Not all coal mines were or are in Appalachia! But I swear that’ what you’d think when you look through the pages of model magazines or surf the web looking for coal mining layouts.
I’m considering coal mining as a theme for my new HO layout but I really don’t care for the 'tree canopy" scenery of Appalachian coal haulers that so many modelers tend to gravitate to.
I know there were coal mines out west in the steam era…The Walthers New River Mining Co. is based on a western prototype! I’d kind of like to look at some examples of other modelers work but I don’t seem to find any layouts based on steam/ transition era coal mining in the west. Why is that!!!
One reason might be folks that model the West are more doing the Gold/Silver Boom if they are doing a Steam layout. I also know others have D&RGW layouts that tend to be post transition. A recent MRR layout showed Denver to Grand Junction and nearly skipped the “Tunnel District” by basically entering the Helix at Tunnel #1 and exited at Tunnel #28, Basically the train vanished into the “Tunnel District” to not been seen again until it was nearly at the Moffat Tunnel… [C):-)]
A nice book on coal railroading in Utah is “Rails Around Helper” http://www.amazon.com/Rails-Around-Helper-Images-Rail/dp/0738548065. There are plenty of photos of mines and the railroads (D&RGW and Utah Railway) that served them, and the book is geared to the steam era. There are also photos at the site for the Western Mining and Railroad Museum (also in Helper) here http://wmrrm.org/.
You’re right - there aren’t many western layouts focusing on coal like there are for Appalachia. I’m not sure why that is. The prototype for Walthers’ New River Mine is the Edna Mine on D&RGW’s Craig branch in CO. I found photo from 1960 here: http://www.earthscienceworld.org/images/search/lightbox2.html?ID=h4wdcg . Since then a concrete flood loader silo was added next to it.
I freelance. I try to follow common sense guidelines as far as fidelity to the prototype but I’m not obsessive about it. Most of the layouts I’ve built in my lifetime have been located “somewhere in the west” but I’ve never really cared to be specific as to EXACTLY where.
I guess what I’m looking for is some type of reassurance that if I plop a Walthers New River Mine kit or any other coal mine kit down in the middle of more “western” scenery with a more barren look and the occasional evergreen or conifer popping out of the mountainside here and there that it won’t be totally unbelievable. Prototype photos of western mines in the transition era would help but also seeing some other modelers take on the concept would be nice. I can’t believe my idea is THAT original…LOL
I don’t know when the “Edna” mine that the Walthers kit is based on closed but I’m pretty sure it was operational during steam and transistion era. Wonder what type of hoppers the D&RGW was using to service it and things such as that.
I swear I just do not get the fascination with Appalachia! Coal mining is interesting to me but mountainsides covered in a sea of green “puffball” tress isn’t!
if you haven’t done so, take a look at the photos on the Western Mining and Railroad Museum site I linked in my earlier post. There are a lot of mine tipple photos in there, ranging from big ones like Hiawatha and Spring Canyon, to much smaller examples, and many of the structures have the same basic look as the Walthers kit, just as many eastern mines do/did. The photos are mostly pre-diesel era.
Most of the western layouts I’ve seen depicting coal mining have done such a poor job that I’d hesitate to recommend using them as sources of inspiration as opposed to the prototype photos. Maybe somebody will link to a good layout I’m unaware of.
EDIT looks like our last posts overlapped in time - so you may have already checked out the site.
I know what you are saying which is why I’m looking to build a Rocky Mountain Empire using my D&H roster as if this RR was formed in Colorado. I look forward to see my roster pass through the Rockies as if it was the D&RGW but it too will be Freelance and not built to exactly mimic reality, just the feel of the Rocky Mountains…
My wife and I just this last fall, did the tourist thing. We went to a little town in western Washington, named Roslyn. Some folks know it as Cicely Alaska, from the old show Northern Exposure. It got it’s start over 100 years ago as a coal mining town for the railroads. It sets in the middle of the Cascade mountains. Great western modeling scenery.
Look into the Utah Midland model railroad. It’s loosely based on the area of Helper Utah. It was published in Railroad Model Craftsman in August 1987 and in MRR in May 1979.
It might be along the lines of what you are looking for.
One problem may be the era. In the “steam / transition era” most coal was coming from eastern mines. There was mining outside of Appalachia (Illinois for example) but the big Powder River Basin coal mines in the west didn’t start shipping until the mid-1960’s when steam was gone already. So I suspect a lot of the appeal of eastern coal railroads is the ability to run long coal trains pulled by steam, particularly since steam lasted pretty late in that era (N&W for example).
An article in the Northern Pacific Ry. Historical Society magazine a couple years ago pointed out that in the steam era, the Great Lakes port of Duluth-Superior received a great deal of coal by lake boat from the east, which was then taken by rail to the Twin Cities and other midwestern sites. For the last few decades, Duluth-Superior has become a major shipping site for coal going the other way - Powder River coal coming from the west by rail, then being put on lake boats to be taken to the east. (Because western coal burns cleaner, even some power plants in the Appalachians prefer to burn western coal over local eastern coal.)
The Edna mine operated into the 1970s IIRC, so should be no problem looking believable. The online pics of it should give you some ideas of how the scenery was around it, as well as some mods.additions you could make.
One thing about Western RRs and coal is that GS gons were far more prevalent during the steam/transition era for coal traffic. This was especially so for the Rio Grande. There is no exact model available, except for some W&R(?) brass, but Red Caboose periodically puts out runs of 12 different road numbers of their slightly short GS gon that make good stand-ins.
The Western roads that did use hoppers tended to have higher cubic capacity than Eastern roads. Much Western coal was lighter and lower BTU, so the need for higher cubes for efficient transport.
I’m doing the late 1990s and wanted to have the Walthers coal mine. Since I was doing a fictitious MP line south east of San Angelo TX, which has all of the other agricultural and business type of companies I had to have, I looked to see if any coal was mined in the area. It turns out that in the Carboniferous era swamps that turned into coal were about 50 miles east of my area as well as coal mining earlier then my era though. This was much earlier then my time line though so I fudged it a few years to get my Pierce mining Co.
This is were the, “It’s your railroad” comes into play. So you should do some research and pick a area that gives you as much as you want or at least close to the type of stuff you want to model. Just out west is to broad of a statement to throw out.
There were a number of coal mining areas on the western Canadian prairies and into the foothills of the Rockies. Google “Atlas Coal Mine” and you will find pictures of the tipple down in the Red Deer valley near Drumheller. It continued operations into the 1970s; most others closed earlier as demand for coal faded with the end of steam and domestic home heating. I believe that geology continued south into Montana; the NP had on-line coal sources.
If one does some research on the type of coal available in different areas you will find that most of the higher grade coal was from eastern regions. Also WV, Kentucky, and Pennsylvania were by far the biggest producers. One reason the steel industry was so big in the east was all of the natural resources needed to produce it were fairly close together.
Not to dissuade you from western coal because it was mined. Due to it’s lower quality Northern Pacific built locos with huge fire boxes so they could use on line coal sources. The coal available had much less BTUs than other coal.
The plus is that with burning much more to get the same amount of heat a higher demand will be created and it will generate more traffic.
One other layout that models western coal you might be interested in is the Utah Belt. The era is always today on his layout but it could be back dated I’m sure.
One other aspect of eastern railroading that is not often modeled are the coal tipples located along major rivers. Many of the mines would do this so the had the option of either water or rail transportation in the earlier years and could then not be taken hostage by their transportation needs. In some instances the mines were located right next to a consuming industry and in a town. A large mine in Benwood, WV has a large flood loader or silo next to the Ohio river. This is next to the remains of an old steel mill. It is also very close to the city limits of Wheeling, WV which used to be a huge manufacturing center. The place is a shadow of its former productivity and has lost nearly all of its industry but it was a force until the 60’s. It is now part of what is referred to as the rust belt.
Sorry for getting off track but not all coal mines are off in some out of the way hollow with nothing around but trees.
Yep, the prototype was served by the Rio Grande. I think Walthers named it as the New River Mine to take advantage of the Eastern coal modeling bias. I tried looking up some online pics of the Edna Mine, as I’ve seen them before, but no luck. It was located on the Craig Branch.
There’s a story on the prototype in the December 1977 RMC:
