North American railroad noobie! Norfolk and western layout.

[dave1905]

On 22/08/2021 at 10:08, 40 058 said:

This might be a stupid question, but what actually was inside the short hoods?

 Inside the short hood was a sand box, a toilet and sometimes electrical equipment.  If it was a passenger unit the short hood would have a steam generator in it.

[long island jack]

maybe of interest to you!

 

https://www.anglo-americanmodelrailways.com/product-page/norfolk-western-6-pack-a-h2a-3-bay-hopper-car-loads-broadway-imports-ho

[40 058]

14 minutes ago, long island jack said:

maybe of interest to you!

 

https://www.anglo-americanmodelrailways.com/product-page/norfolk-western-6-pack-a-h2a-3-bay-hopper-car-loads-broadway-imports-ho

You star! Brilliant find, and I’ve just ordered them! Thank you very much for posting that.

Thats a good site to know too for the future.

[dave1905]

One thing that I have always challenged is modeling a mine on a small layout.  On a small layout a mine can only handle a small number of cars and generally only handles hopper cars.  Plus a mine has relatively little switching.  You shove in a cut of empties and pull out a cut of loads.  No real sorting of cars.

 

On the other hand if you model the other end of the supply chain, such as a foundry, you can have virtually the same number of hoppers, but also get to model gondolas, boxcars, maybe tank cars, etc.  Plus there is more opportunity to spot individual cars.   Way more switching and way more variety of cars.

[long island jack]

Or even a cement works

[mdvle]

Good suggestions, but what some find limiting others may find comfortable.  There are certainly plenty of UK layouts, whether minories based or otherwise, that provide a lot of enjoyment with little in the way of switching.

 

I think, based on the posts by the thread owner, the key here is that a coal mine serviced by the N&W is what has taken their interest and finding that interest is over half the battle in a successful layout.

[40 058]

2 hours ago, mdvle said:

Good suggestions, but what some find limiting others may find comfortable.  There are certainly plenty of UK layouts, whether minories based or otherwise, that provide a lot of enjoyment with little in the way of switching.

 

I think, based on the posts by the thread owner, the key here is that a coal mine serviced by the N&W is what has taken their interest and finding that interest is over half the battle in a successful layout.

Pretty much this. 
 

I see what a few of you are saying but I think I can get what I want from a N&W coal layout.

Normally I’m not one for shunting trains on my U.K. layout. For the most part I like to watch trains go by, there’s the option for a bit of shunting of course.

On this layout, being end to end, watching trains go by isn’t so easy but I think shuttling coal trains around then back off scene should suit me.

At the moment it’s very much in the planning stage anyway so I’ll see what I can get away with and what I can fit.

Edited September 2, 2021 by 40 058

[Nick_Burman]

On 21/08/2021 at 15:11, mdvle said:

Yes. Each railroad owns and maintains their own track

 

There were quite a few exceptions though - the Kankakee & Seneca Railroad was a branch line jointly controlled by the Chicago Rock Island & Pacific and the New York Central (or rather its subsidiary, the Chicago Cleveland Cincinnati & St. Louis Railroad, better known as the “Big Four”). It ran (open Google Earth...) between the Big Four at Kankakee, Ill. and the CRI&P at Seneca, Ill.. It was used by the two railroads to allow them to connect to each other directly and thus bypass congestion in the Chicago area. AFAIK NYC maintained the branch but CRI&P used to run run-through trains to and from Kankakee handling east-west traffic.

 

Another oddball branch (or rather system of branches) was the Camas Prairie Railway in Idaho and Washington states. The company was jointly owned by the Northern Pacific and Union Pacific railroads who supplied locomotives and rolling stock. The railway had its own staff (drivers, firemen, conductors, etc...) but management personnel was rotated between each of the owners every few years or so. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camas_Prairie_Railroad

 

Cheers Nicholas

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Nick_Burman]

On 20/08/2021 at 23:21, 40 058 said:

Rough location, I want to say possibly the Chicago area? Again though, I’m not 100% positive! Where did the two locomotives and Santa Fe operate at this time period. 

 

If you are still a bit lost, buy the Steam Powered Video Atlas of North American Railroads. I can't overstate how handy they are.

 

Cheers NB

[Nick_Burman]

On 25/08/2021 at 00:36, mdvle said:

As for a boxcar - perhaps supplies for the mine?

 

Using MR's Virginian as a guide, other traffic can be:

 

Inbound covered hoppers full of lime powder for dusting mine tunnels, to prevent explosions;

 

Outbound gondolas and bulkhead flatcars of pulpwood, loaded by local loggers;

 

Inbound heavy machinery in flatcars or gondolas (a good excuse to have a whole flatcar load of Roco HOe mine tubs...)

 

Inbound Boxcars of explosives, handled as a separate train;

 

Outbound boxcars of furniture, from the furniture factory;

 

Cheers NB

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[BR60103]

One feature that I've read about but never seen operating is "empties in; loads out".  It requires 2 identical sets of cars, one with loads, one without.  The empties are pushed into the mine (??) and after a while the loaded cars are pulled out. This is paired with another industry (power plant?) where the loaded cars go in and the empties come out.  The two industries are arranged back to back (with lots of space) so that they share the two sidings -- loaded cars go into the power plant and come out of the mine.

 

I admit I have no idea what the sidings are doing going into the mine.

But it's handy if you buy 2 sets of hoppers with the same numbers on them.

 

[dave1905]

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Outbound gondolas and bulkhead flatcars of pulpwood, loaded by local loggers;

 

Actually that was most likely INBOUND wood.  They probably thought it was pulpwood but it was actually "prop timber".  The coal mines used wood posts to hold up the roof of the mine and lumber to line the interior of the mine where there was loose rock.  An active mine would need a supply for prop timber to keep pushing the face forward.

 

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Inbound heavy machinery in flatcars or gondolas (a good excuse to have a whole flatcar load of Roco HOe mine tubs...)

 

Maybe but not often, that stuff lasted decades.

 

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Inbound Boxcars of explosives, handled as a separate train;

 

Also not as much as you would think.  A boxcar load would be in the range of tons of explosives.  A covered hopper of ammonium nitrate would be in the 70-100 ton range.  They wouldn't want to buy that much or store that much.   Most mining areas had explosives dealers that received the bulk explosives and distributed it to mines in smaller lots by truck.

 

[dave1905]

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I admit I have no idea what the sidings are doing going into the mine.

 

They don't go "into the mine", they go under the tipple and the tipple structure hides the hole in the backdrop.  You don't need two cuts with the same car numbers you just need  two cuts of cars, one loaded the other empty.  The loads always come out from the mine area and the into a power plant on the other side of a backdrop and the empties always come from the power plant  to the mine.  

 

Here is the plan of what a mine  and power plant look like from a track arrangement perspective and where the backdrop would cut across them is shown. 

 The next picture is after the areas are modeled, you slice the two track plans at the backdrop and arrangement on the layout to make a loads in-empties out industry pair.

 

[40 058]

Hmmm, interesting!

Fast forward to about 07:00 for loading action.

[Nick_Burman]

3 hours ago, dave1905 said:

Actually that was most likely INBOUND wood.  They probably thought it was pulpwood but it was actually "prop timber".  The coal mines used wood posts to hold up the roof of the mine and lumber to line the interior of the mine where there was loose rock.  An active mine would need a supply for prop timber to keep pushing the face forward.

 

Quite to the contrary, outbound pulpwood for the paper industry too. N&W's West Jefferson Branch (the "Virginia Creeper") originated quite a few carloads of the stuff, and it was billed as pulpwood for papermaking and not as pit props. So did several of the mine-run branches in the Appalachians where the railroads were not adverse to earning a few extra bucks by tagging an empty gondola or bulkhead flatcar onto a mine run.

 

Having mentioned pit props, another inbound load would be steel props and segments, used to line mine tunnels in fault or soft rock areas. From what I understand by the 1960's a good number of mines in Va. and WVa. had at least their main haulage tunnels lined with steel rather than wood.

 

 

4 hours ago, dave1905 said:

Quote

Inbound heavy machinery in flatcars or gondolas (a good excuse to have a whole flatcar load of Roco HOe mine tubs...)

 

Maybe but not often, that stuff lasted decades.

 

Enough to justify one or two car cards in the deck...

 

I forgot about the freight house in the layout - add a boxcar of LCL to the mix.

 

Another possible load would be cars of non-coal minerals. The Yancey RR in North Carolina originated mica in boxcars, for instance. (The YRR was not a coal carrier and was outside Appalachian coal country, but it did interchange with the Clinchfield who was definitively very much coal carrier).

 

 

Cheers NB