General Discussion (Model Railroader)

MIKE0659, great explanation on the coal operations on your club layout.

You mentioned that you run live loads of real coal, and it's easy to tell the loads and empties when drilling a loader. Since you are using real coal, how do you get it to scale size and where are you getting this real coal?

Mine just came in today. In N Scale. I ordered it through my LHS and it took a week. I was supposed to be notified by an on-line company when they would have it in stock. Although they assured me I would be the first person to be notified of its availability I never heard from them so I went with my LHS. A good lesson for all of us.

SUPPORT YOUR LHS!!!!

The on-line price might appear cheaper at first glance but when you factor in the S & H charges and consider the extremely slow or non response of some on-line companies, your LHS might be the best way to go.

FritzvB

Here's a few pictures at night with the building and yard lights.

My next challenge is to figure out what to put in front of the coal loaders on the layout. 

the area in front of the hill between the tunnel tracks and the coal loader tracks is around 8" x 32" in size.  All the way to the left will be the beginning of a small town. I am up for suggestion on what to put in this area.  It can't be too tall because that area faces the front of the layout and would block everything behind.  I am thinking of a parking lot for the workers at the coal mine and then a road leading towards the town for the workers and trucks coming from the mine.  A parking lot is low but just doesn't seem like the best usage of space. 

Suggestions anyone ?

SilverSpike wrote:

MIKE0659, great explanation on the coal operations on your club layout. You mentioned that you run live loads of real coal, and it's easy to tell the loads and empties when drilling a loader. Since you are using real coal, how do you get it to scale size and where are you getting this real coal?

Hi Ryan,

Uh, sorry, I was being a bit facetious with the "easy" comment. It's real easy to tell them apart, especially in comparison to those loaded and empty boxes, tanks, and covered hoppers.

Yes, we do run live loads of real coal. We were inspired by Tony Koester's ramblings in his "Trains of Thought" columns way back when he was still modeling the AM. It sounded cool, and we figured it would be different and make the crews work a little harder and pay a little more attention. We ran some tests with cars loaded with all the ballast and sand we could come up with at the time and were impressed enough to commit to the live loads concept. A 15 car loaded coal train of triple hoppers is pretty heavy, I don't right now recall the weight per car, but we did weigh them once just out of curiosity. I want to say a 15 car train, with the weight of the cars, is somewhere in the 4+ pounds range, but can't swear to it. Everybody is surprised by the weight when they try to move a train by hand.

We actually have pulled a little weight out of some of our locomotives and cut back their top speed using programming functions in our Railcommand system so no one will be tempted to cheat and try to make a run at the grade. They'll stall and just get the dispatcher ticked-off. They have to wait for the pushers to get them up the grade. And as you can imagine, lifting a loaded train up the grade takes some good teamwork between the head-end and pusher, just like in the real world.

The coal is real coal from:

Smith and Sons Ballast, 13630 Gar Highway, Chardon, OH 44024

I found him in one of the magazines way back.

He has a wide variety of coal sizes and ballast colors and sizes too. We also bought our ballast from him. He will send you sample bags for a small charge each so you don't have to buy a regular size bag just to check it out. We tried a bunch of different types of coal and ballast. His prices are reasonable and he's a nice guy to deal with. As an aside, he is actually a guy who somehow grinds up this stuff with a little machine in his garage or basement. A real Pop and son outfit.

The one drawback we have found is that after a number of operating sessions the coal loads tend to level out a bit. So we dump them and refill them. In 10 or so operating sessions and Ray's son Shawn running trains around in between, we have had to do so only once.

We are a club of two, not to be confused with an army of one. The R&W railroad is located in Ray's basement (My brother in law). I don't have a basement, but he does, so we got together to build an empire. Okay, a small portion of an empire. We have had some help from friends with various projects at times, for which we are very grateful.

The operations description was pretty basic, but I thought it would give someone an idea how we are doing it., instead of just saying that we run coal trains on our railroad.

Piedsou wrote:

Here's mine, greatly modified. I added etched corrigated siding over the walls, opened some of the windows and added a long conveyor to the mine opening high on the neighboring ridge. Dale Latham

Dale, the mine looks great but so do the trees in the above picture.  What's your technique for making them?

Jarrell

MIKE0659, I would image that full loads would add a lot of weight to the cars. My concern would be accidentally tipping the cars and spilling the loads onto the layout. I have seen where some take styrene or other flat surface and attach to the hopper then place a small amout of "load" on top of that so as to simulate a full load without all the weight considerations. This simulated full load is also glued down to maintain a static form.

Also, thanks for the real coal in miniature contact.

Cheers,

Ryan

SilverSpike wrote:

MIKE0659, I would image that full loads would add a lot of weight to the cars. My concern would be accidentally tipping the cars and spilling the loads onto the layout. I have seen where some take styrene or other flat surface and attach to the hopper then place a small amout of "load" on top of that so as to simulate a full load without all the weight considerations. This simulated full load is also glued down to maintain a static form.

Ryan,

Fake coal loads are for wimps! Actually, we started out with all those cast loads and we made a bunch of loads too. They look good and worked fine, but we just wanted to go with the live loads.

We sold off all the loads at several local train shows, cheap. They all got snapped up and we used the money to buy coal. Real coal.

Yes, if you dump a train it can make a mess.

 Stand by a second while I knock on wood. All of us railroaders are superstitious.

We have only dumped one partial train and it went to the floor since we didn't have any scenery. It wasn't normal operation that caused it, but something dumb we did. And no, I won't tell you how we did it, even if you say please!

Mostly because I don't remember.

I have knocked a car over in the scenery while working. Yes the smart thing would be to move the car before fooling around in that area, but I got lazy. All you have to do is scoop most of it up with a spoon or scoop or piece of cardstock. Then we use a cordless vacuum cleaner to suck up the rest. Since everything in the scenery is glued down and the cordless vac isn't too strong, it's no big deal and doesn't damage the scenery. And, a little coal along the right of way looks prototypical, they don't get it all up when they have a derailment either.

One bonus of the heavy loads is that they track very well. We took great pains with our trackwork when putting it down, even before we knew we were running live loads, so we don't (Knocking on wood again) have many problems. We also have kept after out rolling stock to keep it all operating smoothly. The most common occurrence, and it doesn't happen often since we have a good operating crew, is someone shoving back through a switch that is against them or running through the switch before the motor has thrown it all the way.

Just as an aside, we haven't seen any excessive wear to the sideframes of any of our loaded cars after a fair amount of running. Even if we do, trucks are cheap, relatively speaking. We also run all Kadee wheelsets on any car that didn't come with metal wheelsets from the factory.

Generally speaking, our operating sessions have been smooth and trouble-free. We push and pull the cars all over the place, in and out of sidings, through turnouts, and uphill and down 2 and 3% grades. With pushers.

A good time is had by all. And yeah, we're the only nut jobs we know running live loads among our group of friends.

I am still working on mine. The glue is still drying and you cansee masking tape in a few places. Some of you guys have done an awesome jon on this kit.

I all most didnt post they are so good. But i worked hard at my level of ability and am proud to show it.

I am not so good with these kits, I spill some glue, get in a hurry, over spray some paint where I dont want it but I generaly have a good time.

It pays to have a good camera and I dont so it makes the pic less than it should be too.

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EDIT:

Friday and I about hae it completed.

J I Dorsey Stores wrote:

I am still working on mine. The glue is still drying and you cansee masking tape in a few places. Some of you guys have done an awesome jon on this kit.   I all most didnt post they are so good. But i worked hard at my level of ability and am proud to show it. I am not so good with these kits, I spill some glue, get in a hurry, over spray some paint where I dont want it but I generaly have a good time.   It pays to have a good camera and I dont so it makes the pic less than it should be too.

I had similar problems with glued fingers and masking tape stuck to the glue etc...  Same thing on overspray.  If you look hard you'll see light blue dots on the black doors on mine.  The thing is, that happens in real life.  I like the lighter roof.  I toyed with a silver roof for mine.  I think I still wish I had gone that route.  What did you use for the blackening for weathering ?

Mike0659,

From your explanation it seems like you guys have some fun sessions. And yes, I have seen the ROW on some of he Norfolk Southern coal lines where some coal has spilled near the rails, and I was considering that too. You mentioned in an eariler post that you use the Smith & Son coal, I noticed in the 2006 Scenics Express catalog that three pages are dedicated to their product. I also noticed that there are more than one size to choose from, what size/type coal did you use? They also have a variety of ballast sizes, I am thinking of getting the smallest size which is the Gray Limestone #50 for ballasting my track. Any considerations on ballast size?

Cheers,

Ryan

I use canned spray paint.

Over the blue paint I mist it with flat black then lightly spray the blue again.

Makes a nice effect and tones down the black.

Now I need to find a box to store it in a while, it is bigger than I expected.

Dull coat does a great job of covering up the glue.

I dull coat every thing.

Testers is making a killing on that 1.5 oz of paint for $3.50