Modelling N-gauge quarry producing ore transported by open hoppers to Great Lakes shipping dock.
Mine & Dock at opposite ends of around the room layout (3’ wide).
Looking for suggestions (short of loading & unloading the cars) to give a realistic presentation.
I like John Armstrong’s suggestion in “Track Planning for Realistic Operation” but can’t figure out how to make it work when the 2 locations are at opposite ends of the layout.
Thanks for any tips!
…John
Well, can the mine be a hidden staging track, and the dock a barge ferry? That way, you could have two barges. Load the full cars on the barge and replace it with another barge of empties. Take the full barge to the hidden mine track and plug it in like a cassette.
Another solution might be a hidden track all the way around the layout connecting the dock back to the mine.
I’m facing the same problem. I’m thinking about attaching a small magnet underer the load, for easier removal and unload the cars by hand and carry the loads by hand to the other side at the end of the operating session.
Walter in Columbia, TN
I’ve got it worked into my layout with a hidden helix (in another room) the inside track will be between a coal mine and a port building so the full trains run into the building up the helix and out the mine.
Ken.
I had the same problem on my coal mine to port, point to point layout. My solution, I made up some cassettes which plug into the port dock track and to the mine loading track and transfer the empties/loaded cars manually. I have a double deck layout and the port is directly below the mine.
Last fall at Milwaukee’s TrainFest, P&H Mining showed it N scale display layout that it used to demonstrate its equipment at a Las Vegas trade show
It was a magnificent layout using a strip mining theme. The company engineers who designed it came up with a “flip load” for N scale coal gons/hoppers so that as the train went through the flood loaders the load flipped into view, then when the train went throug a tunnel the load flipped over to make the car look, more or less, empty
The load was carefully balanced on an axis going through both ends, and what flipped the load was a small piece of wire that stuck out one side
Unfortunately I could not seem to interest the Model Railroader staff people who were right there to walk over and do an article on this incredible layout because they had arrived at a wonderful solution to this problem. I guess P&H had their brightest engineering minds working on this layout! Unfortunately this photo does not show any detail of the incredibly clever way they handled this loads/empties issue in N scale and it seems MR missed its chance to do an article on it
http://www.phmining.com/new/minexpost.html
Dave Nelson
[:)][:)]
Dave…
Now that sounds like the perfect solution!
Maybe a manufacturer will take up the call because I have to believe that this traditional model RR problem is endemic to many layouts.
Now to pull out my old slide-rule & engineering books in order to figure out ‘How Did They Do That’!
Will be a fascinating project!
Thanks to each for taking the time to reply!
…John
Make your loads atop little box forms of tin can metal. Then use a Kadee track magnet or equivalent to ‘unload’ them at the lake port and reinstall by hand at the mine. Granted, putting them in the cars will be something of a PITA, but unloading will be a (literal) snap.
Too bad I can’t use that method myself. Problem is, many of my open-top cars are tin plated steel, so the magnet would lift the load car and all.
This might sound a little insane for N, but I’ve seen it done in HO before. Live loads loaded at the mine, and unloaded at the dock by a rotary dumper into a bucket under the layout that was used to keep the mine filled between sessions.
Derailments and accidents with spills were handled by a dedicated Dustbuster
so that coal wasn’t lost. All in all, it worked very well!
Question - is the round-the-room layout “C” shaped (walk in wothout a duckunder/etc.) or “O” shaped?