yes, matter of fact I do. I model O gauge outside. No one has ever done this outside so was hoping someone indoors might (I'm assuming this forum is only for indoor modelers, as whenever I mention I model outdoor, I get no replies).
I'm working on an open pit mine right now on the layout. I don't have pictures as of yet but what I did was create a depression between the tracks using cardboard strip webbing. Then I filled it in with plaster cloth. Once all the benchwork was covered in the depression with plaster cloth, I then took some patching plaster and applied it about 1/2" thick around the sides of the open pit and then before it dried completely took a putty knife and started gouging and slashing rock formations into the patching plaster.
I then stained it with india ink and alcohol so that the rock crevices were darkened and then took a 50 /50 mixture of earth tone paint and water and stained the earth colors into the rock. I then took some plaster of paris mixed with yellow and brown tempra paints and wisped it into and over the rock. I then gave it a squirt of water to release the tempra paint pigments and this is the stage i'm at right now.
To continue later, I'm going to fill in some tallus rock in the hole that looks like it was dynamited from the pit's walls and have a front end loader load the broken rock into a conveyor belt that takes it to the Walthers cornerstone series gravel company building that will eventually crush the rock and then dump it into the train hoppers. I should be completed with the scene after Thanksgiving and will have pictures of it by then....chuck
I know you weren't asking for prototype pictures, but I found a few that were interesting. Being from Minnesota, I thought of the iron ore mines in the north. I'm not sure what era you want to model. These pictures appealed to me because they weren't a quarter mile deep. They also show what appears to be a large loop for the trains.
corey, thanks for photos; I'll view them at home this weekend as my Mac is having trouble loading them. Chuck, that is along the same lines of thinking i have. Mine will be concrete (dyed) with crusher fines sprinkled on top (crusher fines are sidewalk and sewer slurry, about the size of O scale ballast and sometimes used for that).
I've designed some non-fortified walls before that have washed out.
Chuck, do you plan a return loop or back back up to the top; I'm thinking that's what the prototype might have done. Shame there's no more trains in open pits
FJ and G wrote: corey, thanks for photos; I'll view them at home this weekend as my Mac is having trouble loading them. Chuck, that is along the same lines of thinking i have. Mine will be concrete (dyed) with crusher fines sprinkled on top (crusher fines are sidewalk and sewer slurry, about the size of O scale ballast and sometimes used for that).I've designed some non-fortified walls before that have washed out. Chuck, do you plan a return loop or back back up to the top; I'm thinking that's what the prototype might have done. Shame there's no more trains in open pits
The train doesn't actually enter the pit. It is located on a dogbone island that had plenty of room between the curves of the mainline track to model an open pit mine. I'ts at the base of a hill within the dogbone. The mined ore is loaded up to the crusher and the spur tracks from a conveyor belt in the bottom of the pit. It is based on Beckman limestone quarry near San Antonio Texas when the quarry used to operate where Fiesta Texas amusment park is today. They would dynamite the rock from the side of a cliff and carry it via truck to the crusher building and then it was loaded on a bunch of SP hoppers that used to go to and from the quarry on the Kerrville Branch of the East Yard in San Antonio on SP's Sunset Route.
Thought about drainage?
CHUCK
IRONHORSE77 wrote: Thought about drainage?CHUCK
A small lake at the bottom is prototypical in rainy country, usually with a large sump pump adjacent. The pipes run aboveground, for fairly obvious reasons.
John Armstrong included a (rather small) open pit mine in one of his 'book' layouts, with operations based on the copper pits. There was a spiral 'main line' and several loading spurs (switch at uphill end.) The loco wouldn't push the cars downhill - more, keep them from running away - but would pull them uphill.
OTOH, all present-day open pits rely on truck haulage, with those huge dump trucks the size of a three story duplex. The loading shovels and front-end loaders are equally brobdignagian - and don't even think about a walking dragline except as something to be painted on a backdrop in reduced scale. (In O scale, the 'big box' would be a two foot or more cube and the boom would be at least eight feet long!)
Chuck (modeling Central Japan in September, 1964 - with underground mines)
I'll try and get to work this weekend and post some photos. Not concreting the bottom of the pit so some water may pool up, which isn't a big concern (the layout if on a slope; ground is clay, which holds water but under is shale and mudstone, which is fairly porous.).
When I get home I'll check out some of the photos. Eventually I'll scratchbuild some equipment but first, it is getting the 8' steel digbar going.
In Minnesota, the ore pits were operated by mining companies. Mainline railroads like the Missabe or Great Northern never ran into the pits.
If the ore was rich enough, mining company locomotives (steam, diesel, or electric) would take the mainline road's ore cars down into the pit 10-12 at a time for loading directly from the shovels. There was no 'loop' and they did not turn around, normally they backed down with the ore cars in front of the engine, and pushed them back up on the same track. Once they reached the top, they brought the loaded cars to an interchange yard with the mainline road.
If the ore wasn't rich enough and needed cleaning processing, the mining company might run trains into the mines with their own side-dump ore cars, and bringing the raw ore up to go thru a beneficiator or sintering plant. Often the side dump ore cars would be on an elevated line above the building, and dump the ore into the plant. The processed ore would then be loaded from chutes into the mainline railroad's ore cars. In some operations, the shovels loaded the ore into trucks - either to bring to the surface level, or to dump into a conveyor belt system to bring out of the pit.
Water in the pit was generally ground water leaking up, not rain water washing down. One of the deepest (maybe the deepest now?) lake in Minnesota is a former open pit mine that was allowed to fill with water.
BTW an O scale model of the Hull-Rust open pit mine would be about 330' x 220', and 11' deep!
ok, back home. Can see photos now. Helpful somewhat as I was curious how much room the steam shovel had to maneuver around. First photos look like excavation of Panama Canal. Butte and other mines would be out of the question as my backyard isn't big enough to try to do it scale so it will obviously be selective compression but would like to at least get several good loops in there. The disadvantage outdoors compared to indoors is that weeds will want to sprout up. Anyway, it is windy now and hovering around the freezing point. I'd be digging right now except for it is too dark. I have to move some existing track as well.
<>In the prototype big open pits, it must have seemed forever to the engineer driving his train around and around those loops.
<>(one can think of an open pit as an inside out helix; thought by now someone would have attempted an open pit instead of a helix, which is less the prototype. An exit tunnel could be made at the bottom of the open pit)
re: cwclark's trackless open pit, i've seen one of those with conveyors north of Richmond, VA. The tracks (there are 2 or 3 arranged in a siding to get in and out) are at the top of the mine. One could do that to model modern open pit. Mine is vintage.
This could be an interesting loads/empties operation. At some point in that long trip down the mine, the "empty" train could be switched out (say, under a snow shed, maybe?) and routed upstairs again underground to a processing plant of some sort. It would be replaced by a "loaded" train coming back, maybe from further down the pit.
Does anyone have rough locations, or even better, Latitude and Longitude co-ordinates, for some of these mines? I would think they'd show up pretty well on Google Earth.
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
This is an open pit mine built by my friend, Al Mosier.
The Cedar Branch & Western--The Hillbilly Line!
I live in Ely, NV which is 7 miles away from what used to be the largest open pit copper mine in the world. AT one point in time, trains did go down into the pit, i can't remember right off how they got out, but I seem to remember a return loop at the bottom. The ore was transported 19 miles north to McGill, NV which was the site of a large smelter. The ore was processed into blister copper then shipped to the interchange with the Southern Pacific 125 miles to the north. The operation I am talking about is the Nevada Northern Railway and Kennecott Copper Corporation. There are a number of resources available online that might help your search for information and a great place to start is here:
http://nn.railfan.net
Hope this helps!
tatans wrote:Try Bingham Canyon Mine, the largest man made excavation, they haul out 450,000 tons of ore per day. I think it's outside Salt lake City. Good Luck !
You're right, the Bingham Canyon Project is just south of Salt Lake City, UT and it is the largest open pit copper mine in the world. A Google search ought to pull up a wealth of information on this mine.
MisterBeasley wrote: Does anyone have rough locations, or even better, Latitude and Longitude co-ordinates, for some of these mines? I would think they'd show up pretty well on Google Earth.
Just search for "Hibbing Minnesota", it's surrounded by open pit mines (you can spote them by their pink and blue (water) colors. The biggest one north of town is the Hull Rust I believe.
You can also type in Ruth, NV or Toole, UT (click on the first option that pops up then zoom out and scroll east. you can't miss it) to find either mine. They are both large enough that they can easily be spotted.
inarevil wrote: I live in Ely, NV which is 7 miles away from what used to be the largest open pit copper mine in the world. AT one point in time, trains did go down into the pit, i can't remember right off how they got out, but I seem to remember a return loop at the bottom. The ore was transported 19 miles north to McGill, NV which was the site of a large smelter. The ore was processed into blister copper then shipped to the interchange with the Southern Pacific 125 miles to the north. The operation I am talking about is the Nevada Northern Railway and Kennecott Copper Corporation. There are a number of resources available online that might help your search for information and a great place to start is here:http://nn.railfan.netHope this helps!
Impressive website!
greetings,
Marc Immeker
From the far, far reaches of the wild, wild west I am: rtpoteet