Peter's Model Railroading | The Layout | Stops | The Hazel Mine Complex | Hazel Mine Outfeed 1
Module Design
The second module of the Hazel Mine Complex will be the continuation of the outfeed yard of the mine. This is where the loaded cars are gathered and accumulated. To give you an idea of how I develop my plan forward on a module, I will take you through the steps I use to come up with my final design for the module. What you are seeing here is a 1913 Sanborn map. While modelers have stated that Sanborn's maps may not be 100% accurate (as they were an insurance company, after all), they are of tremendous help when an area is unknown or there are few or no photographs available. My Hazel Mine falls right on the natural split in the Sanborn maps, so I am having the work with that. The larger gray rectangle represents the Hazel mine tipple itself. The smaller gray rectangle represents the incline that connects the tipple to the mine entrance, which is across the Chartiers creek. I rotated their diagram by 8 degrees so that the design will match how I plan to lay out the module. The map comes with a scale, so since my modules are 24" wide, I can do some simple math. First, the first module contains 17.5" of exposed track for the outfeed yard. Add to that the 24" of this second module, and I have a total of 41.5" of yard to model. 41.5" x 64 (S-scale) equals 2656" in the real world, or 221 feet. So, from the right edge of the Hazel mine tipple to the right, I need to go 221 feet, and that will be the outside edge of the second module. I used the graphics program I use to copy the scale that the map has and manipulated it such that it covers a total of ~221 feet. That is the long black bar near the top of the diagram. I then created another such bar, but this time for 24", the width of the second module, which is 128 feet in the real world. So, the second, shorter black bar at the top represents the width of the second module, and its relative placement to the first module, which is to its left in this diagram.
I could then mark out with the blue rectangle the approximate size and location of the second module. The five tracks of the yard just about fit on the module, but they do curve down toward (what will be) the front of the module. The Chartiers creek also curves in quite a bit to where it is near the center of the module. So, this gives me a rough, overall idea of what I am going to be shooting for for this module. As you can see, there are no structures on this module, and I will have to study photographic evidence to see to which extent the hill encroaches on this space in the back of the module. At some point shortly after the tipple the track nearest the top of the diagram, identified as track #5, merges with track #4. This is usually where Sanborn maps fall short, in that they didn't necessarily mark the exact locations of turnouts (as those are immaterial to an insurance company).
This photo, which looks from the loads-out portion of the yard back to the tipple, seems to confirm the curvature of the yard tracks, and also shows that the tracks come reasonably close to the creek. The creek actually looks like it was pretty full on that day.
This is the only diagram I have that shows that track #5 of the yard merges into track #4 at some point shortly after the tipple. I have no photographic evidence at all. But, this diagram also shows the loads-out yard going straight for a significant distance, which the above prototype photo clearly shows was not the case. So, again, how reliable is this diagram? I am leaning toward taking the easy way out and simply have the turnout be on a potential future module to the right of this second module, which I don't intend to build any time in the near future.
The Sanborn map does show track #5 merging with track #4, but it is after the curvature of the yard. This would indeed put it well beyond the area modeled in this second module.
Now that I have a good idea of what the track and overall terrain will look like on this module, I can focus my attention on the design of the module itself. I started off with the CAD drawing I have for the first module, hid the top surface layers, and added the means by which the modules will be connected to one another. There will be a set of 5 dowels on one side of the module and a corresponding set of holes on the other side. Which side of the module will have the dowels and which side will have the holes will be determined on a module-by-module basis. Since the first module has neither (as I had no need for that), I will have to retrofit it to match this second module. I will drill corresponding holes on both sides of the first module, and then install the dowels on the right-hand side of this module (they will be attached with epoxy). The dowels are the purple protrusions in the CAD drawing. The dowels and corresponding holes serve to keep the modules in alignment with each other. There are three silver-color items on each side as well. These represent rare-earth magnets that are there to hold two modules together. They show protruded in the CAD drawing, but they are actually going to be flush-mounted to the sides, so that the two modules sit flush against each other. Between these two methods, it is my hope that the modules stay together and the rails be in perfect alignment with each other. Again, because I run with battery-powered engines, I have no need for connecting wires between modules.