https://youtu.be/b25H-5BeWvY very cool...
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These guys got lucky in the red rocks area of my old layout! 
They definitely had something to sing about!
Jim
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very cool Jim !!
Is it real or fools gold, from one of my favorite Al Bundy episodes...
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Does this count? Possibly just an entrance at this point?
I could model the cave inside behind the wall in the other room!
For now, I was going to use it as a den for a grizzly bear.
Donald
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About Gold ...
Today's gold miners (like Parker and his crew) shown on cable TV seem to have lots of CAT and VOLVO equipment, but no railroad spur to a main line in Alaska or the Yukon or wherever. Apparently steel rails and gold nuggets are mutually and geographically exclusive.
The Lionel gold mine set cited by another hobbyist in this thread includes a hopper car "loaded with (faux) gold." That load (if only it was real) would be worth a fortune! The gold bars displayed through the windows of the MINT CAR series is another manifestation of our fascination with gold via railroads. I wonder, were there actual RR cars in service and dedicated to hauling gold from mining or refinery sites to Fort Knox (or wherever)? Perhaps ordinary baggage cars were used -- and sometimes robbed -- as in old time western movies.
Mike Mottler LCCA 12394
An update from my pic I posted over 2 years ago.
Still no gold to see but I added a pack mule and miner at the mine entrance. The miner has his hands full trying to scare off the grizzly bear that decided to make the mine his home.
The 2nd pic is just a closeup of the first one.
Donald
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Model Builder (archive link provided by Choo Choo Charlie) has an article on building a gold mine in issue #1.
Jeff, it’s actually under my layout, right next to the underground middle base. I’ll try to get a pic for you.
It would be really cool to have empty ore cars going into the mine and ore cars full of layout gold coming out. HO ore cars would be perfectly sized for this.
Of course, I’m just the idea guy, and someone more mechanically skilled than me can go figure this out.
Alan
Interesting photos of the various layout mines. Lots of ideas with the photos.
I have a portal house made from an ho speeder shed, simulated ore bucket tramway and a lower tram house from a Lionel coaling station, (which btw, can be a great sim of the Ophir Colorado tramhouse on the Rio Grand Southern narrow gauge) on my layout.
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@JDFonz posted:Jeff, it’s actually under my layout, right next to the underground middle base. I’ll try to get a pic for you.
Cool. That's an interesting idea, of having it under the layout. I've got a corner that I hope to have some kind of mining operation one day. Having something below the table to show what's going on underground would really add some wow factor to it.
With ALL I have invested in my trains, my whole layout is already a "gold mine"! LOL!
@3rail posted:An update from my pic I posted over 2 years ago.
Still no gold to see but I added a pack mule and miner at the mine entrance. The miner has his hands full trying to scare off the grizzly bear that decided to make the mine his home.
The 2nd pic is just a closeup of the first one.
Donald
Great use of a small space. 
On a friend's layout, miners have wheelbarrows full of gold and right next to that, more miners have wheelbarrows full of diamonds! Gold and diamonds coexisting right next door. No wonder he is so rich. 
Palallin, Where did you get your mine carts? I have the Lionel mine kit and I am going to add track to it and put some carts on it but I can't find them.
Although the topic is in regards to gold mines, I thought I would share some photos of the underground copper mine I built beneath the shaft house on my layout. I modified some HO scale equipment to create an operating underground mine railroad.
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From the BTS website. Bill's Train Shop.
@Mike D posted:Palallin, Where did you get your mine carts? I have the Lionel mine kit and I am going to add track to it and put some carts on it but I can't find them.
Mike, I got them both off eBay. One was part of a somewhat non-politically correct set of miners--mostly pan but some obviously for bigger operations--and mules that I had to assemble and paint. The other was a kit that I got from a well-known seller, but I am afraid I can't think of the names of either of them right now. Sorry! Try searching O Scale under Model RRs for "miners" or "mines." That's what I did, but it was a few years ago.
Let see if I add a gold mine to the layout I will have to get some gold ore cars to transport the ore to a new gold refinery I built, then I can use my gold bullion car to transfer the gold bullion to the newly built gold mint or Fort Knox. For more action I could use some gold coin dumping cars to transfer the coins for distribution. This is where the plan falls down but I like it as I am always looking for jobs for my rail road.
Charlie
