Coal mine Railroad (in progress)


Ships for your layout...

I think you have some really neat ideas for your layout, especially the one about setting it in late winter (especially if you’re going to include some patches on snow on the ground). I personally have wanted to construct a snowbound layout/module set along one of BN’s former Great Northern routes through the High Sierras (unfortunately, I’m just able to build modules at the moment and everyone else’s is set in late spring/early summer).

If you want to include any boats, tugs or barges in the river around your mining operation or near your port city, allow me to recommend Deerfield River Laser. I don’t know why but they don’t seem to be mentioning their HO products on their website.

http://www.deerfieldriverlaser.com/index.html

I know that they have HO products however because my brother recently purchased an HO barge with S-scale parts-and is currently using it to make a very small “S”-scale river barge.

I saw Deerfield’s products at their recent show in Connecticut. and must say that I was impressed with the quality of his models.

Hope this helps.

Tyler.


Exohead said:
Hello to all. I have decided that for my first true layout, I would do a coal open-pit coal mine and port city. The coal mine would supply coal to the ships in the harbor. As this is a fictional section of th B&O during it's later years, it will be pulling around mail, tools and equipment for mining, the miners themselves, and the coal mined by the miners. I wanted some tips as to how to go about doing this. Any suggestions are welcomed with open arms. Following this text, but still in the same post, will be a copy of my typed and finallized plan. As I do not have money set aside for my track yet, though I have already ordered some, I have decided that I will be using an oval of track where one end is the coal mine (which will be in a valley alongside a river), one end is going to be the port and a few ships. The rest in between the two is going to be all forest. The river's mouth will dump into the chesapeake bay, which flows into the atlantic.

Here is the typed track plan:

Track Specifications:Code 100 Atlas Sectional Track
Era: 1980
Season: Late winter/Early Spring (when the snow is starting to melt)
Theme: Worker Commuting, coal mining.
Geography: Port-Small Valley filled with coal
Running Lines: B&O
Action Plan: A Baltimore & Ohio train of coal hoppers will arrive at the valley, passing through a narrow mountain pass blasted from the rock. When it arrives and places each of it’s 5 cars over the coal trestle, it will load them and drop off any tools or equipment ordered by the miners. It will also bring the mail for any miners staying on the mine grounds. It will then proceed to picking up any mail to return with and any broken tools or equipment requests. After arrival at the port, the coal will be unloaded and taken to the docks where it will be but onto the ships to use as a fuel source. After picking up any new mail, delivering mail from the mine, and after picking up all of the tools, repaired and new together, along with the equipment, then it will then loop around and repeat the process.
Click to expand...
 
Well, BurlingtonNorthern, as I do not know how to distingquish between their O scale products from their POSSIBLE HO scale products (coupled with having next to nothing for cash now), I won't be ordering from there any time soon. I do see the quality of their kits. For now, I will make my structures, boats, bridges, and anything else with paper (so long as it can be made using origami, because I rock at origami).
 
I will be buying the 4 x 6 sheet of particle board over the weekend. hopefully. I hope to be able to be assissted by you guys at other times as well. Now I will be laying track, doing up my wiring, and planning out my scenery.
 
I am switching over from a coal mine layout to a US Army/US Navy layout. I will have a single railroad servicing a US Army base and a US Navy port, close to the time in which Operation Desert Storm was taking place. Which means I will be moving freight and passengers both back and forth between the base and the port. This feels like an excellent idea. I plan on making a small base though. It will most likely only have a handful of barracks buildings, a small motor pool, a main office building, and a few other small buildings. It will have its own passenger and freight stations and one warehouse to store equipment and supplies in to ship down to the port.
 
The military base idea is interesting but there really were no troops moved by rail to either Army bases or Navy ports. Troops moved by bus to airports and were flown abroad. The Navy doesn't have the sealift capacity to move troops. The only naval vessels that carry any ground troops are the Wasp class amphibious assault ships that carry about 2,000 Marines. As you can see from the attached picture, these are very large ships (844 ft) and would be awfully hard to fit in your port. Even the Marines would be flown to the nearest airport and deliverd by bus to the port.

It would make more sense to have an Army base with a large freight handling facility for trucks and armored vehicles. These would be transported to and loaded on naval reserve container ships for transport overseas. These are also very large ships but I guess you could have a yard with the loads sitting, waiting to be loaded onto a ship which is not yet in port. With only 4x6 to work with, you'll have to make compromises somewhere.

wasp1A.jpg
 
Well first things first there Jim (no intention of being disrespectful here), that image is of an aircraft carrier, which is used to transport the US Navy's aircraft, pilots, and navigators across large expanses of ocean. I understand that I will have to make a few compromises to what exactly I want to do. But right now, it's all I can do not to post something every 5 nanoseconds because of a new idea. Now, as I said earlier, I do not mean to be disrespectful to you or to the forum, I am only stating these things so that you know, and I know. If we both know, then we can both learn from it and grow into better people because we taught other people something that they did not already know.
 
It is an aircraft carrier. Trust me. I brought my stepdad, a retired E-7, down to my bedroom to look at the same picture. He agreed that it was in fact an aircraft carrier. Wikipedia is an unreliable source, as I have recently found.
 
Taken from wiki.
The Wasp class amphibious assault ships of the United States Navy are designed to land forces on hostile shores, and they are the largest vessels of this type in service anywhere in the world. They are named after former aircraft carriers, United States Marine Corps battles such as the USS Iwo Jima (LHD-7), and previous amphibious assault ships. The Wasp class has an air group of helicopters that are used to ferry Marines and equipment to the shore from the ships.

So when you said "which is used to transport the US Navy's aircraft, pilots, and navigators across large expanses of ocean" you were mistaken or just plain uninformed. Other than being unrealstic it is way to much to model on a 4x6.
 
The U.S. Army here at Ft Lewis has their own RORO vessels (Roll On Roll Off)
docked in Commencement bay, WA, IIRC it used to be the Navy's vessels but not the Army has full control of them.
 
Jason, those RoRo ships at Fort Lewis are still under the command of the Navy. They are assigned the the Military Sealift Command and have exclusive duties to transport the Army's vehicles and supplies but they are commanded by Navy officers. Most of the seamen are actually civilians.

Exo, I presume you now understand that the ship pictured is not an aircraft carrier. Having ideas is a good thing but having a new idea every five nanoseconds is neither good nor normal. Do you have a family doctor you can talk to about this? There's a chemical imbalance in the brain that causes these rushes of ideas and can greatly interfere with your life. There are effective medications you can take that will keep your brain out of overdrive and allow you to concentrate on fewer and more realistic ideas. I hope you don't take offense at my suggestion. I'm not an expert on Navy ships but I do have a Master's degree in psychology and have a fairly good understanding of how the brain operates.
 
Ya'll can expect not to see me around anymore. I am sick and tired of people correcting me everytime I have an idea. So far, the only one who has been nice to me has been CSX Road Slug, and a handful of others. I already know that I have a problem. I have ADHD, Bipolar, and ODD. I will keep in touch with ken, but that's about it.
 
A true aircraft carrier for example , the Nimitz class (CVN) USS George Bush which is the last CVN that Newport News built, the last conventional CV to be decommisioned would be the Kitty Hawk? which left Bremerton naval station about a month ago, the one pictured which I can't remember the class it is are the Tarawa, Okinawa, etc. those do have aircrafts but only the Harriers, Jolly green giants, and other types of choppers, it's not a true aircraft carrier but is designated an amphibious type ship which has a big door in the stern or aft of the vessel for amphibious assault vessels to go in and out.:p
 
Exo, I'm sorry you feel like people offering you suggestions is correcting you but offering ideas about your plans is what this forum is about. If you have clearly made a mistake, that will be pointed out, but I don't think it's done in a mean or spiteful way. I'm glad to hear you are getting treatment for some of your issues but anger control is one you need to work on. If you decide this forum is not for you, I wish you good luck in the future but I hope you'll reconsider.
 
Don't worry about it, people do get confused:confused: sometimes, both look similar but not a whole lot, the difference are the lack of the catapault system on one and the CVN or CV carriers are longer and wider.
 
UP2CSX said:
Exo, I'm sorry you feel like people offering you suggestions is correcting you but offering ideas about your plans is what this forum is about. If you have clearly made a mistake, that will be pointed out, but I don't think it's done in a mean or spiteful way. I'm glad to hear you are getting treatment for some of your issues but anger control is one you need to work on. If you decide this forum is not for you, I wish you good luck in the future but I hope you'll reconsider.
Click to expand...

Jim, don't be sorry that I feel the way I do. You guys telling me that a picture that in the very least RESEMBLES an aircraft carrier is not an aircraft carrier on top of the discussion on the B&O, well it makes me feel like I am being corrected. I don't do well with being corrected and that's why I sorta just went off on everyone. So, don't be sorry. I am sorry for going off on you people who are only trying to help me out with my layout. Anyways. That's all.


Now. I have reconsidered and I have decided that I would like to come back and listen to you guys like a civilized person. My new idea is as follows. I will post my updated railroad plan in another post after I get some responses to this. The only thing that I am wondering is how I can make a chain fence around the US Army compound and around the USAF air base. here is what I want to do for the most part.

Please note that the entirety of the layout will be based in 1990-1991 when Operation Desert Storm was underway. The railway will be, in a sense, a supply railroad from the base to transport the equipment and supply personell to the USN port to be shipped overseas by either plane or by ship. I was actually now thinking that my base could be a stationing for the US Navy SEALS. I was trying to figure out how I might model that or a USAF (United States Air Force) base where the equipment would be sent, by rail, to the USAF base to be offloaded from the train and loaded into the waiting aircraft to take them to action in Operation Desert Storm. I have some research to do on Desert Storm, but that is beside the point.
 
this fence would probably work
http://www.hobbylinc.com/htm/mcs/mcs87985.htm?source=froogle
if you froogle it there is other options without barbed wire the top. I think you can get a good layout out of your wants but maybe cut it back some. It would take A TON of space to model planes and part of a runway or a realistic harbor. What you could do is maybe model a small ammunitions factory and a town on half of the layout and have a backdrop down the middle and on the other side the army base. Then you could also have an industry or two that also supports the town. Maybe something like below. The top left is a town, below that a factory, then to the right a fenced in base, and above that an ammunitions factory.
podude.jpg
 
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