Here is another lakefront

Here is another lakefront facility. This one is at Lorain, Ohio -- the city where I was born. I remember spending hour after hour watching hopper cars being unloaded into lake boats back when I was a kit. This coal unloader and out of sight Hewlette were at the north end of a B&O line that connected the coal fields of West Virginia with Lorain on Lake Erie. There was a roundhouse a short few south of here where the Huge B&O EM-1 articulated steam locomotives were serviced after bringing their coal trains north to Lorain. The B&O has similar facilities at Toledo, Lorain, and Fairport Harbor.

Lorain had one of the largest ship yards on the great lakes where lake boats were built all the way up to 1000-footers. Today the ship yard is condominiums. There was also America's largest seamless pipe mill (steel mill) located at Lorain.

I do enjoy the imagery and

I do enjoy the imagery and stories in Classic Trains magazine.  I haven't missed an edition since joining the hobby in Jan 2005.  So, I appreciate the value you place in such images.  I can stare at them for many long minutes.

Selector

That's just what I do with such photo Selector. I stare at them for hours looking for information that can make my modeling more accurate and believable. Studying such photos helps me to become "familiar" with what I am modeling. Although the scene is 1941 and a different location, one of the two RRs I model is the Pennsy and I have a good many Pennsy gons and hoppers that feed my power plant.

Thanks for your message,

Jim

pics

What's the purpose of that ski-ramp at the right? 

What's the slope of the incline up to the unloading platform! It looks like about 1:3!

eastwind

The "ski ramp" is used to reverse the unloaded hopper cars. When the coal cars are turned over and unloaded into the chute they are set back down and nudged toward the ski ramp. They roll through a spring loaded switch at the base of the ski ramp then coast up the ramp where gravity stops them before plunging off the end of the ramp. Then reverse direction and coast back down the ramp through the switch and onto a track parallel to this structure where they coast until crashing into a line of empties.

As for the slope of the ramp up to the structure I do not know what the slope is. Electric-powered "mules" push loaded cars up the ramp and position then for upending and unloading.

This is one fascinating operation to watch. Unfortunately I suspect that all such facilities are our of service and by now most likely demolished. I know that this one in Lorain has been gone since the 1970s.

Jim

One of the reasons that I

One of the reasons that I posted that photo of Ashtabula Harbor is the color variations of what was supposed to be one, definitive color applied to Pennsy hopper cars and gons. My point was that the colors are anything but one definitive color. Too often we modelers debate specific colors. I have long grinned at the arguments over color.

We need to ask ourselves that we are modeling. Is it fresh, new freight cars that were painted a few hours earlier? Is it freight cars that have been in service for weeks, months, or years? We each need to make up our minds what we are modeling before answering the question and start painting models.

I build and prepare models that represent what I would have seen on the railroad back in the time that I am modeling. This means that my Pennsy gons and hoppers need to look like what is shown in the photo, not what color some Pennsy expert says the cars were painted. The reason is that the effects of mother nature (we call it weathering) continuously repaints freight cars while they are in service. The problem modelers who model a time before there was color photography have to work with black and white photos. It is much more difficult to find color images or our modeling subjects!  LOL

This does not mean that most freight cars need to be weathered to the point that they look like the "end" is near -- as so many modelers do. Study photos like the one I posted and get a good "feel" for the color variations shown and model accordingly. Of course, this suggestion only applies to folks who are seeking realism with their modeling.

Jim Six

James thanks for sharing the

James thanks for sharing the photos. They have special value to me for a couple of reasons. The W&LE had a line going to a steel plant on the lake at Huron and it was a huge traffic source. The B&O that sent those coal trains to the lakes behind EM1s had many of them depart from the yards in Benwood, actually the other side of 48th street from Wheeling, one side of the street was Wheeling the other side of the street was Benwood.

The color is fantastic, and as you say knocks holes in what many of the color experts have to say. I have enjoyed those two photos greatly and if you find more you will never post too many.

Very Interesting Photos

While the industries themselves have little value to me beyond their very interesting appearance, the freight cars with their varied looks and weathering are quite useful.  The yard area in the foreground of the first photo with it's detail such as the building, tie piles and other tidbits can aid in modeling at most any location.

These are the kinds of photos that invite detailed study.  The longer you gaze at them, the more that is discovered.

I agree with you that each

I agree with you that each car should be weathered individually. My personal observation has been the same too. Each car has its own character telling its own story. When you start weathering a car you should decide the story first because you should have that variety to have your weathering be realistic. Making them all the same doesn’t convey the correct look. 

It is interesting that you have the PRR as an example because they had the largest car fleet and most class 1s fleet would look the same as cars were replaced and upgraded in batches.

The only way all your railroads hoppers are the same is if it is small enough and wealthy enough to replace all of them at the same time or so poor that every car is at the dilapidated end of the spectrum. 

Cool photos....

...thanks for posting!

I know that when I get my issue of the SP Historical Society's "Trainline" magazine, I spend more time looking at the photos than reading the accompanying articles. The "background story" is literally in the background of the photos: how the people are dressed, the types of cars, signage, structures, etc. Most are in B&W, but boy-oh-boy, those color photos from a time long since gone add a whole 'nother dimension....

The Lorain ski-ramp

Hi Eastwind, Jim and all,

Jim has described the purpose of the ski ramp.

There are some significant challenges in modelling a ski ramp because the laws of physics don't scale linearly and the difference in weight between our model empty and loaded wagons is a lot smaller than on the prototype. This means that spring loaded or gravity-biased turnouts have to be simulated rather than working as exactly on the prototype. 

A model ski-ramp (aka kickback) that demonstrates how it works 

Beware the WHOOSH in our models - How far you roll from the ski ramp is a lot less controllable in our models than on the prototype and the "bump-up" against already parked empty wagons can have "interesting side effects" not seen on the prototype. 

Like Jim, I'm modelling the 1920's. Unlike Jim, there are lot less photos known to exist of my prototype. People rarely pointed cameras at Aussie coal mines. 

Also like Jim I have the 'what colour do you paint it?" conundrum. Even in gungy coal skips there is variation.

Photo: Bob Brewer collection - used with permission. 

Or, perhaps some deliberate colour variation? Something like this on the last skip, with a "replaced" top plank in its side?

I'll bet many US coal hoppers or gondolas of the 1920's (or any other vintage) had similar patches where sideswipes or corrosion problems required a "fix" to keep the coal inside the wagon and not have it dropped along the tracks while in transit?

Jim, you show it brilliantly!

Mcmyler Coal Dumper

Here are some short videos to show how these coal dumpers operate:

Indeed, there are undoubtedly some roller coasting actions.

Their counterparts, the Hulett unloaders:

And this, Jim, is special for you, 1920's pictures when the steel belt was still the steel belt: http://www.clevelandmemory.org/speccoll/nssbk/captions.html

http://railsandtrails.com/Maps/NSS/index.htm

Although the N&SS has only 7 miles of main line, it was a class 1 carrier.

Enjoy.

Lutz

For anyone who models a

For anyone who models a period in the past, old photo's are indispensable.  I'm constantly on the look out for 1970's photo's, particularly D&RGW and western.

Jim... consider please, revising the thread title

sheet piling

Looking at old photos is indeed a pleasure. Aren't we lucky to have so much information at our fingertips to make the process even more instantly rewarding than it was 50 years ago? 

In Jim's photo of the unloader scene, my eye was caught by the rivet-less steel sheet piling that forms the dock face - I was surprised to see what I thought was a relatively modern innovation in a 1941 scene. Five minutes later my knowledge of that bit of engineering history was improved, it turns out there were versions in development as early as 1912. 

And it's only 6am! 

Jeff Allen

It is very impressive when

It is very impressive when one looks at real history accounts. Things like newspapers, books and trade publications from the late 1800s to the 1950s. It is very impressive what was accomplished by people with modest educations at the time. There were also folks with higher educations involved as well in different things. The massive development of industries like steel and steam power are rather something to see. One thing I found interesting in history was the fact that the reactor for the USN submarine Nautalis began its journey behind a steam locomotive.

Manufacturing, and innovation was huge during this early time period. Early on the horse was a major player in the game, later massive improvements in the transportation industry made the horse a pet for the wealthy or at least well to do.

Hulett Unloaders

I've seen photos of those machines before, but never a video.  That's an impressive sight to witness.  I don't think I'd like to be the operator though, right above the bucket!

My favorite video of an un-loader

Bernd

@Bernd. nice

Dust and noise

Fascinating video.  I was wondering the same thing Peter, and I also noticed nobody had any hearing protection - with all that activity going on in the enclosed steel cavern of the hold the noise must have been pretty deafening.

@ Peter

You're welcome. What got me in the video was how they cleaned up the last dredges of ore. First with a front end loader and then with brooms.

There is a video of a guy that has built a working model using Märklin Erector set.

After the Hulett's the ships used "self unloaders". I always wonder how that worked. Here's a video showing that.

Being fascinated with model animation, this would be quite a challenge to model in HO scale.

Bernd

I had not realized that there

I had not realized that there is so much interest in Hewlettes and McMylers. Y'all have posted some great videos -- both prototype and model. Keep it coming! I am loving it.

Jim Six

And sometimes things don't go right...

Hi Bernd, Jim, and all

Sometimes things don't go right, even with modern equipment. CSL's self-discharging "Iron Chieftain" had a conveyor fire while alongside at Port Kembla back in June while discharging a cargo of dolomite for the local steelworks. As at yesterday, the "Iron Chieftain" was still parked where she was when the fire took hold.

The fire was hot enough to trigger a fire in the cargo. Dolomite is a magnesium-rich form of limestone, and the reaction triggered by the fire was roughly equivalent to the inside of a lime kiln. 

A guess on my part is that the conveyor belts on board the "Iron Chieftain" may not have been of fire-retardant belting. There is a very real reason that rubber conveyor belts are banned underground in Australian coal mines. My father was one of the colliery engineers involved in getting a mine back on line after the only-permitted rubber-belted main conveyor delivering coal to the surface caught fire at Appin colliery in 1976. When installed in 1963, this belt was too big to be made of fire-retardant belting. 

Expectations at the time of the fire that The "Iron Chieftain" would be repaired are apparently not going to happen.

Anyone want some photos of a "slightly singed" bulk carrier for weathering purposes??