I think your scenario is

I think your scenario is plausible. I have only found model photos of your situation: http://cs.trains.com/cfs-file.ashx/__key/telligent-evolution-components-attachments/13-755-00-00-01-96-48-39/mine-layout2.jpg

But mines went to great length to get the ore to mills.
Shannon incline in the Morency Mining district: https://www.miningfoundationsw.org/resources/Pictures/Publications/Volume%201/Page%20110%20%20from%20CANTY_1987_MCSW_HIST_MINING_AZ_1=small.jpg
/> Cars are lowered to the railroad.

Eureka Mill, Nevada: https://www.largescalecentral.com/FileSharing/user_2480/Misc%20Modeling/Eureka%20funicular,%20article%20by%20M%20H%20Ferrel,%20NGSLG%20Nov-Dec%202005,%20p66%20.JPG
/> On top is the V&T RR that transfers ore into the incline cars. These cars go down the incline and transfer the ore into cars of the 30' Eureka Mill Railroad.

So why not a trestle to an ore bin beside the railroad? There might be a second trestle to a dump site

Mines used even aerial tramways to transport the ore.
Regards, Volker

Thanks Volker

I came across the 1st photo you mentioned.

The two other prototypical photos would work as well for me. I don't care for the trestle and i would have an ore bin. I guess the mine cars are hauled to the edge of the bin and then emptied there. Can i have the headframe and "tunnel" (from which the mine cars exit and go to the bin) and the bin close-by?

In other words, can i use the railroad to get the ore from the gold/silver mine to the mill? If yes, would my scene options make sense? Could I use low-side gons or should i go for the shorty side dump cars?

A headframe is usually above

A headframe is usually above a mine shaft. A tunnel doesn't need a headframe.

Campbell's Silver Spur Mine is a nice example for shaft mining: https://www.walthers.com/media/catalog/product/cache/1/image/512x276/9df78eab33525d08d6e5fb8d27136e95/s/i/silver_spur_mine_200-388.gif
/> The trestle to the bin could be open.

The shaft must not be vertical. The Empire Mine in Grass Valley, Nevada County, CA has a shaft at about 45°: https://cdn.theunion.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2016/10/150Wyckoff-GVU-022214.jpg
/> Regards, Volker

Those are interesting examples.

I think you’re plan is a plausible scenario. I can’t wait to see what you create. 
 

I would research the Silverton, Colorado mining boom. The Silverton RR, Silverton Northern and I think there was a third RR built by the same speculator. These were 3’ gauge railroads that served mines and interchanged with the D&RG. 

Those are interesting examples

The third Silverton railroad was the Silverton, Gladstone and Northerly.

Thank you all!

Volker, i have in mind something similar to the Cambell's silver spur mine. Thanks for posting the link. So the headframe "brought up" ore from the mine, it was then put into mining carts/cars and then via an ore bin and chutes or via trestle/cars, it was dumped into the gons of the NG railroad if i get it right?

Shawn many thanks for the references. I have previously looked these up, very fine examples, albeit not in the locale i have in mind (drier old-west style). I am going for something freelance somewhere in Utah, Arizona, Nevada, California...

I guess the stamping mill HAS to be near a river or something right? I was hoping to have 1 spur on one side of the island for the mine and ore cars, and another spur on the other side where the small town will be, with the stamping mill.

Wayne thanks for bringing up the third RR in the area.

I think the scenario you

I think the scenario you describe in your first paragraph is plausible. The mill needs a constant water supply for steam power and ore processing. The ore is crushed and stamped in the stamp mill. At the end of this process water and mercury were added to form a slurry. In this slurry gold/ silver bonded to the mercury to form an amalgam. Sand and amalgam were separated and the almagam heated to evaporate the mercure.

If there was enough water available the mill would be on the mine site to save costs for transportation. One example is the Empire Mine in Grass Valley on the west side of the Sierra Nevada.

If there was no railroad ore transportation was by mule team.

Even in Virginia City, Nevada, in the Comstock Lode where water wasn't available in abundance a number of mills were on mine sites there and in Gold Hill. When the number of mines and mills grew there was a water shortage and the Virginia City and Gold Hill Water Company built a pipeline from Hobart Creek Reservoir on the east slope of the Sierra Nevada 20 miles to Virginia City. The first water arrived in August 1873.

From about 1860 mills were built at the Carson River which provided the best water supply in the Comstock area.

So both scenarios are possible: Mill onsite or mill in a distance on the banks of a river. You'll find the latter especially in arid areas. Transportation in your era was by mule team, railroad, or aerial tramway.
Regards, Volker

Another Mining Line

You might want to look for info on the "Gilpin Tramway". A two foot gauge mining railroad.

http://gilpintram.com/

Bernd

Not quite right

Hi Yannis,

Gold/silver/lead/zinc/copper ores are heavy (about 2 to 3 times heavier than coal) so the skips are usually smaller than the skips used in coal mining. For the period you are looking at, these skips were often man-propelled.

The boiler used to power the steam-powered winding engine could also be used to power a compressor and air-powered rock drills were beginning to be used underground.  

The ore body was usually shot and the broken ore was was loaded into small narrow-gauge skips and then transported on the flat back to where "the level" connected to the shaft. This skips were raised to the surface in the skip cage. Skips loaded with ore would be dumped into the ore bin.  

The shaft grew more levels as the mine chased the ore body deeper underground. 

But often there was more non-ore-bearing rock that had to be moved to dig the tunnel to get to the orebody from the shaft on each level. This rock would go into a different bin and would be dumped either near the mine head or into a "convenient" valley nearby. Because this rock was worthless, tunnels between the shaft and the orebody were kept to an absolute minimum cross-section to minimise the amount of useless mining that had to be done to reach the orebody. This is another reason why the skips were small and usually man-propelled (You have to dig a bigger hole and move a lot more more useless rock if you go to mule haulage or similar). 

As the distance between the shaft and the ore body increased and technology improved, small battery electric locomotives like the Mancha " Little Trammer" began to appear underground (if the mine could afford one). These and similar small units were designed to fit into the same small cage that was used to raise and lower the ore skips in the shaft. 

The stamp mill could be powered by water (if available) using a waterwheel, by steam (think portable steam engine driving a leather belt to the flywheel on the stamp mill) or later by electricity. 

For gold mining using amalgam (mercury-based extraction), a whiffle table and not much else is needed downstream of the stamps.  For a cyanide-based extraction plant that came later, these are the large stamp/extraction mills that kind of "flowed downhill" under a big roof.   

For inspiration and or discussion,

Volker, Bernd and John many thanks!

When you mention tramways, these are the non RR short very narrow-gauge lines in/out of the mine right?

I got the 18' low-side gondolas i suppose they will be useful for general supplies to the mine (tools, materials, wood), and i need to get the shorty-side-dump cars for the ore?

I added a water source in one side of the layout to justify the mill.

To display what i have in mind, here is a preliminary plan (On30 scale). Circa 1.5m x 0.9m (with a 30-40cm extension for the steamboat landing scene & mill).

Radii circa 15", using 2-6-0 and 0-4-2, with short rolling stock with the exception of a Bachmann coach.

Ore tipple

I recently stumbled across a reasonably priced kit for an Onxx-scale ore tipple with the mine track:

https://www.berkshirevalleymodels.com/apps/webstore/products/show/8168671

Hi Yannis,  That's a pretty

Hi Yannis, 

That's a pretty neat plan that ticks a lot of modelling boxes - well done. 

Your 18' twin plank gons could be used to move the mine ore to the stamp mill. That type of ore is HEAVY - if you are modelling ore loads, then load them heaped to 1-plank high at the most. You could use a team of shovelers inside the gons and a chain of barrow men to unload them at the stamp mill. Labour was cheap way back then. And it gives you an excuse for some extra bodies (model figures) in the town.  

For an example of what has been done with a water powered stamp mill may I commend "The Stamping Ground" by Glen Anthony in New Zealand.

The full story is on the Gnatterbox forum. Although the scale is Gn15, look at the concepts and go down a scale or two to a nominal On18 (1/48 scale using 9mm-gauged track) for your mine tram tracks.      

Yannis, A very interesting

Yannis,

A very interesting balanced layout plan. I like the scenes; one on each side.

Bruce, John and Dee thank you!

Bruce, thank you for the recommendation. Quick question, on this structure, does the ore loaded car empty the contents into the bin (side dump car) or off the trestle's edge? Or both? If both then the idea is that it can load cars in parallel tracks?

John I am glad that you liked the simple track plan (it is part of a much bigger layout which i will post soon). So sort of the TOMA approach/concept helped here as in my HO layout. I really liked the Gn15 layout you posted. So my plan is to do something similar but using On30 and have a freight or mixed train do this move. In place of the V-ore cars, i simply use the 18' low side gons right? And when they arrive at the stamp mill, workers shovel the ore off the gons? I guess then after the ore is crushed, it is bagged and into boxcars in order to move off the stamp mill for further processing (smelter?).

For the stamp mill, i will place it near water (either in the current position or above the spur in the triangle made by the track curve, track spur and layout's edge, but i will make it steam powered. The powered hammers can be indoors right? (although what i saw in the Gn15 layout you posted is very inviting to have them visible in the open (or to have the stamp mill building adjacent to the layout's edge and provide a cutaway view displaying the inside!)

Further question on the stamp mill:

1. Does it need to be adjacent to water or it can be relatively near?

2. Having seen many stamp mill buildings (scale ones...) on an incline with ore being loaded from the top of the structure, could one have a case where the building is flat (ie on flat ground) and the ore is being offloaded from a siding/loading dock next to it?

Dee I am glad that you like it! I will start on this right after Xmas since the On30 train will be occupied with the Xmas tree layout (well if possible before that).

Quote Yannis: 1. Does it need

1. The stamp mill can be off the river as long you get enough water for steam and processing. The water would be pumped from the river.

2. The stamp mill was a gravity fed process: https://www.911metallurgist.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Ore-Shoot.png
/> It should be built on a slope and that can be off the river. If the ore is delivered at the bottom level it needs some kind of hoist to move it to the top.
Regards, Volker

Thanks Volker,   Very useful

Thanks Volker,

Very useful info, but it complicates things for me, as my trackplan is on flat land. So I guess it does not make much sense to have the a siding to a stamp mill. I was hoping i could use a structure on flat ground.

If not I may need to rethink from scratch the two spurs.

You could move the stamp mill

You could move the stamp mill to the slope. 

Water could be pumped there. The stamp mill needs deliveries of fuel for steam and chemicals like mercury for processing. As result the mill provides amalgam or gold as end product depending if the heating for gold extraction is on-site or not. Both need transportation.

How do you get the ore to the mill then? If delivered at the bottom level you need some kind of hoist. Examples could be the headframe of the inclined shaft of Empie Mine in Grass Valley, CA: https://www.sierragoldparksfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Empire-Mine-2016-07-26_16.21.06_-_headframe.jpg

Alternative could be a bucket-chain conveyor: http://www.nzdl.org/gsdl/collect/hdl/index/assoc/HASHc096.dir/p085.png

I don't know if it is prototypically.

OTOH you could try to transport the ore from mine to mill without using the railroad. Tramways and aerial tramwayscome to mind. The sidings are used for deloveries.
Regards, Volker

I was about to post an identical trackplan!

To the one you proposed Volker! Many thanks for the examples provided for the hoist and the conveyor.

Trying to figure out "how to sell" the idea that the RR moves the ore from the mine to the mill, instead of using a tramway, given the high "compression" of the layout. Although a tramway in On18 with a critter going back and forth between the mine and the mill (and ditching the mine spur), is a possibility.

I was thinking to have the two sidings operating as follows:

1. Mine: ore out (gon) / supplies in (gon)

2. Mill: ore in (gon), supplies in (boxcar or gon), processed ore out (boxcar)

and have the #3 lake/riverside spur for supplies in/out via steamboat.

Lacking staging on the layout, the plan (apart from railfan running) i am hoping for, is simply shuffling cars between the tree spurs. (If I had the space i would like to be able to switch motive power but that is far fetched)

Hey Yannis!

I'm looking at your plan and thinking to myself...........self, Yannis has a cool idea there. Simple track plan, a real focus on scenery, compact (real important for us space challenged individuals) AND A STEAMBOAT!

Oh yeah......a chance to do something in a different scale.

Brilliant and very tempting.

This is going to be fun.

Thanks Rick!

Adding fuel to the motivation engine

I sort of figured out the track plan and scenic arrangements. I maximized the the extent possible the distance between mine and mill.

I think i got this sorted (mill & mine) and I would like to thank you very very much for all the info and help generously provided.

Locations #1 and #2 are potential trestle locations.

OT: I need to figure out if i have room for a loco shed spur or if i will be switching locomotives by hand. I really like to add a Mogul at some point. I would have loved to add a siding, maybe on the left side of the trackplan, like an outside curve or something.... but i do not want to overcrowd things. Maybe I could park the Mogul where the Merchant is but I ll lose the siding. Or i could add a symmetrical siding on the left side. 

Low height use

Hi Yannis,

Have a look at the next 2 videos that show a steam-operated 10 stamp mill with a single 5-stamp mill running. You might be surprised at how little vertical fall you need for an amalgam mill (not the larger cyanide mill process). I've seen this mill in action. Yes it's a tourist trap, but it's a pretty good rendition of "what was" 

This mainly shows the stamp battery - notice it is loaded by shovel from behind the drop hammers directly into the mortar box. The next video shows the amalgam table and downstream catching tables. At this site some of the small flakes caught on these tables are used to salt the tourist "hand panning" area.  

For your set up you could use either a water wheel or small steam engine to drive a set of small jaw crushers - to crush "lumps" from the mine down to "gravel" suitable for the stamp mill.  Two or three small powered jaw crushers could be set to different openings that would crush the lumps into gradually smaller sizes. These units may not be that big in terms of physical size.  

I've been having difficulty tracking down information some of the basic machinery that might be available in O scale. The best I have been able to find so far that gives you an indication of what stuff looks like is at  https://www.wildwestmodels.com/products/details-mining.html

A simplified product flow for early stamp mill: 

Ore from mine> delivery dock near stamp mill> barrow from gondola up a shallow ramp to a grizzly (set of bars that allow smaller sized stuff to fall through to a "smalls" barrow underneath > "smalls" direct to stamp mill or oversize to rock crushers - barrow back to grizzly until it falls through > shovel loading at stamp mill>   gold trapped on amalgam table, unproductive rock particles go out with water to drain. 

Please keep on developing your thoughts. You are off to a good start, 

The necessary height

The necessary height difference results from the gravity feed from ore bin at top through crushers to the stamps. the amalgation table was the least of it. 

I haven't found any drawing of an actual mill where the ore was shoveled between the stations. I only found photos like the following link: https://www.bodie.com/wp-content/uploads/MillProcessSection1.jpg
/> The above picture is from this site: https://www.bodie.com/learning/hard-rock-mining/
/> Regards, Volker

You could model the smelter instead of the stamp mill.

Then you could have loads in and out from the same siding/ building. It looks like the vertical drop is an integral part of the stamping process from that diagram from the Bodie mill. Gold is a heavier element so moving unprocessed ore uphill is probably unprofitable. Though I wonder if they ever  used an inclined plane for ore processing. 
 

Thoughts...

John and Volker many thanks for the videos and the cut-aways.

I wonder if indeed there were cases where ore was offloaded at ground level and then raised via any of the methods proposed to a higher level so that it passes from a grill, crusher, stamp etc... Shawn's comment about profitability makes me wonder. One idea if i need to have ore delivered from a higher height is to have the stamping mill where the riverside/lakeside merchant is, and have the water level significantly below the rail height. Say something like ground floor at 6' over water level and railhead at something like 15' to 20'. I hope I am making sense with this.

With respect to the smelter idea. I have not looked into it yet, but my plan is to gather ore from various mines along the line and then bring them together to the same stamp mill. The mine represented in the trackplan/current layout is simply the last mine on the line (2-3 mines in total). So maybe a smelter wont work in this context i think (correct me if I am wrong).

As for the trackplan... i know it is rather OT but i am also considering adding a passing siding (in order to add a 2nd train if i want to in the future) so your opinion in this is also greatly appreciated. Maybe though i need to create a new layout thread at some point in my blog.... (Have in mind that the left 180 degree curve will be removed in the future and the said module will be the right-end of a longer island type layout.)