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Mining and Quarrying
Layouts
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One of the best known and frequently modeled micro
layouts is this classic, designed by Bernard Junk in 1991. This little lline hauls
quarried minerals (sand, gravel, slate, limestone or whatever) up the hill to a tip,
where the load is emptied into a waiting truck or lorry. The design is so compact
that it can be built in O scale (On18, On2, or On30) in just 12"x17" --
in fact, it was originally designed to fit on a sheet of A3 sized paper!
This clever layout has been constructed over the years by many excellent modelers
in gauges ranging from HOn30 to Gn15. Bernard's design has been redrawn here to include
the original track patterns caused by his interesting modeling of portable track
sections (the prototype's version of Snap Track or Setrack). Curve radii are about
9 cm (3.5") -- roughly 13-14 feet in O scale, exactly like the prototype.
 Here's a playground for your new Sidelines trammer in Gn15
or your hard-working battery mine loco in On30/O16.5. Inspired by a layout of Raymond
Duton, here's a mine producing that little-known mineral, detritus. So we have the
Duton Detritus Mine.
Occupying only three square feet, this little mining company only owns a few skips
and a battery or diesel locomotive. The design also can be operated with two locomotives,
if detritus suddenly increases in value and extra funds are available!
There are two "adits" which conveniently link a backstage continuous circuit
concealed by rising terrain. Rear access can permit loading and unloading the skips,
to avoid the "taking the stuff back to the mine" appearance.
The front and center location is reserved for an automatic tipping device that you
will create to empty the detritus from your skips into the trucks waiting below.
An additional siding is provided for hauling and dumping the incredible amounts of
debris that seem to accumulate around all mining operations. You'll need a couple
extra skips for this operation.
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| In probably the closest approach to Perpetual Motion
that model railroading will ever make, we have this astounding layout from Jack Trollope,
Jaxcilli Industries. He has used six square feet in his design, much more
than our micro layouts occupy. However, this is a standard gauge layout ... if we
were to reduce the radius to our customary six inches, we could no doubt reduce the
ultimate size of the layout to under four square feet ... definitely micro territory!
Read Jack's description below. |
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Jaxcilli Industries
by Jack Trollope
This trackplan, as drawn in HO Scale, fits into
36"x24" but could be 30"x24" without losing any trackage, or
operational(???) possibilities.
It works thus:-
Loco pushes empty wagon A from mid-level, down under the bridge and through the tunnel
so that it is positioned under the loading chute from the trestle.
Wagon B is unloaded via the chute into wagon A.
Loco pulls A back up to mid-level and then pushes it up the incline to the trestle,
where it adds (now empty) wagon B to wagon A.
Loco reverses with both wagons until all are clear of the switch, the switch is thrown
and the wagons are pushed into the siding.
B is uncoupled, loco + A reverse through the switch, it is thrown again, and A is
pushed onto the trestle, and left in the unloading position.
Loco now goes and collects wagon B, pulls it down to mid-level and the cycle starts
again.
I haven't drawn in all the various rock faces to avoid cluttering the drawing. It
could be a good scenic project.
Minimum radius is 8" and switches are Peco Setrak, 1xLH and 1xRH. Using small
wagons, trains could probably consist of 2 wagons although I have only shown single
wagons in the plan.
The name explains it all <VBG>.
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 As a variation on (and a salute to) Jaxcilli Industries,
here's a tiny 14"x14" (36x36 cm) layout that performs the same magical
ritual. It's based on a Zimbabwe Lime Kiln
and is best built in On18/O9 or HOn30/OO9. Two small, four-wheel gondolas (wagons)
are required, along with a tiny "critter" to haul them around the 3"
(76mm) radius curves.
To begin, empty car A is placed in front of the kiln at the lower level "Lime
Loading" position. Car B, full of limestone, is pulled by the loco in a clockwise
direction for as many circuits as you can stand; then the switch is thrown and Car
B is pushed up the steep grade to the top. This is where the limestone is charged
into the kiln.
Car B is dumped into the kiln. Through careful craftsmanship, a system of invisible
chutes inside the kiln routes the material to the bottom where it erupts from the
loading chute and fills Car A. The loco then reverses the positions of the two cars,
and the cycle continues ad infinitum, for endless hours of fascinating fun with model
railroading! |
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Bill Metcalf builds and operates a delightful outdoor
G-scale railroad, the Sludgewell Bottled Water Co. RR. But he also expresses a liking
for small and simple track plans where every spur and line does at least double duty
and operating problems are most of the point [a good description of a micro layout!
--ed.]. To illustrate, Bill designed a nifty 4'x8' mining layout, Penny Mining
Co. Railroad, and presented it on his refreshing web site.
Wistfully he wrote me, "It would be Interesting to reduce the [Penny Mine] concept
down to a very small size ... but a reversing loop is not exactly a space-saving
configuration." Challenged, I proceeded to design the Ha'Penny Mining Co.
Railroad, a 30"x18" (76x46 cm) streak of rust that presents some interesting
operating challenges in getting the supplies and empty mine cars up the hill and
bringing the mineral tonnage down.
Alas, as Bill pointed out, there's not really enough room to feature the Penny Mine
switching puzzle created by placing a mine tipple on the main line within a reversing
loop (balloon). Instead, the micro version focuses on figuring things out at the
bottom, before starting the climb. The only firm operating rule is that the locomotive
must always be on the downhill side of the heavily loaded cars full of whatever it
is they mine up there. And of course, the loaded cars are delivered to the interchange
-- same place where supplies and mining equipment arrive.
The drawing is arranged for On18/O9 trains using 9 mm gauge, but the 7-inch curves
are generous enough to allow virtually any gauge/scale combination to work, from
Gn15 to HOn30. The limiting factor wil be how steep a grade you can tolerate to get
the trains up and over.
And, oh yes -- I couldn't resist drawing a version of Bill's Penny Mine reversing
loop that fits inside the four-square-foot size limit for a micro layout! Here's
Farthing Mining Co. RR, which hauls supples and empties up the hill from the
hidden offstage interchange to the mine and returns with loads of minerals. In Bill's
words: "It would be great with some sort of electric mine loco and three or
four short ore cars. The loco always has to end up on the outgoing end of the train."
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Ian Holmes has designed this tiny Welsh slate-quarrying
railway to recapture some memorable experiences. He describes the Migraine Mine
(so named because he had one while drawing it up) this way:
"Scale is O16.5 or 09 (On30 or On18). The subject, slate mines, is my absolute
favourite as I spent my impressionable years riding the narrow gauge railways of
North Wales.
"Slate caverns are incredible places. Slate was quarried out of the inside of
mountains leaving vast caverns big enough to hold Saint Paul's Cathedral. An incredible
testimony to the slate industry. That is what the top scene represents, a smaller
cavern on the way to a larger one deeper in the mountain.
"This cavern is still being worked, miners can be seen on cave walls drilling
holes ready to lay the dynamite. Once in a while a battery electric trammer passes
by from deep in the mountain with a large slab of slate, on its way to the trimming
shop in the next scene. The loco emerges from inside the mountain and makes its way
into the trimming shop, where hidden from the public's gaze the train can be swapped
out on a cassette, as is done on the Apple Valley Light Railway.
"Trains would consist of empty slate wagons going into the mountain and full
ones coming out, with worker trains carrying the miners to and from their jobs. Not
bad for a simple circle of track!
"The real challenge would be to make the Cavern scene dark enough that you could
see that the workers all had tiny lights on their helmets working courtesy of grain
of wheat light bulbs."
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to Page 2 of "Mning and Quarrying Layouts"
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