Scratch Building Plans for Mines in HO scale

Model Railroader Layouts and layout building
1

I’m looking for any plans to scratch build some mine buildings for my layout.

late 1800s to early 1900s era. even later would be OK, I could possibly modify them to look older

If anybody has some tips as to where I might find them would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance

2

What sort of mine are you looking to build? There is quite a bit of difference in the type of structures one might find in a turn-of-the-century shaft coal mine in the East/Mid West compared to prospector type mines found at the same time out west.

3

I’m looking for more of the coal mine type

4

HABS-HAER site.

Search for coal mines.

They have pictures, building plans, track plans, descriptions of the processes, histories, etc for multiple mines across the country.

5

If you can find some of the back issues of Model Railroader, Railroad Model Craftsman, and some of the defunt MR publications like Motel Trains and Railroad Modeler, There is a chance of finding quite a variety of facilities ranging from simple ramps for a dump tuck to back up and dump into a waiting hopper to several mine buildings large enough to require being serviced by one or two switchers with a need for a mall yard to provide hoppers for several loading track.

In fact, I’d almost suspect the Backman or similar coaling tower could be kitbashed with an angled housing into a hillside and a couple outbuildings to serve.

6

I don’t believe dehusman explained. This is on the Library of Congress website. www.lov.gov.

In that site, go to “American Memory” and then to, I believe it is either Engineering or Buildings. They probably have plans and photos for tens of thousands of history buildings and structures.

Some plans and articles about mines in model railroad publications:

COAL MINE Coal loader, Ajax Loader #2 HO constrn article RMC Oct94 p.59 Coal mining- explosive mining pre-1965 w varied coal sizing vs continuous mining machine producing uniform sizes, conveyors, eqpt, elevator tower N Scale MayJun2000 p.50 Morley Mine, Morley Colorado on Plans, N & HO models

7

That link should be:

http://www.loc.gov

NOT LOV – it’s the Library of Congress web site.

8

Here is a link to Virginia Tech’s “Imagebase” which houses approx 10,000 of N&W’s official photographer’s photos. This particular link is to a section labeled “Coal Companies, Mines, and Tipples”

http://imagebase.lib.vt.edu/browse.php?folio_ID=/trans/nss/coal

Here’s a pic from the site:

9

Thanks everybody for the very useful info.

It has given me alot of great ideas!