Trucklover
BNSF SD70MAC's
For the Steel Mill Modelers or for those who just would like something that would fill an empty spot on the layout with a very large part of the Steel Industry, I will be building a small diorama of a dock complete with an Ore Boat and 2 Hulett Unloaders. My intentions will be to sell the diorama when I am finished with it and I will design and build it so that the buyer can plop it right into an empty space on their layout, connect the tracks, and have an instant Ore Boat and Hulett Unloader scene. Ive always wanted to build the Sylvan Scale Models Great Lakes Ore Boat and the Walthers Hulett Unloader since the moment I saw the press release on them when they were announced a couple years back. Ive ordered several of them and always sold them in kit form partly because I needed to get the money back out of them due to some hard times and being tight for money. But now that things have settled down and I can do something like this, I am finally ready to build these massive kits and make them into something that I hope someone can enjoy and show on their layout.
Right now I am in the planning stages of the construction. Ive gotten a plan drawn up for the diorama, and I just got the Ore Boat and Hulett Unloaders in yesterday afternoon fresh from Walthers. Here is the layout of the diorama as I have envisioned:
The diorama is 42" long x 26" wide and consists of a Dock w/Harbor (which will be filled with realistic water and a built up dock w/Pilings; thick brown line), the Great Lakes Ore Boat (which is 36" long x 6" wide), the 2 Hulett Unlaoders mounted on their trolly tracks (thick black lines), 4 tracks running under the 2 Hulett Unloaders for loading of ore cars (white lines), and stock piles of iron ore, coal, limestone, and whatever else might have been unloaded from the ships that didnt get directly loaded into hopper cars.
For those of you who do not know what the Hulett Unloaders look like or how they operate, they are mounted on a pair of trolly tracks much like a container crane at a port. They slide along the track and can move between the various hull openings in the ship. A large dinosaur like arm reaches down into the hull openings and scoops up very large amounts of material and drops them onto the conveyors which run the length of the Hulett Unloaders. From the Conveyors, the material is either loaded into hoppers directly or continue down to the end of the conveyor and simply fall off the end into a large stockpile which can be loaded at a different time. Walthers has a pretty neat little video on their Hulett Unloader page that is worthy of watching if you would like to see more on how these things operate. You can watch the video HERE.
This "little" project will be started as soon as im finished building and detailing the latest Walthers Rolling Mill im working on, which should go together very quickly now that all that is really left is assembling the exterior walls and super detailing the interior of the Mill.
Anyone think they would be interested in something like this for their layout?
Right now I am in the planning stages of the construction. Ive gotten a plan drawn up for the diorama, and I just got the Ore Boat and Hulett Unloaders in yesterday afternoon fresh from Walthers. Here is the layout of the diorama as I have envisioned:
The diorama is 42" long x 26" wide and consists of a Dock w/Harbor (which will be filled with realistic water and a built up dock w/Pilings; thick brown line), the Great Lakes Ore Boat (which is 36" long x 6" wide), the 2 Hulett Unlaoders mounted on their trolly tracks (thick black lines), 4 tracks running under the 2 Hulett Unloaders for loading of ore cars (white lines), and stock piles of iron ore, coal, limestone, and whatever else might have been unloaded from the ships that didnt get directly loaded into hopper cars.
For those of you who do not know what the Hulett Unloaders look like or how they operate, they are mounted on a pair of trolly tracks much like a container crane at a port. They slide along the track and can move between the various hull openings in the ship. A large dinosaur like arm reaches down into the hull openings and scoops up very large amounts of material and drops them onto the conveyors which run the length of the Hulett Unloaders. From the Conveyors, the material is either loaded into hoppers directly or continue down to the end of the conveyor and simply fall off the end into a large stockpile which can be loaded at a different time. Walthers has a pretty neat little video on their Hulett Unloader page that is worthy of watching if you would like to see more on how these things operate. You can watch the video HERE.
This "little" project will be started as soon as im finished building and detailing the latest Walthers Rolling Mill im working on, which should go together very quickly now that all that is really left is assembling the exterior walls and super detailing the interior of the Mill.
Anyone think they would be interested in something like this for their layout?
