Here is what I have to date.
What should or should I saw would the ground around a mine look like? I know there should be a lot of clutter, wood for supporting the tunnels, drums, pipe and trucks. But what would the ground it self look like? Flat, guiles, bare earth, grass and weeds.
Mine it self is sitting on top of 3" of foam, so I have room to carve. Some PIC woud help as well.
Thanks Again, Cuda Ken
I hate Rust
The model you have is of a coal processing plant, where coal is crushed, screened, washed, graded, and loaded into hoppers by size. This type of coal plant was very common new-build in the 1910-1950 period. The model is appropriate for new-build anywhere in the 1940-1950 era. Many of these persisted into the 1980s, albeit with reduced functions because the requirement for sorting coal by size disappeared by the 1960s when the home heating market ended. Most are now either demolished or abandoned.
Some mining companies were quite scrupulous about good housekeeping. If you plan to keep this model in the present condition, that is, without heavy weathering, abuse, and deterioration, I think it would be appropriate to keep the area neat. Coal mines used waste rock for surfacing their roadways and laydown areas. Generally the waste rock came from the coal screening process and consisted mostly of "bone", that is, carbonized shale. It's dark grey-black in color. Sometimes the area would be surfaced with crushed sandstone or shale from tunnelling operations through barren rock necessary to reach the coal seam. Unweathered shale from underground is medium gray and unweathered sandstone is usually light grey, light beige, or light red. Rock from underground is not weathered and will gradually over time darken with exposure to oxygen and the elements.
Extensive laydown areas at a large coal mine like this would be necessary for materials, equipment, and consumables in the mine. Coal mines absorbed large quantities of timber in this era for roof support. This would consist of heavy post and beam in the 8x8 to 12x12 size, posts cut to length at the mill for the thickness of the seam (which might have been anywhere from 5' to 14') and beams purchased in long lengths and cut to fit. Lagging of 3x12 would be common, also purchased in long lengths (say 16-20') with considerable randomness as it came from the mill. Figure that 80% of the lagging would be 16' long, 5% would be overs, and 15% unders down to 14' long. None of this was planed lumber. Steel sets might be used for main haulage and ventilation tunnels if the ground was bad. Other material that woul be often found in the laydown area would be cable (new on spools but mostly worn out and rusty in loose heaps), pipe (again mostly used), ventilation ducting, rail, power cable (on spools or in heaps), structural steel and bar stock, etc. Generally NEW ANYTHING other than timber would be unusual unless there was a major expansion in progress, as new stuff is expensive and in great demand and rarely lays around looking for a purpose. New equipment would be wrapped and palletized as it was during the shipping process. Only little stuff is crated; anything that weighs more than about 300 lbs. would be on pallets or skids, but not crated.
Machinery in the laydown area would be a broad variety of equipment that had failed, was obsolete, or was rendered surplus by changes in operations. Most of it would be dirty and rusty. This would be everything from battery or trolley-powered mine locomotives, mine cars, pumps, fans, motors, bulldozers, graders, wheel loaders (post 1960) rubber-hired trucks of both the highway-legal and off-road variety (e.g., Euclids), and all kinds of miscellaneous junk. A well-run mine would arrange this neatly in rows and on pallets, and much of the steel, pipe, and other long items would be stacked neatly on racks under open-side sheds. A poorly run mine or a mine on its last legs would throw stuff everywhere. There would be roadways winding through the laydown area, straight at a good mine and crooked and winding around junk heaps at a poor mine.
Outbuildings were in rampant profusion at mines in this era and would consist of offices, locker rooms, machine, electrical repair, and blacksmith shops, vehicle garages and maintenance buildings, locker and change rooms, and warehouses. At a slick operation they would be uniform in architecture and neat, at most mines they would be a hodge-podge.
Nothing at a coal mine is shiny except the boss's car. Everything else including buildings, material, and vehicles is dusty, rusty, and stained after only a very brief period in service or sitting around. New lumber and timber from the mill is not white but usually fairly weathered too, because it sat outside drying at the mill for at least several months and will be somewhat darkened.
RWM
Railway Man!
Your information was great reading! I have that mine model myself, and found your summary very interesting!
Thankz a lot for your effort!
Olav in Norway
One observation about the Emma Mine (the prototype for Walthers' New River Mine.) The breaker was a considerable distance from the open-pit mine it served, connected by a conveyor line that climbed over an intervening ridgeline. Photos of the prototype showed that the surrounding area was relatively clear. Waste rock was apparently used to surface the driving areas around the bins and the road back to the pit.
The major underground mines I 'minefanned' in the 1950s had a lot of secondary buildings around the shafthead structures - shops for various purposes, blower houses, supply warehouses, employee locker rooms... One mine had a sizeable thermoelectric plant right next to the shaft hoist building. There were also facilities where the coal dust recovered from wash water was mixed with clay and formed into the round bricquettes used in hibachi or the charcoal-like briquettes sold for use in home heating stoves.
I have even seen steam locos with bunkers full of those little pillow-shaped bricquettes!
Chuck (modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
tomikawaTT wrote:One observation about the Emma Mine (the prototype for Walthers' New River Mine.) The breaker was a considerable distance from the open-pit mine it served, connected by a conveyor line that climbed over an intervening ridgeline. Photos of the prototype showed that the surrounding area was relatively clear. Waste rock was apparently used to surface the driving areas around the bins and the road back to the pit.The major underground mines I 'minefanned' in the 1950s had a lot of secondary buildings around the shafthead structures - shops for various purposes, blower houses, supply warehouses, employee locker rooms... One mine had a sizeable thermoelectric plant right next to the shaft hoist building. There were also facilities where the coal dust recovered from wash water was mixed with clay and formed into the round bricquettes used in hibachi or the charcoal-like briquettes sold for use in home heating stoves.I have even seen steam locos with bunkers full of those little pillow-shaped bricquettes!Chuck (modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
Good memory. It's the Edna Mine, actually. It was developed by The Pittsburg & Midway Coal Mining Co., which since about 1975 has been owned by Chevron, in the mid-1950s as an open-pit operation in the Oak Creek Field. Previously mining in this vicinity was entirely underground. The D&RGW Craig Branch, formerly the Denver & Salt Lake Railway, served the mine. Principal customers were Public Service of Colorado's Cherokee, Valmont, and Arapahoe plants; Colorado Springs Department of Public Utilities Martin Plant; and various cement plants, other utilities, and industrial customers including Coors Brewery at Golden, Colo. Edna produced a low-sulfur, high-BTU, low-ash bituminous coal from its better seams. By the 1980s these seams had became uneconomical to mine as the seam dipped and the stripping ratio increased. There were other seams with higher sulfur content that were mined to some extent but these were not desirable to customers and the stripping ratio was too high, so the mine closed circa 1990 and was reclaimed.
The reason why the immediate surroundings of this coal processing plant (it was not a breaker; that's an anthracite term) were relatively free of detritus and outbuildings is because the mine itself was about 1000 feet up and 3000 feet west, as you noted; a conveyor ran from the primary crusher at the mine down to the processing plant. Thus there wasn't any cause to pile up stuff at this plant like there would be if the plant was immediately adjacent to the actual mining operation. Up at the mine there were the usual piles of junk associated with an open-pit operation. There was no direct road connection between the pit and the processing plant; one had to get onto the state highway and either drive west to Haybro or east to Oak Creek, and circle around on county roads.
McNally-Pittsburg (also a company that began in Pittsburgh (no "H") Kansas) built the processing plant; there was a nice article about it in Coal Age in the late 1950s as I recall. The plant was virtually obsolete the day it opened as the market was shifting rapidly from domestic coal to steam coal and the ICC allowed unit-train rates in 1958 on a broad basis. The requirement for size-graded coal disappeared, and along with it the requirement for multiple tracks to enable coal of different sizes to be loaded into different hoppers. In the early 1980s P&M bit the bullet and built a concrete coal storage silo large enough to fill a trainload, and flood-loading system adjacent to the plant that could accommodate a full 104-car unit train and greatly reduce the mine's transportation costs. Both the silo and the plant were demolished when the mine was reclaimed.
There would also be very few trees up close to the mine and the vegetation would be fairly sparse around the mine, they would have cut back the trees when they built the mine/processing plant and the acidic runoff from the mine would tend to discourage vegetation.
Normally people don't put coal mine and beautiful scenery together in the same sentence, particularly if it was a coal mine in the 1950's or earlier.
Dave H.
Dave H. Painted side goes up. My website : wnbranch.com
dehusman wrote: Normally people don't put coal mine and beautiful scenery together in the same sentence, particularly if it was a coal mine in the 1950's or earlier.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. For me, "beautiful" would include a small depression filled with rust-brown water, maybe with an oil slick on top. Yes, vegetation would be sparse, but you're still going to find it, particularly right along that rock cliff.
I'd add an outhouse, too. Beautiful.
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
Ahh yes the tire ruts filled with some water and little oil slicks on it. How would you get that kinda sheen though?
Yes we are on time but this is yesterdays train
Paint the rut depths black, and then fill with expoxy. I did that on my layout, and it turned out quite believable in my opinion.
Railway Man,
That is an excellent, concise description. Thank you.
Dennis
Thanks for all the great and detailed answers. K-10 mining will look like it been around for a few years, but not ran down. Mine is not done yet, I did paint the inside black and out side silver. Will add some weathering after I add lights in side and out.
What would you see through the windows of the main building? Again PIC would be of great help! I like to look at well done modeling anyway.
OK, dark color dirt, some ruts with standing water, few weeds, tree stumps, small work shed, out house and need a road to the mine. Might make a parking lot above the mind and make stairs to the mine it self. I have a Walther's conveyor kit that is about 18" long that will run to the top of the mine. Due to the spaces I had to work with it goes in the other side of where the original kit was set up for.
Only thing I wish I had done different at this point is use N scale road bed.
Again, some PIC would help.
Thank Your for all your time, Cuda Ken
Ken, Found a good prototype photo at:
http://libraryphoto.cr.usgs.gov/mine.htm
Scroll down to Edna Mine and click select. The fourth photo is a good shot of the railhead area, with what appears to be a small office/locker room building. Note the scale house at the extreme right - one of those frequently overlooked details.