Realism for feeding industries & return

[leighant]

This wouldn't work well for a coal mine with long cuts of 6, 12, 15 cars, but it is okay for a gravel pit that loads one or two cars a day. I use LIVE LOADS.... actual loose aggregate (powdered) material-- the finest ballast I can get. Pour it into hoppers and gons on the tipple track and temp them back into the gravel recycling container when they are delivered full to an industry or interchange. Of course, you don't want to do this with more than 2 -3 -4 cars per operating session ona railroad.

Some people don't model either the mine or the receiving industry but model the MIDDLE of the trip in between the two points on a oval layout. One train made up loaded is moving one direction, and another train empty is going to other direction.

I have an extremely lazy way to model open-top traffic. I am modeling iron ore, extremely heavy material, moving in 2-bay hoppers (not the real short ore jimmys). A "full" load by WEIGHT is only about 1/3 full by VOLUME. My ore barely covers the extra weight in the bottom of the car. It is barely visible when you look in over the top of the car. When the cars are supposed to be empty--- well there's a little residue. So I don't bother loading or unloading it. Run the same train as empty or loaded!

[Anonymous]

Guess I be screwed...didn't plan to have a hidden track return like that...excellent idea though...now do I rip up my present one or work on a new one<grin>..?

[dknelson]

That coal load/coal empty idea (say, a mine and an electric power utility) that Jetrock talks about is an old John Armstrong idea. I operate on one layout that has it and it works well -- since unit coal trains do no local switching it adds to operator interest as well.
The same idea could be applied to other open load situations but coal works very well.
Dave Nelson

[Jetrock]

One method that has been used before, on MRR's Clinchfield layout and others, is this:

Both the coal mine and the destination (a power plant or other coal-using industry) are set on a hillside, on opposite ends of the same hill, with a view block (tall hill or backdrop) in between them, to create the illusion that they are pretty far apart.

Both structures load cars inside the building. There is a tunnel, with two tracks, in between the two structures. The two tracks are set up as passing tracks, with switches and automatic uncouplers concealed inside the structure--powered switch motors will be a must here! We'll name these tracks A and B.

Your coal train starts out at the yard. An engine picks up coal hoppers and carries them to the coal mine. The engine backs the cars into the mine entrance onto track A and drops them off.

Then, while remaining out of sight, it advances past the switch, the switch is thrown, and the engine backs onto track B--where a string of matching, loaded coal cars is waiting to be picked up.

The coal train progresses around the main line until it reaches the power plant. Again, the train backs up, dropping off the loaded cars on track B. Move the engine forward of the switch and back up onto track A, picking up the empties.

Bingo! You've taken empty cars to the mine, filled them, then dropped off the coal at the power plant and left with empty hoppers! Time for a cold one at the watering hole near the division point!

[Anonymous]

Hey guys,

Thanks for all the useful info you guys have provided me thus far. Thank you. I am just having issues visualizing things here with industries. Any of you guys have some interesting solutions? I'll try and explain.

1) You have a coal mine, a sorting yard, some empty coal hoppers and some full hoppers. There is a spur which just goes off the layout that would allow cars to come from off the layout.

2) You take your engine from the main yard, taking some empty coal cars, and take them to the coal industry.

3) You take the full hoppers and take them to the spur for offsite travel.

4) How could you realistically replentish production from the mine?

Thanks guys,

Justin