell
MIKE0659, I would image that full loads would add a lot of weight to the cars. My concern would be accidentally tipping the cars and spilling the loads onto the layout. I have seen where some take styrene or other flat surface and attach to the hopper then place a small amout of “load” on top of that so as to simulate a full load without all the weight considerations. This simulated full load is also glued down to maintain a static form.
Also, thanks for the real coal in miniature contact.
Cheers,
Ryan
Ryan,
Fake coal loads are for wimps! Actually, we started out with all those cast loads and we made a bunch of loads too. They look good and worked fine, but we just wanted to go with the live loads.
We sold off all the loads at several local train shows, cheap. They all got snapped up and we used the money to buy coal. Real coal.
Yes, if you dump a train it can make a mess.
Stand by a second while I knock on wood. All of us railroaders are superstitious.
We have only dumped one partial train and it went to the floor since we didn’t have any scenery. It wasn’t normal operation that caused it, but something dumb we did. And no, I won’t tell you how we did it, even if you say please!
Mostly because I don’t remember.
I have knocked a car over in the scenery while working. Yes the smart thing would be to move the car before fooling around in that area, but I got lazy. All you have to do is scoop most of it up with a spoon or scoop or piece of cardstock. Then we use a cordless vacuum cleaner to suck up the rest. Since everything in the scenery is glued down and the cordless vac isn’t too strong, it’s no big deal and doesn’t damage the scenery. And, a little coal along the right of way looks prototypical, they don’t get it all up when they have a derailment either.
One bonus of the heavy loads is that they track very well. We took great pains with our trackwork when putting it down, even before we knew we were running live loads, so we don’t (Knocki
I am still working on mine. The glue is still drying and you cansee masking tape in a few places. Some of you guys have done an awesome jon on this kit.
I all most didnt post they are so good. But i worked hard at my level of ability and am proud to show it.
I am not so good with these kits, I spill some glue, get in a hurry, over spray some paint where I dont want it but I generaly have a good time.
It pays to have a good camera and I dont so it makes the pic less than it should be too.
EDIT:
Friday and I about hae it completed.
I had similar problems with glued fingers and masking tape stuck to the glue etc… Same thing on overspray. If you look hard you’ll see light blue dots on the black doors on mine. The thing is, that happens in real life. I like the lighter roof. I toyed with a silver roof for mine. I think I still wish I had gone that route. What did you use for the blackening for weathering ?
Mike0659,
From your explanation it seems like you guys have some fun sessions. And yes, I have seen the ROW on some of he Norfolk Southern coal lines where some coal has spilled near the rails, and I was considering that too. You mentioned in an eariler post that you use the Smith & Son coal, I noticed in the 2006 Scenics Express catalog that three pages are dedicated to their product. I also noticed that there are more than one size to choose from, what size/type coal did you use? They also have a variety of ballast sizes, I am thinking of getting the smallest size which is the Gray Limestone #50 for ballasting my track. Any considerations on ballast size?
Cheers,
Ryan
I use canned spray paint.
Over the blue paint I mist it with flat black then lightly spray the blue again.
Makes a nice effect and tones down the black.
Now I need to find a box to store it in a while, it is bigger than I expected.
Dull coat does a great job of covering up the glue.
I dull coat every thing.
Testers is making a killing on that 1.5 oz of paint for $3.50