I have a big mountain on my N scale layout and wanted to have a mine but have been unable to find ore cars like the ones used in gold mines. Then I thought about using a piece of Z scale flex track to come out of the mountain and looked for ore cars in that scale but can’t find those either. Does anybody know of a manufacturer that makes small ore cars in N or Z. I know taconite cars are available in HO scale but finding anything that small in N has been impossible on all the web sites I have checked. I would appreciate any help.
have you tried looking in the walthers web site the gold mine cars would be very small could you try casting them in lead peter
http://www.musketminiatures.com/ has a lot of old time stuff. Try HO rustic/mining & timber. They also have N & Z scall stuff. You can spend a lot of time looking at their neat stuff!![8D]
Durango Press makes some very nifty HO mining cars–they’re 18" track gauge in HO, and they’re really tiny. You might check with them and see if they make them in N. However, If you’re going to use Z-scale track for your mining operation, you might check and see if some 4-wheel European gondolas are available in that scale–with a little touching up they could pass pretty well as mining dump cars.
For myself, I’ve laid down some N scale track on my Champion gold mine on my own MR, but in HO scale, it measures out to about 2-1/2 foot gauge, pretty wide for normal mining railways out here in California, which were usually 18" to 24" in track width. But it looks okay. So I would imagine that Z scale for your N scale mining track would look okay, too.
Tom
Typically, concentrated gold ore (as from a stamp mill) was put in box cars, piled above the area of the trucks, for its journey to the smelter. Ore wasn’t usually transported great distances before it was concentrated (Why pay for hauling waste rock?).
Mark
GLAD YA ASK!
GLAD YA ASK!
Go to the Super Detailing Parts section of your hot smokin’ Walthers N-Scale Catalog and check under Micro Engineering–they have what they label a pushcart which may serve your purposes–or go back a few more pages to The N Scale Architect and check out their M-Trak® System!
Mark–
Actually, I think he’s talking about the mine tracks that were used around large mines to haul the raw ore from the shafts to the stamping mills, and the tailings away for dumping after the ore was processed. They were pretty common in the mines around the area where I grew up. I remember the Empire Mine in Grass Valley before it closed, had a very large layout of dual gauge 18-24" track (some of it electrified with overhead trolley wire) to haul the waste rock from the stamping mill itself. A buddy of mine whose father worked for the mine and I used to walk the tracks a lot when we’d go up there when I was a kid. Several of the dump tracks ran for several miles as the tailings were extended out on the property. There was even a railroad crossing flasher over a local highway with flashing lights to warn traffic of an oncoming ore train. It was quite an operation.
Tom
Hi Tom,
Are you sure? I wasn’t, especially when he mentioned taconite cars. Such cars were used to transport ore concentrate. Hopefully, he’ll straighten us out.
A model of the Empire Mine head works was produced a while back (what a neat prototype!)… Did you get a chance to acquire same and install it on your layout?
Grandt has a nice little mine. It includes some track and little ore cars (non-operational) small enough for humans to push. If that’s what the guy has in mind, that’s the ticket.
Mark
Uh oh. I forgot the fellow is in N scale while the Grandt model is HO. Oh well, that was his choice.
Mark
Mark:
Yes, I’ve got the little Grandt-Line shaft as the original #1 shaft on my Champion Mine complex (which I adapted from a Walthers kit). I kit-bashed it so that I could install a slider car down into the shaft. Neat little kit. Grandt Line also puts out a mine kit that’s an exact duplicate of the Kentucky Mine in Sierra City, CA. So naturally, I got it for my own Sierra City, LOL. I like those Grandt Line kits–too bad they don’t make them in N scale, I think they would be perfect for his operations.
I didn’t know about the model of the Empire head-frame. There’s still one of them left up at the State Park in Grass Valley, it would sure make an impressive addition to my Champion complex. I’ll have to look for it–thanks for letting me know.
Tom [:)]
Well Atlas makes N scale iron ore cars, if that’s what you’re looking for. Raw gold ore was hauled in gondola cars I think though.