Thank You

Thanks for sharing. 

Looking forward to marking up for your session..........

Excellent video, wets the appetite.

Regards,

Jerry

You've shown the era, great rocks, too.

I worked as a junior geologist at Erie Mining Company 1966-1969. You captured the era, even the colored barcode labels. (Erie was open pit.) Erie shut down around 2000.
Erie Mining had quite a loco collection, EMD F units, Alco road switchers, Baldwin switchers hauling pit trains. There was no ballast, in the usual sense, in the open pit, the broken ore was bulldozed in place and then ballasted with ore from the crushing plant, at best. If a derailment occured, you couldn't tell where the track had been.
Did you see the Minntac Alco's with the completely removed nose, just a flat deck left? I left MN in 1993, lots of changes over the years. 

The large rock cut you created is amazing. The joint pattern in bodies of rock is not random. The pattern you show is correct to nature, speaking from a geology standpoint. This is not often seen in  modelling due to space restrictions and other reasons. I usually don't worry or comment about rocks as most of us are railfans, not geology students.

Thanks again for your work, John MN/CO

@John MN/CO

Thank you for the kind words and information. Erie Mining was my biggest influence in building this layout. I moved my layout to the Vermilion Range so I could move ore instead of taconite. Ore needs to be switched, which is more fun.  I modeled the tunnel after EM’s Cramer tunnel. I looked at the geology of the area and tried to emulate the rocks, the drill marks, ( really hard rocks in that Ontario shield) and vegetation. Birch and pine trees. 

I hope I brought back fond memories. If you didn’t know, they are producing a book about Erie Mining and Hoyt Lakes. Order a copy soon, I did.

https://www.thehistorypeople.org/product-page/erie-mining-book-1?fbclid=IwAR0uqsi4niD0xuu7G2s4DCPD5mnzKHXhJayuApFmXgjFIDSSbhsmB3TWkRs

Thank you for sharing this video,

Scenery is amazing, love all the trees and foliage , any particular Method  to making the  trees??

I briefly lived up in northern Minnesota iron range back in 93",  would go down to Superior, WS and play at a rock club there, thought the Ore car unloading station was really cool . 

I would however like to have more info on that gadget you showed when uncoupling the loco's from the Ore cars.. 

Hand Brake /string with the nut .. for uncoupling . 

Nice

Your videos are awesome. It’s cool to see a model railroad of the mining and preparation process. 

great fun!

I really enjoyed the video and the beautiful modeling. Like others have said.......the rock formations were so cool!

Very Nice

Nice layout.  Love those Alcos!

Joe

Thank you all

@Robbn W - The trees ( Birch) are super trees painted appropriately for the white bark with black splotches. Noch leaves of varying color add to the finish. The pines are furnace filter squares cut to size and glued to a skewer, then  placed in a tapered dowel painted and dry brushed to make it look like the northern forest. 

The ‘gadget’ is a moveable Kadee delayed uncoupling magnet using a mechanism taught to me by Saginaw Terminal Docks. Check out his blog here on MRH. 

@Kory - Thank you for the kind words. 

@Rick S - I tried to do well on the rocks, and by the looks of it I lucked out. A lot of trips up north helped burn those scenery items in my mind. 

@Joe - Who doesn’t live Alcos? I’m looking forward to the day they make a DCC decoder produce scale smoke. But then again my fire alarms would be driving my wife crazy. 

Those Alcos look and sound

Fantastic!

Thomas,

You have reason to be very proud of your layout. It looks absolutely fantastic! 

I noticed one of the portals had a sliding door that could come down over the entrance to the tunnel. I presume that's a prototypical detail. What was the purpose of that? To keep snow drifts from collecting in the tunnel?

Loons and tunnel portals

Thank you Hans and Paul.

@Hans - I appreciate your kind words. I look at your layout and blog as a benchmark for north woods iron ore country. I always wanted to have loons on my layout, and I even had my friend Lawrence Eggering of Creaky Chair Models design a sound card I put under the lakes portion of my layout. It is hooked up to some small speakers and creates crickets, birds and an occasional loon whistle. He did a great job and when visitors come over and comment on the loons in my lake, I tell them they can actually hear them if they are quiet. They usually stop for a moment and sure enough the loon call fills the woods. It always gets a great reaction. 

http://www.creakychairmodels.com

@Paul - Thanks again. The tunnel portal is modeled after the Cramer tunnel on the Erie Mining Companies route from Hoyt Lakes to Taconite Harbor. They have a door on the portals to protect it in the winter, and even used it to store locomotives in the mid-1950's during the construction of the line and taconite plant. Here are the prototype photos. 

WOW!!! The track weathering

WOW!!! The track weathering is great. So are the locos,cars, and caboose. To me the sound level of the diesels weer just right.    Joe

Proud to count you as a

Track weathering, sound levels and friendships

@Joe - I'm glad you noticed the track weathering. Track is a model too...or so someone once told me. I like the way some people really make track, ballast and the weathering come together. I have tried to emulate what I see on the job everyday and learn the techniques that other MRH forum members show us here.

The sound levels on my diesels is waaaaay down there. I have been to many layouts where the sound of all the diesels running is worse than the neighbors kid learning the violin. Even when I have the levels set this low, when I shut the layout off, it makes quite a difference going from operations to nothing. I think we need a CV where we can alternate our sound levels for layout room and Show Layout/FreeMo loudness.

@Milt - Thank you for the kind words. Your layout is a great inspiration. I am so glad to be able to call you a friend and enjoy the time operating The Missabe Road in the steam era. The social aspects of this hobby are boundless and meeting your crew and learning more about the iron ore mines and railroads has been wonderful. Plus the amazing coffee and Carmel rolls. I even like the Flamingos!

Sound Level Control

@Thomas - I can’t remember if you’ve mentioned the brand of your sound decoders.  The ESU decoders have a volume control that can be mapped to a function key.  It goes from off to max in several steps. I use this for the few locomotives that I use at home and at shows.  

As delivered, it’s unmapped. So you have to map it yourself.  I don’t know about other brands. I find it useful.

GS

Function Key Mapping is a good thing.

@GS - I use Soundtraxx and mostly older ones. Those ESU decoders are wonderful as well as the new Tsunami's. Having a Function key top go between Home layout sound levels and FreeMo set up run session is a great idea.

Fade

Thomas,

When I'm running solo ops I like to have the loco sound up so I can hear where the train that circulates around the layout is, and whether it has run into trouble. It's a different story though when guys come over for ops.

Thankfully the ESU decoders make that easy. I program one of the function keys to fade the sound. So with the press of one button sound drops from 100% to 60% (or whatever I chose to set it). It's great!