suggestions for track at a modern coal mine

[taholmes160]

HI, thanks for the good suggestion and the pics of that cool plant, in my case, the coal plant is off layout.  Coal is going to be marshaled at Alamosa, and then sent off layout to the west for a power plant out in California.

TIM

[John]

What will you do for a power plant?  While out west this summer I drove by an isolated, self-contained electric powerplant in North Dakota served by BSNF.  Very cool and compact and something like it might fit in your layout.

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Basin+Electric+Power+Cooperative/@47.2805158,-101.326378,2002m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x52d864f7e366befd:0x1c69af9cee500c3a!8m2!3d47.2797449!4d-101.3212716

you could model that nicely with a walthers kit ... either the paper mill, or their power plant variation

[taholmes160]

Hi Folks:

After visiting a club today that has a mine scene, I came home and started drawing, and came up with the following plan for the coal mine area.  A couple notes about this area .  The tipple has outputs of 2 sizes of coal, Stoker coal for electrical power and metallurgic coal for steel production.  Loads will generally be made of one or the other, so one or the other loading track will be used.  This will allow cars to flow smoothly down from the top end of the pic in the empty storage tracks, under the loader, and on down to the loads storage yard.  Im not going to try to set the grade and all the associated problems, I'll have a switch engine move them around as needed.

I looked again at doing a loads in empties out type scene, but it really doesnt fit with the operational story, so I decided not to do it.

TIM