A fellow forum member recently expressed interest in how this scene got built. I'll try not to over-process this post.
Hopefully anyone thinking about building or adding a coal tipple scene will get some ideas and insight.
I'll try to arrange the "in process photos" in chronological order with brief description if there's something worth pointing out. The whole module was built off the layout it's 2 ft. x 8 ft. and had to weight less than 40 pounds as I had to move it into place without help and I built a hidden trap door in it in case something went wrong up on the mountain.
So the first photo is the area with a two rail pine track frame that the module rails will slide on to insert it into place as the layout in front of it is done. 
The next photos are the mock up stages just determining the general layout of buildings, loading tracks roads etc. For the very first mock ups I set the lighter gray tipple building on a box and pieces of wood to get an approximate height....
Decided the power house needed to move the left of the tipples,
In the above photo, the power house left side, is a single stall Lionel engine house cut approx in half, the next building to the right was scratchbuilt warehouse that I bought used from a forum member, the next tipple on the right is the Lionel Coaling tower/tipple kit. The wooden bents supporting the buildings over the tracks were made out of 1/4 x 1/4 inch oak that I had cut on a table saw and built a small jig to assemble ( photo further down the page )
Once I was pleased with the layout of the buildings, and got a general size perspective on what I needed for a background hill... I started cutting 1/4 inch plywood for the backdrop. I wanted this to come within a foot of the ceiling and knew that with only 24 inches of depth the upper part of the background was going to have nothing but puff ball trees glued to it. Used up all the available real estate below. Rolling the grass matt up the steep incline helped me figure out if I had a prayer of this looking ok or was it way too steep.. Ended up deciding I could get away with it as the tipple buildings were the focus of the scene and blocking more than 2/3 of the slope anyway
Next came framing out the narrow shelf for the Mine Track (HO track which would have On30 dump cars)
I did the loft batting scenery method with expanding spray foam which I have at least one other long thread with videos if you're interested in seeing it in more detail.
Turning the corner, I am starting to build the hillside with the actual mine shaft and the left hand side of this section lifts out above the wood behind the gorilla glue bottle. This trap door on the left hand side will slide just behind another "shallow relief" mountain, so the slope is already pre-determined by the mountain in the foreground...
More spray foam batting paint and ....
Move onto kitbashing a plasticville coaling tower onto the back of the Lionel Coal Tipple and scratchbuild a timber support to get the mine track over to the coal dump
Pretty well done... Decided to scratchbuild a deck between the tipple buildings, added some O scale wooden steps that I purchased in Kit form on the bay they weren't too hard to assemble, added some warm white LED's, weathered everything up (it's a dirty coal mine).... Made sure the road was rough, installed the 2 company houses down the street....
Trees, lots of trees.
I must be right at my 100mB upload limit, hope it was a worthwhile read
