Any advice?
Awesome! Keep us posted. I used to work in a Quarry and would like to model a modern Rock & Sand operation. I am currently working on a mountain area to look like Calico Ghost town.
hi,
a pretty simple design, some questions related to how you want to operate the quarry sidings.
BTW your design is 9 ft long, not 8.
I have the feeling a lot more could be done in your space; but i do not know all the possibilities in a quarry. It is up to you to make it visible for a follower like me
smile
Paul
The curve is to connect to a staging yard. Maybe a future expansion. Now it is the entry to the quarry.
I don’t use use a passing siding in the empties track because the engine goes backward.
hi,
you have facing and trailing spurs. It has nothing to do with running forwards or backwards, but with pushing or pulling a cut of cars. Either way or your loading tracks or your empties track are impossible to reach.
http://www.chipengelmann.com/trains/Beginner/Runaround.html
Unless you have a passing siding in the staging yard, or place some cars before the engine and others behind it by hand. Without knowing more a discusion is fruitless. Imagine your engine pushing a cut of empties from staging, replacing them for loaded cars. Extra empties are temporarely parked on the empties track, trapping your engine.
have fun
Paul
If your plan is to first come in from staging pulling empties, and backing the empties into the empties track, uncoupling the cars there, and then go up and pull loaded cars from the load track, and depart with the loads, then it would work.
But the way you have things set up now, an engine (either the road engine or an industry switcher) will not be able to move cars from the empties track to one of the loading tracks, or the other way around, without having to leave the engine trapped at the inner end of one of the tracks, since you have no way of getting the engine to the other end of the cut of cars.
Usually quarry tracks are fairly simple - a quarry would be more of a scenic feature than a switching puzzle.
It could be modeled as a single ended spur where an engine can back into the track, couple to loaded outbound cars and pull them out of the track, leaving them on the main or on a siding for a moment, and then having the engine shove empty cars into the spur and leave them there to be loaded, before going back to grab the outbound cars and depart with them.
Or having some small industry engine pull cars slowly up to a loading point, wait until they are loaded, and then pull forward to the next car, wait until that is loaded, pull forward to the third car and so on and so forth, leaving a cut of loaded cars for the bigger railroad to pick up and take elsewhere.
A loading track can also be along a double ended siding off the main track - in which case the train can pull through a loader, and when all cars are loaded, the engine can be uncoupled, run around the cars and coupled
My idea is pulling empty cars from staging yard and backing them into the empties track. Uncouple the empties and couple the loaded cars. An industry switcher picks the empties from the empties track and moves them to the crusher/loader zone.
I know it’s a basic track plan but my space is only 2x9. I want to operate this layout for a long time, keeping the interest but it’s difficult to design a layout with lack of space
Need inspiration!
Not unless your industry switcher stays on the loading track, trapped by the loads.
Not really. 2x9 feet is plenty of space for a switching layout. A handful of H0 scale examples smaller than 2x9 feet:
An 8 foot town with a removable 3 foot extension:
8 foot yard, add a 3-4 foot removable switching lead:
An 8 foot self contained switching plan:
A 7 foot self contained switching plan:
A nine foot switching plan, based on a plan by Byron Henderson:
An 8 foot track plan based on a plan by “Shortliner” Jack Trollope:
hi Soller,
The trick is to build a situation with more then one industry.
This plan was from Stein.
Paul
Sometimes a simple siding is all that is needed. There are plenty of quarries that are small businesses.
Please keep us posted. i’d like to see the out come of your layout. I’m tight on space myself , 6x6 “L” shape but I’m hoping to expand. However I’m still in the planning and sketching phase. Good luck to ya.
Charles
Beautiful and realistic looking scene.
No doubt one can make a good looking industry scene out of a quarry. Here are some real life pics of a Norwegian gravel pit (Svene pukkverk on the Numedal line in South Central Norway) - the track is essentially a double ended siding under a loader:
http://www.jernbane.net/db/dispenhet.asp?enhet=1717&kat=Stasjoner&katID=5
One of the engines used to pull cars through the loader is a Di3 - essentially a Swedish built variant of an EMD F7, with cabs at both ends of the locomotive
But I think the core problem here is that the OP apparently wants the quarry to be his entire layout, and that he wants interesting switching to keep his attention for a long time.Pushing a cut of cars into one track, and pulling a second cut of cars from another track, while looking like a realistic scene, is not likely to offer a lot in the way of operating interest.
So I guess the OP should define what his primary goal is - to create a great looking scene or to have quite a bit of switching.
If his goal is to mainly concentrate on modeling the scenery, I would suggest doing a tri-fork layout - stem and three tines. One tine is a hidden track along the wall - this is where the train comes from, pulling empty cars.
Then two visible tracks - one for loaded cars, one for empty cars. Removable switching lead off one end of the layout. Train arrives from hiding, stops on main (behind scene), uncouples cars.
Moves forward, backs in, couples to loads under loader, pulls forward, spots loads on a second track.
Back to
Hi!
Yes, the quarry is the entire layout and my goal is to get operating interest. These weeks I have been searching info about quarries in the internet and building a crusher/loader kit from Walthers. My idea is to model a quarry with 2 loading tracks, one for a front wheel loader and the other for the crusher/loader kit. This is my new track plan:
Looking at your plan, I see you are using a simple push/pull idea with the switcher, now is the wheel loader track also the mainline? Or do you plan to feature a mainline that might have a switch to access the quarry?
No, the wheel loader track is not the mainline. I have only 2X9 space so in the future the entry to the quarry might be connected to the mainline with a switch.
hi Soller
i would add a runaround track and a cassette to your plan. With facing and trailing spurs you will need one.
And i would try to find out if quarries produce different grades of gravel or sand, so you can have more dedicated loading points.
Smile
paul
Hi Paulus!
Yes, I have been thinking of adding a runaround but I don’t know what is the best place to it. I think if I add a runaround I limit the storage of cars in a track. Remember I have only 2x9.
http://i1093.photobucket.com/albums/i432/mallo1/quarryrunaround.jpg
hi
not so much different.
Smile
Paul
[:-^]
Well if it were mine, and the way I like to operate in this scerino, I would definately like to have the “crusher/loader” track connected to the" quarry entry" lead. That way you can do all your work from one end of your locomotive.
I know, I know, This is only my [2c] worth.
Looking forward to see how it goes for you…
Johnboy out…and looking for the Guy that knows everything.
Best one so far. And yes all rock/sand quarries sell different grades of rock/sand.
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