This time we're looking at some sheds tucked into various spots. This one is at the lumberyard in Durango, one of my stockyard parts-based ones. The conveyors are from Walthers. Pictured in the first post in this thread, adding the fellow working helps bring the scene alive.
At Mable's General Store in Tefft, space was limited so I had to put it sort of behind part of the dock.
At Sheridan on the old Silverton RR line, the Wilde Mine got a small shed built as part of a group this weekend.
A relocated stockyard-parts shed ended up in Black Cat Junction.
Finally, a pic of part of the backbone of coal delivery on the narrowgauge are these drop bottom gons waiting to be spotted for unloading. For the "coal" loads, I use light and easily moved around humidifier media foam, cut to size and shape, and shot with a spritz of flat black. What's neat is that nothing crumbles off despite the realistic appearance.
Mike Lehman
Urbana, IL
Grampys,
Thanks
Means a little more, too, coming from a fellow like you who knows his coal traffic
More musical sheds. At Eureka, the huge Sunnyside Mill took most of the available space, with the "town" somewhere out in the aisle via a bridge. One way to show a larger population base was to put some business along the tracks, so Euireka got one of my standard coak sheds made from the Walthers stockyard parts. I long wanted to put up a representative example of the boarding houses used at some of the larger mines to make it seemed like there were enough people around. So here's the scene of what I built, which came out sorta hugeish, too, in this under construction pic.
Here, too, I thought a little less crowding was in order. Eureka's shed was moved to th Cascade Extension. In its stead came one of the newer, slightly more compact generic coal sheds. It also has some recycled stockyard parts, this time the gates that hold the coal in on the road side of the bin. A little out of focus, but the more petite bulk is what's important.
Finally for this entry, here's another small coal shed, this at the last stop past Eureka, Animas Forks where we visited the McKelvey Trading Post earlier. I think it might be a item from a Grandt Line structure kit, but not sure. Anyone recognize it?
That's some outstanding and interesting modeling, Mike. Thanks for sharing.
More updates...
The small Rio Grande coal shed pictured above in Tefft (a Crystal River kit) was relocated to the station in Crater Lake. It's an example small enough to fit anywhere.
Over on the other side of the wye at the quarry, this multi-level bins serves the needs of the donkey engines that drive the derricks and for office heat.
After several moves, the local Co-op Coal bins ended up here as a scratchbuilt in Crater Lake, one of the four done yesterday. They will get coal in the bins (duh!) and various other details as I get back to it. Note the coal dock that receives company coal for locos and caboose and station stoves (and fills the small bin behind the station noted above). The square water tower is a model of the one at Eureka (whose shell still stands, BTW), but which there wasn't room for in my Eureka (see below). Another example of how using my imagination allows me to fit in more prototype modeling, by letting the exact site of the model be flexible while modeling the same building. YMMV
Meanwhile, McKelvey's seems to be doing OK, because they opened this impressive shed some time back and are no longer stacking it up in the open. It's easy to sell lots of coal when you reside at tree line, the problem is getting resupply before spring, thus the need for such a substantial building.
Thought it was time for an update after a couple of years, because there's been many changes and additions to the coal delivery infrastructure that feeds a significant portion of the traffic on my layout. If you're worried about prototype accuracy, then get your own set of plans and build them to suit. I do have several accurate coal sheds from along the Rio Grande, but for the most part a generic approach works for me to fit in sheds where they need to be to support the traffic base for operating purposes. My various generic shed designs offer different approaches to best suit the needs of the location, so may work for you, too.
One thing to emphasize -- if you model during the steam era and even into the transition era, you need a lot of coal bins to serve the customers along your line if it's in a area where coal was the primary fuel. I now count about three dozen coal customers. Many are industrial customers who use coal in carload quantities, but many are coal sheds designed to serve the retail trade.
While I like to be guided by the prototype, here's an example of why you can easily get hung up on such questions if you're not flexible. I pictured the Goble's sheds in Silverton above, built from a Cibolo Crossing kit based on a Salida example. These aren't really huge, but see what happens here. I built a VERY much shortened replica of the actual Goble storefront that is close to scale width, but would have extended all the way to my backdrop if built to scale depth here. I moved the coal shed from the other end of the yard and made a nice little complex.
But the shed was big enough to dominate the scene and also hid cars so that my operators would often overlook them even though they needed switched. So I built a new shed as part of a group of four I built yesterday that leaves more elbow room and opens up the scene.
This freed up the CC bins, which I moved down to Dove Creek on the standard gauge to provide additional local traffic.
More to follow...
Bear,
Glad you liked it. I know what you mean about a diagram being worth a 1,000 words -- maybe 10,000 in may case...
I pretty much have the whole show covered on the narrowgauge, from minehead to gaping boiler door. I need to work some more on standard gauge coal ops. I basically run unit trains to and from the May Day Mine, along with mines further west into Utah. But I do have some on-layout SG customers who could take coal deliveries: the Durango Power & Light plant and a few industrial customers there and the CCCP (Colorado Concrete Products) next to the big nuke plant in Dove Creek...
The main problem with that idea is that standard gauge diesel ops, even with sound, tend to be less attractive to my operators than steam making noise on the narrowgauge for some reason...imagine that!
Back during the Great Depression, coal tended to "leak" when passing slowly through poorer communities. Doubt anyone ever missed it, but some folks are probably with us today because their parents "borrowed" some coal back then to keep them warm in the winter.
"One difference between pessimists and optimists is that while pessimists are more often right, optimists have far more fun."
Wayne,
Thanks, much appreciated that the effort is appreciated
I missed one important outlet, Goble's Silverton coal yard. It's the one that has a nice big, prototypical set of coal bins built from a Cibolo Crossing Salida coal shed kit.
That was an enjoyable industrial tour, Mike. It's nice to see the handling of such an important commodity so well represented. I have only two coal dealers, although both have (or will have) multiple locations. There are also two power plants and, of course, all the coal facilities necessary to keep a late 1930s railroad running. I don't have a coal mine, though - it all arrives via interchange, most of it after a boat ride across Lake Erie.
Wayne
Thanks everyone! The comments were very much appreciated.
I found a pic of what is my best track plan IIRC. Quality will be iffy and lots of small changes since this was amde, but gives you a better idea of the space.
Staging and the Cascade Branch were added on this side of the wall (along the bottom of plan next to this paragraph.) Durango was still on the drawing board on the center penisula. This is narrowgauge only and doesn't show the standard gauge beneath.
Note: Took better image, plus added the one below of mainly standard and dual gauge track . Lots of changes made in the second one here.
Nice write up, entertaining, fine modelling, and photography. Thanks, for sharing.
Great bunch of scenes,Mike, and the schematics came through fine.Thanks for posting!
Mike
Hi Bear,
Ha! I do happen to have two schematic's, one primarily standard gauge, the other narrowgauge. They're a little cut-off on the ends, but you can make out what's going on. Big files, so hope they come through OK.
Note that the Cascade Branch isn't on the schematic yet, except for where it takes off from the main at Tefft.
Turnouts marked with a number in a box are remote controlled turnouts.
have you ever done a schematic of your layout track plan Mike????
Cheers, the Curious Bear.
They may not be as romantic as the Bridges of Madison County, but they were nonetheless heartwarming in the cold mounatins of southwestern Colorado. The big May Day Mine at Hesperus, west of Durango, is the primary source of coal on the layout. Hesperus turns from Durango bring the coal there, where it goes to various points on the narrowgauge sustem.
A lot of company coal goes to Durango, where the coaling tower holds it until needed.
Other coal customers in Durango include Durango Power & Light, Mountain Packing Company, and Goble's Lumber & Coal yard. The coal shed here is one of several I made from the sheds that come with the walthers stock yards kit. Turned inside out and with a few add doors they make a good cheap coal shed.
There is little call for coal in Rockwood, because most heating needs are met by slash left from the lumber mill there. The station and a few other "modern" buildings burn coal for heat. At Tefft, it's somewhat similar and a Rio Grande company coal shed (Crystal River Products kit) sits between the station and section house.
Coming into Silverton, the RR passes the North Star Mill. Its coal shed was scratched up out of the scrap box.
The coaling dock at the Silverton Union RR enginehouse get company coal.
On the old Silverton Northern line, the facilities are mostly big enough they utilize pits that the drop bottom coal cars dump into. There's some coal scattered around the wooden doors that help keep snow out at the Sunnyside Mine and Mill's coal dump in Eureka.
Over on the team track, there's another small coal operation that uses one of the sheds I make from the Walthers stock yards kit.
In Animas Forks, the management at the Haymarket Tram keep thingss neater. The pit empties into an elevator, which takes the coal up to dump into the tramway buckets to take up to the mine on the mountainside above town. Can't see much? Trust me, it's there. This is actually the side away from the aisle, so used the camera to take a pic from an angle you can't normally see.
Over at the Gold Prince, the coal dump is under a roof to help exclude snow and the coal is similarly cabled up the mountain.
At the end of track, the McKelvey's run a small coal service with little more than an ancient Mack and a couple of shovels to transfer the coal to it from the RR cars.
Some company coal heats the station and a small supply of coal is kept inside the covered turntable shed for emergency use only, since firemen hate shoveling coal into the tender.
On the branch to Red Mountain are sevral more customers. At Chattanooga, the Union Trust Tram has an elevator to take coal up to fill the little 4-wheel cars used to take supplies further up the gulch.
Red Mountain has several customers. This is Meinrath's Co-op Coal's shed.
Finally, the last coal shed I built, at the National Belle Mine, again from the scrap box.
I spent some time recently adding coal around these various facilities, as well as constructing "coal piles" from carved styrofoam to make filling the bins easier. I'm also working on a system to standardize dispatching coal shipments so that customers get them more regularly.