It would help to know general location of your layout, but for an example let's say Utah, since I know that area's coal mines fairly well. Let's also say the coal mine is NOT right next door to the power plant so we can have a rail haul between the two.
Let's say the coal mine enters the mountainside at several locations through a slope (a level tunnel, or following the dip of the seam) and uses electric trolley haulage. Surface facilities include a tipple equipped with coal crushing equipment and a coal wash plant, a trolley motor repair shop, machine shops, change house, general office, various tool and repair shops, carpenter shop, electrical shop, blacksmith shop, loading facilities for trucks and rail, scale for trucks, scale for rail, coal refuse stacker, vehicle garage, and miscellaneous buildings for tools, explosives, storage, electrical substation. Many of these functions might be combined in one building. Conveyor belts combine coal from the various adits and convey it to the crusher/wash plant, and remove the wash refuse. Conveyor belts are usually enclosed with a walkway to allow a repairman to walk alongside and grease or replace rollers.
Power plant for that era would include the plant itself (boiler house, stack, turbine house, transformer yard), cooling towers, coal stacking and rehandling machinery, repair shops, vehicle garage, some place to park the switch engine (and maybe even an open-sided shed to keep the snow off the top), general office building. Again, many of these functions may be combined in one building. For 1970 emissions equipment would be sparse or nonexistent.
Generally coal mines and power plants aren't laid out in neat rows like Lego Land but are jammed into available space and as time goes on, things get added, subtracted, modified, abandoned, and jerry-rigged. They are quite the wonderful mess unless one happens to be the person responsible for keeping them running.
Only the very largest coal mines in 1970 could handle a unit train, and even some unit-train capable mines had to load the train in two or three cuts. In that era there's a transition between loose-car coal shipments and unit trains, and many mines supplied both markets, loading a unit train one day and some spot coal shipments the other days. Many mines loaded blocks of coal that were combined into unit trains for forwarding to the power plant. While the loop is the most common set-up today at a coal mine, there are numerous coal mines which by location in the bottom of a canyon or hollow can't accommodate a loop. In that case the coal train pulls through and the power runs around. The Willow Creek Mine at Castle Gate, Utah, a modern installation dating to the late 1990s, had to load 104-car trains in two 52-car cuts on a 1.5% ascending grade. When loaded the cuts were doubled over, a 6-unit SD40 helper cut in two-thirds deep, and off it went in a cloud of dust and smoke.
Traditionally coal mines were often set up to load cars using gravity to drop empties through the tipple and into load tracks, and that was often easy to accomplish in Appalachia or the Rocky Mountain states where coal mines were usually located where there was natural grade. It wasn't usually the case in Illinois, Indiana, and other flat areas and there a switch engine or car-puller had to be used to spot the cars under the tipple.
Similarly, many power plants do not have room for a loop, even today. I've done operations consulting work in the last few months at several plants that accept 135-car unit trains and dump them in blocks of 6, 1 car at a time, using a 44-tonner to drag cuts squealing around a 26 degree curve (no kidding!) and shoving the empties into a series of stub tracks. Power plants are almost always located on flat ground, at least from a railroad perspective, and either a car puller, TrackMobile, or switch engine is required to spot the cars for unloading.
RWM
I've been scratching my head trying to think of a single source to send you for photos. There just AREN'T many people who thought it was interesting or necessary to photograph either one, then or even now, and almost no one who thought it was interesting to collect them into one place and publish them. Some of the railroad books have one or two photos in them. Coal Age Magazine had some photos -- you might be able to find it at a good university library. Government reports on coal such as U.S. Geological Survey Bulletins and Monographs can have some interesting photos, and power plant trade magazines and Energy Information Agency and Department of Energy reports can have photos. You're seeing the problem here -- it's not easy.
I'm hoping someone in this forum can point you to web links for a few photos, and help you out with kits. I haven't modeled in more than 25 years so I am totally clueless as to what's available.
If the power plant and coal mine are side by side, the coal will be hauled between the two by conveyor belt or truck. Rail is very unlikely -- I can't think of any rail hauls unless the plant and mine were at least 8 miles apart. Given that you're modeling western PA you'll probably have it all wedged down into a steep-sided valley which makes it tough to have room for a loop, but it did happen in the prototype. Consider that even if your coal mine supplies the power plant as its primary customer, if it has rail access, it probably sells commercial coal via rail transportation, too.
You power plant and mine are probably too close to realistically use rail service. One option would be to place them next to each other with a view block between them. Loaded cars would go from the mine, over your rail line around the layout to the power plant. When you shove the loaded cars into the power plant they push through a hidden hole in the view block and are re-staged as loads at the coal mine. Emptys would run in the reverse direction.
I model the KCS and like long unit coal trains. My coal trains come off the BN (staging yard) run over the KCS to several power plants (staging). Loads move one direction and emptys move another direction. I run long trains with multiple SD lash-up but don't model either the mine or the power plant. At the end of each run the unit trains are re-staged for the next run.
JIM
Jim, Modeling the Kansas City Southern Lines in HO scale.
This looks like a suitable power plant. http://www.internettrains.com/merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=IT&Product_Code=933-3021&Category_Code=HSCSTRKITWALUTL
Now to the mine. Also the plant and the mine are pretty far away since the train has to go around some bends to get there.
Railway Man wrote: I've been scratching my head trying to think of a single source to send you for photos. There just AREN'T many people who thought it was interesting or necessary to photograph either one, then or even now, and almost no one who thought it was interesting to collect them into one place and publish them. Some of the railroad books have one or two photos in them. Coal Age Magazine had some photos -- you might be able to find it at a good university library. Government reports on coal such as U.S. Geological Survey Bulletins and Monographs can have some interesting photos, and power plant trade magazines and Energy Information Agency and Department of Energy reports can have photos. You're seeing the problem here -- it's not easy.I'm hoping someone in this forum can point you to web links for a few photos, and help you out with kits. I haven't modeled in more than 25 years so I am totally clueless as to what's available.If the power plant and coal mine are side by side, the coal will be hauled between the two by conveyor belt or truck. Rail is very unlikely -- I can't think of any rail hauls unless the plant and mine were at least 8 miles apart. Given that you're modeling western PA you'll probably have it all wedged down into a steep-sided valley which makes it tough to have room for a loop, but it did happen in the prototype. Consider that even if your coal mine supplies the power plant as its primary customer, if it has rail access, it probably sells commercial coal via rail transportation, too. RWM
I'm surprised no one has mentioned this little gem...
The Model Railroader's Guide to Coal RailroadingBy Tony KoesterSoftcover; 8 1/4 x 10 3/4; 96 pages; 130 color photos; 70 b&w photos; 20 illustrations;
Available from Model Railroaders SHOP section.
See, I told you I had been out of modeling for 25 years!
It's a very good book.
Not sure this helps, but check out Google maps and look at the Homer City Generating Station in a small town called Coral PA. The power plant is fed by local coal mines and coal via rail traffic. The rail traffic is a recent addition in the last couple years, but rail traffic used to be heavy in the early 70's before the steel industry imploded.
-Tom
hey man, im in the same boat as you. There really isn't much in the way of coal mines... theres the Walthers New River Mining kit, but that looks too modern for me or you (similar eras). Theres also the "Old Coal Mine" kit that was created out of... somebody's scratchbuilt model (forget who their name was). You can find this kit by Model Power, Revell, everyone. Just look at ebay.
thats about it really... it sucks. Nobody makes 'em
http://www.pennpilot.psu.edu
Basically Pennsylvania commissioned aerial photos of the entire state about 4 times over the last centure. Penn State has been scanning all the negatives and putting them online (1971 and 1938 are completed). I've been interested in modeling the Reading circa 1971 and they cover that era. Think of it as google maps without all the bells and whistles but backwards in time.
You don't get a TON of detail out of the photos but most of the time you can see buildings and the trackage (e.g. check out Reading yards or St. Nicholas breaker - great info there!)
Hope this helps.
Greg
I scratch built my mine and the power plant is a kitbash
i put them on either side of the mountain with hidden trackage to make them a
loads in emptys out operation
You can see photos in my album
TerryinTexas
See my Web Site Here
http://conewriversubdivision.yolasite.com/
I built my power plant from scratch using gator board and Walthers plastic sheets. It takes up considerable room but my layout centers around coal deliveries.
Where could I find a picture of a coal mine on the Pennpilot map. I don't know what county or township.
Here's one:
http://www.pennpilot.psu.edu/photos1960s/schuylkill_1971/schuylkill_1971_photos_jpg_800/schuylkill_081271_aqs_2mm_13.jpg
Schukyll county, around Mahanoy City (just west in fact). It's the St. Nicholas/Reading Anthracite breaker. Right smack dab in the middle of the photo almost - looks like an "L" shaped building with a couple of long tubes coming off it and a large round pond to the NW. You can see the rail lines going in and the mine yard.
Pennpilot is great, you just need to hunt around. I find that downloading interesting areas and then opening them in a photo program I can highlight the tracks and see what's up.
The key is knowing where to start looking - which is where the research comes into play.
-Greg
One of the industries at my layout will be a coal mine feeding a power plant. Also the layout era is around 1970. I don't know what setup or structures I need to complete it though. Do you guys have any suggestions? thanks
No problem - just out of curiousity are you freelancing or based off a prototype - and if so, which one?