This may be a silly question but on the New River Mining Co., which is the front and which is the back of the building?
I know the stock photo from Walthers is taken from the truck Tipple side and when I first looked at it I assumed this was to be modeled as the “front”. I have since seen photos of the Mine on layouts in which either side was modeled as the front and they looked equally as feasible.
I will be having stub tracks ending behind the mine, so which is supposed to be the front and which is the back… or does it matter?
Thanks…
I have this mine and frankly it never occured to me that it would matter. I simply have orientated it the way that it best fits my track plan. For what it is worth, this would put the tiple on the left and the large double doors on the right.
I have the kit. I haven’t built it yet, but I’ve opened the box and looked things over. I’m planning to use it for a empties in/loads out trackage arrangement where my mine is. As far as I can tell, you can set it up for either run through operation like I’m doing (although I think you may have to raise it to clear some locos) or for a stub-end arrangement coming in from either direction.
Mike Lehman
Urbana, IL
I converted the New River from a coal mine into a large-scale gold mine/smelting complex and so for purely structural purposes, the higher end of the building would be the ‘back’ and the lower end the ‘front’, since the stamping and smelting process is arranged in a descending order. But as I remember, growing up in a mining town, there was no real ‘back’ or ‘front’ to the building–it just was.
Tom
I would agree with Tom. As a coal mine this building is a breaker in which large pieces of coal are crushed into different sizes and sorted through a series of grinders and sifters. Like the gold mine, the process is arranged in descending order making the lower end the front. I also think it looks more normal that way.
I too have the kit and I just used it the way the picture shows as well. I’ve actually stumbled across the prototype in Colorado, but that doesn’t mean that I could remember which is the front and which is the back
They have to photograph it to look good, and can only show one angle for cost purposes in printed journals. However, I am sure it is designed to fit as you need it to. I modified the large cement factory, the one with the eight high silos and conveyor tower, so that the train car shed sits against the silo base opposite to what they show in the pictures. Else, no fittee on layout.
How about some of you who have built the kit and placed it on your layouts sending in some photos so we can see your ideas on the kit? It’s a super model and really has lots of kitbashing possibilities.
Just a thought!
Roger
Hi all,
Which is the front of this kit? Im not quite sure. Maybe thats one of the great things about it. You can turn it around as you like to suit your needs and layout. This kit is a plant and various activities are likely to go on all around the building as it does not have an actual “business end” like ie a shop or a store with a facade facing the street. The picture below shows my “front” of my conversion of the kit from mine to sawmill.
This became the front for several reasons:
1.the kit is to be placed in a corner of the layout, so it seemed the best to have the lowest part in front and the structure raising towards the background. This also makes it easier to take photographs once its on the layout.
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I scratchbuilded a big traverse crane that runs through the building to pick up timber from the timberwaggons and yard. This would have been hidden behind the main structure and the slackbin (Its a woodchip container now) had the structure been turned around.
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I love to watch the timberwaggons go back and forth underneath the building and crane [:D]
there are lots of other pictures of this kit in this thread: http://www.trains.com/TRC/CS/forums/1/803644/ShowPost.aspx#803644
and more pictures of my kit (look under “kitbashing”) and humble layout here: http://123hjemmeside.dk/modelbanen
have fun!
Whatever you want it to be. Sometimes the front is a gaurd shack 2 miles over the next hollow with a winding gravel road up to it.
To me there is no “Front” side. Just make sure that the mine has a hill next to it or at least a conveyor carrying coal to the top of the tipple/sort house and worry about the trackage any way you can get hopper cars to it.
Well, this will sound a bit trite, but I always put the most “interesting” or detailed side of a building facing the layout viewer and the plain side (even though it may be the front) facing the backdrop.
By that standard, the interesting side of an old tenement is the side away from the street - which, IIRC, is the side that George Sellios models.
As for the mine, IMHO the “front” is the side facing the closest aisleway - which might be the track side, the crusher side or either end of the rail spurs under the loading chutes. When built, mine will be modified to more closely resemble a prototype structure once located at Shime, Fukuoka-ken, Japan (big storage bins over the rails, and the whole Emma Mine* structure raised about seven scale meters to clear them.)
A less radical increase in elevation (higher foundations under the steel columns, and higher ground under the main structure) should handle the adaptation to clear the locomotive for loads out-empties in. (My own will feature a similar operation, but no locos under the structure.)
Has anyone built this kit with a car loader inside? I’m referring to the gadget included in the MR book Realistic Animation, Lighting and Sound. If so, I’d like to see a post about it.
- Emma Mine is the name of the actual prototype in Colorado. Last time I checked on it, the New River was in West Virginia, a couple of thousand miles away.
Chuck (modeling Central Japan in September, 1964 - coal mines included)