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My planned coal mine is 2x8 foot. I dont know if it will be built yet or not. But the trackage is a set of tracks similar to your photo but with switches beyond so that the mine engine can pull a cut of empties into place and then escape.Two cuts later, it now has room to retrieve the loaded cuts from the tipple. After some yard drill work it will clear the loads from the tipple and set the empties under the tipple. The first car in each cut will be sort of position behind the loading chute of each tipple track so that gravity can be used to drift each one into position.The Caboose sits on the branch to protect the end of the train. Eventually the mine engine will run out of empties, get to the caboose, pull it up next to the mine out of the way and start building the loaded train for the return trip. In real life the caboose will drift down and chase the train when it is all done and leaving with the coal but it gets re coupled as the last move before departing. The downside to a coal mine is alot of switches set up in a stack of runarounds with sufficient tails for engine escape after it leaves each cut. The front of the tipple is a compound ladder with a room for the caboose track and maybe a bit of water, coal etc for the engine. It takes many switches to run a mine right.If you dont have much room, the alternative is the shove the entire mine train up the branch from the rear and use a run around progressively swapping empties with loads. IF there is a grade the problem becomes one of holding the cuts on it as you switch.Your cellphone photo A is much more plausible to me. What you need to do is add two more very long tracks to the "South" or bottom of your photo and to the left side engine escape switch on all tracks and a yard ladder on the right side capable of allowing the engine to sort the mine.I looked up a very old MR article that I recall about mine switching in the early 60's or late 50's that presented a very good small mine scenario and had a track switch diagram that makes it possible for the mine engine to switch a tipple forwards, backwards or sideways.. literally. I dont have any of the old magazines anymore but will keep looking for it.The objective is to get a empty coal car behind the tipple where the mine worker can drift it into place with a handbrake. The loaded coal cars needs to get out and be assembled into a train. It does not take many coal cars to work a mine. I think my plan only takes 9 coal cars in cuts of three plus engine. So. 9 Empties in, 9 loads out.
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