EXTERNAL: Coal operations

[NW Modeling List]

A couple of suggestions:

1)  Even on a “mostly coal” road, there would have been “hotshot” general merchandise freights occasionally.  Fairing them into operations would have required putting coal drags “into the hole”—but with the proviso that the passing sidings be located where the drag loco(s) could restart the train after the passage of the hotshot, and be long enough to hold the entire drag.

2)  Same thought would go with a passenger train—the VGN carded the “Virginia Creeper” once each way per day, and it must have caused engineers on drags to pull their hair out on occasion.

3)  Nearly all coal roads had one or more severe grade that would have kept one or more helper crews quite busy.  You can pick your helper policy to be more or less complex—from adding a loco to the front of the train, to adding it to the back behind the caboose, to adding it between the caboose and last car in the train, to adding it mid-train.  If you want to keep more than one helper crew busy, then you should add a short passing track midway up the hill, to allow a helper engine drifting down-hill to go “into the hole” to let another up-grade train to pass without stopping.  You could require crews to “double the hill” instead of using helpers, but that would only keep the train crew occupied, whereas a helper district would occupy one or more helper crews, depending on traffic density.

4)  Some mines had their own engines/crews assigned to “dress the mine”, keeping empties under the chutes while placing fulls on pick-up tracks.  These locos could range from an 0-8-0 to a Y-6 (or an H-16-44 to an H-24-66), depending on size of mine.  If you are using diesels, they would periodically need to go on a fuel run.  Some railroads sorted cars according to coal grade at the mine, but I think that both VGN and N&W did that in their yards in Norfolk.

5)  Both VGN and N&W had electrified regions, requiring engine changes twice for each drag train from tipple to dock.  Crews would typically stay with their locos/districts, so this would allow you to keep 3 crews occupied on shorter sections of your pike.

6)  You can always throw in a “Caboose run” if things get boring.  These would typically run counter to the loaded drag runs.

I think you’ll find many opportunities to bring friends into your operating sessions!

-Eric Bott


From: NW-Modeling-List [mailto:nw-modeling-list-bounces at nwhs.org] On Behalf Of NW Modeling List via NW-Modeling-List
Sent: Monday, October 29, 2018 20:30
To: nw-modeling-list at nwhs.org
Cc: NW Modeling List <nw-modeling-list at nwhs.org>
Subject: EXTERNAL: Coal operations

Does anyone have a coal operating layout that does more than haul coal drags?  I try to envision running mine runs with a group of people and I can come up with only one person pulling a train of empties up the branch. I don’t have room for more than one branch. So I’m the one person but I want to have people over to share the fun.
Some do a great job of hauling coal but I think there may be compromises on pure N&W described in books and these lists with the desire to have friends over. Modelling is full of compromises, of course.
How have others modeled coal mining operations? ie picking up loads and dropping empties...etc
Thank you,

Mike Shockley
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