Hi all...I'm relocating a couple of industries on my layout, and have a question that some of you who know a lot more about coal mine trackage and operations might be able to answer..
On the diagram below (and pls.forgive the cell phone photo)...
Do both of these track configurations have examples in the prototype? The first (fig. A), with track running under a tipple from a loads yard to an empties yard, obviously does. But do mines (Appalachian mines in particular) ever have stub ended track just beyond the mine tipple (fig. B)? Where the engine needs to set in empty and pull out full hoppers basically one or two at a time? Or is this latter example just an example of how model railroaders condense with imagination the coal mine trackage. I've seen this latter example used often on model railroad track plans, such as in corners (where my mine may be), but don't know if it is a total artifice.
Please forgive my utter lack of knowledge about coal mine trackage, but I'm tryin'. I got that Tony Koester book on Coal Railroading, but it gives very limited info on mine and track configurations (the book is a bit of a disappointment in that regard).
If the latter (fig. B) might be prototypically correct for operations (as opposed to track flowing well beyond the tipple, to a yard full of hoppers), it would really swing a decision on where I place this mine on my layout. I'm planning to use the New River mine kit, perhaps kitbashing it down to a two track tipple. Space is pretty tight on my layout, and I'm hoping this second track example with stub ends just beyond the tipple makes some prototypical sense for a small mine operation.
As always, Thank you very much indeed!
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.
IIRC, there was an article in a 1972 Model Railroader that addressed the lack of a realism for a single track spur to serve a mine supposedly capable of generating some real rail traffic. The author proposed a plan which scaled out to 2x8 ft in HO. The plan was set up for handling cuts of 3 cars, with about 18 loads to be generated per mine run.
just a thought
Fred W
Many years ago, I 'minefanned' several coal operations in Japan (different country, same engineering standards.) The ones big enough to use a tipple the size of the Emma Mine (real name of the Walthers kit - prototype is actually in Colorado) all had double-ended access to the tipple tracks, with a bypass around the tipple to allow empties to be dropped before loads were pulled.
The only mine that used a short single-ended spur (about four carlengths beyond the loading chutes) was an operation which employed three men, two women and a dog. It produced about two (15 ton) carloads a day.
Chuck (modeling Central Japan in September, 1964 - including coal mines)
fwright wrote: IIRC, there was an article in a 1972 Model Railroader that addressed the lack of a realism for a single track spur to serve a mine supposedly capable of generating some real rail traffic. The author proposed a plan which scaled out to 2x8 ft in HO. The plan was set up for handling cuts of 3 cars, with about 18 loads to be generated per mine run.just a thoughtFred W
Seems reasonable. I tried to draw up a small track plan (based on the figures of mine tracks in Armstrongs "Track Planning for realistic operation" and "Model Railroader's Guide to Industries Along the Track".
You should be able to squeeze in a reasonable small mine that handles cuts of three cars, have three tracks through the loading tipple, and have max capacity of 9 empties (yellow cars) in, 9 full cars (green cars) out in about 1x6 feet:
The crossovers should make it reasonably easy to work all the empties tracks and all the load tracks without blocking yourself in too badly.
Extending the length of the loaded car yard by another two feet would allow 6 cars on each of the three tracks in the loaded car yard, for a total of 18 loads out for each mine run.
Is it prototypical ? Armstrong seems to feel that such a setup is a reasonable way to model mine operations on a model railroad.
Edit: here is a link to a set of pictures showing one possible way of doing a mine turn - engine arriving pulling 8-9 empties, and leaves pulling 9 loads - without any other support structures - like other runarounds or other engine escape tracks:
http://home.online.no/~steinjr/trains/modelling/forum/mine/index.html
I would probably have moved the rightmost two turnouts another two or three inches to the right, to create a little more work space when swapping loads for empties.
Smile, Stein
That last link showing the green and yellow cars in sequence is perfect.
I too will fight to get as much track as possible and find a spot for the caboose and water tank. But that's me.
Falls Valley RR wrote: That last link showing the green and yellow cars in sequence is perfect.I too will fight to get as much track as possible and find a spot for the caboose and water tank. But that's me.
No, I can see your point. Shouldn't be too hard to add a water tank somewhere - like at the yard throat. The caboose could be left at the end of the inbound cut of empties on the spur leading to the mine initially, and when all empties are placed at the mine, there should be room to stick the caboose somewhere where you can tack it on to the end of the outbound train of loads.
Problem with using a steam train on this run is that if you don't use a tank engine (ie if you have a coal/water tender at the rear end of the engine - towards the right in the figures), you probably would want to have a way of turning the engine close to the mine. A wye or a turntable. Probably a turntable.
But that of course could be modelled at some nearby station/yard instead of at the mine. Depends on how long the spur/branch line to the mine is supposed to be.
The mine engine I have in mind will either be a set of desiels back to back or the Y3 that has a tender headlight and a brakeman's cabin on the tender. I dont mind running backwards when necessary. Paricularly when GOOD turntables are very expensive both in dollar and space. I've a wye planned for one part of the railroad for turning when necessary.
The sequence of diagrams you did helped me reduce the amount of unnecessary track and switches. My orignal plan was severely bloated in space and track.
Thank you for your helpful content. It was appreciated.
When the N&W was using Y3s on mine runs, they typically ran one way in reverse. There weren't any turntables at the ends of those coal branches, and places where a wye could be built tend to be scarce where the countryside stands on edge.
Then, too, typical speed on a mine run wasn't much. OTOH, if the grades weren't excessive, a Y could empty a typical branch in one pass.
Chuck (modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
I think in some subsequent research noodling around the net, I came up with an answer to my layout space dilemna, one that fits quite nicely with reality. A flood loader. I model the late 80's/early 90's, and it seems by that by the 80's, most if not virtually all of the large tipples, as might be represented by the Walthers New River Kit, were obsolete and abandoned...and the traffic went to new flood loaders that fed unit trains. Since the flood loader will occupy less space than the New River kit, and since the flood loaders are often located next to the mainline, some relative distance from the mine itself (the flood loaders are fed by conveyors or, more likely, trucks)...voila! I can have a continuous run under a flood loader on a run around spur in the space it would have taken me to have a multi-track tipple ala New River.
The eastern flood loaders seem to be quite smaller than their western counterparts, owing to terrain, demand and profitability of the coal seams. And quite a bit messier than their western counterparts too, if the pics I've seen are any comparison.
I think I can kitbash one of these flood loaders...don't seem too complicated, basically a storage silo...cement or corrugated metal, with some machine shed on top and various conveyors, alongside the mess of the trackside coal scene. Maybe I can use parts from the New River kit, though the windowed building sections would be inappropriate. A PVC pipe could serve as the basic silo, I suppose.
Anyway...it's interesting learning about coal operations in Appalachia. Seems much has changed there since the 80's in terms of coal ops, and the coal economy.
An excellent source of information is Ed Wolfe's second book on the Interstate Railroad, "Appalachian Coal Hauler" , by TLC Publishing. There are track diagrams for almost every mine on the railroad. Most had run around tracks, but there were some that were stub ended.
The most important thing in properly modeling a mine tipple is to have the same length of track on either side of the tipple. If the track on one side for the loaded cars was 10 car lengths long for example, then the track on the other side for the empties was 10 car lengths long.
This is so empties can be spotted above the tipple and then rolled down (either using a car puller, local locomotive or having the track on a grade) under the tipple, loaded and then rolled on to the load track.
As stated above, most coal shifting steam locomotives spent half of their life running backwards, as there was hardly ever a turning facility on a coal branch. Only where branches came together or joined the main was their a wye to turn the engines.
Dale Latham
This site is a great reference for coal mining.
http://members.tripod.com/appalachian_railroad/index.html
Mark
Mark565 wrote: This site is a great reference for coal mining.http://members.tripod.com/appalachian_railroad/index.htmlMark
Neat! In particular, I liked: http://members.tripod.com/appalachian_railroad/mineruns.html - showing an example of a mine run setting out empties and picking up loads from several different mines, and http://members.tripod.com/appalachian_railroad/abcsofcoalloaders.html, which talked a little about different types of tipples and flood loaders.
Thank you for the link!
There was a forum member who built a flood loader, painted green and combined with other Walthers stuff to make a hellva mine somewhere in one of the photo intensive threads buried deep in the search results.
A bunch of other forum posts also had photos of various mines they built or kitbased as well.
If you are going to do a flood loader, your track sitaution just got loopy (Pun intended) also you are going to be mostly a western area. Eastern ones were very small and I dont know of any. I only understand eastern coal and EBT's way of getting rock along with limestone and other rock in trucking.
A sly and cunning trick would be to use the Emma Mine kit next to your new flood loader, beat up, boarded up and obviously abandoned in place.
Falls...there are evidently quite a few eastern flood loaders. Flood loaders are very common, and increasingly common, in the east. Eastern coal has moved from tipples to either flood loaders or smaller truck dumps. Eastern flood loaders seem to be quite a bit smaller than their western counterparts though. I'll dig up some of the pics I found and post them.
Chuck - excellent idea on the abandoned tipple like the Walthers kit. I saw of bunch of pics just like that...looks like some of those tipple are just frozen in time. Not much boarding up, actually, just looks like they were suddenly abandoned, with some droopy machinery. Very weedy however. One thing that is interesting, I see a lot of weathering of tipples and such in MR, but a lot of these tipples and flood loaders aren't that blackened.
Great pics i saw...Norfolk Southern engines hauling past abandoned tipples...really evocative.