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Besides a mess, my bench is home to curing ore loads. As I look for projects, I’m avoiding weathering at the moment, I decided to make new ore loads for my MTH ore jennies. Since I am running steam and early diesel power, the look of crude ore suits my fancy. In 1972, crude ore was still being shipped and sorted at the Proctor, MN yard. Train shipments were made up of various grades and colors of ore.

My goal is to create the same affect with my fleet of ore cars. I am using sifted gravel/sand gathered form the shores of Lake Superior.   I cut base inserts from a 1” styrofoam, shaped it to fit my MTH jennies and added plaster to form a mound relief.

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Painted/sealed the forms with latex paint. I coated the top surface with carpenters glue and then added a topping of stone and sand. Once I was satisfied with the look, I used the typical ballasting glue mixture to set the surface. When the weather warms, I will airbrush the loads to highlight the various shades of ore.

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New and old:

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The many mining areas in northern Minnesota produced a variety of ore grades. Trains would deliver cars to the Proctor yard where each car load would be graded. I had a good friend who’s summer job, while in school, was to climb up on jennies and collect ore samples for analysis. Iron content usually ranged from 32-48% with a mix of other compounds and moisture.   In the early days, iron content ran as high as 68%.   The job of the switch yard would be to sort the cars and build a train that met the analytical requirement desired by the steel company buying the shipment.   A crew would then deliver this collection to the ore docks in Duluth or Two Harbors.    Here the cars would be positioned over the dock pockets, some on the outside track and some on the inside track so that when the loads are dropped and mixed in the pockets they would contain the same uniform analytical ore mixture.    Each pocket would be a mix of 5 cars and a typical shipment would require about 250 car loads.   This sorting and arranging of cars was accomplished without the use of modern technology.   A daunting organizational task that actually began way back at the mine.    

Today it’s a far easier process with the advent of taconite pellets which are produced near the mines.  To process taconite, the ore is ground into a fine powder, the magnetite is separated from the gangue by strong magnets, and the powdered iron concentrate is combined with a binder such as bentonite clay and limestone as a flux.

Taconite pellets have a uniform analytically consistency, can be stock piled, bulk loaded with conveyer belts and transported efficiently.

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Dock at Two Harbors:  Loading from the stockpile of taconite pellets.   This ore boat has a self-unloading system which has moved out of the way during the loading of the rear hatches.  

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Note the absence of ore jennies on the dock.  Taconite is loaded and unloaded using conveyer belts.

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Heading soon to Two Harbors to dog sit!  Have a good week!

Cheers, Dave

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Last edited by darlander
@darlander posted:

Besides being a mess, my bench is home to curing ore loads. As I look for projects, I’m avoiding weathering at the moment, I decided to make new ore loads for my MTH ore jennies. Since I am running steam and early diesel power, the look of crude ore suits my fancy. In 1972, crude ore was still being shipped and sorted at the Proctor, MN yard. Train shipments were made up of various grades and colors of ore.

My goal is to create the same affect with my fleet of ore cars. I am using sifted gravel/sand gathered form the shores of Lake Superior.   I cut base inserts from a 1” styrofoam, shaped it to fit my MTH jennies and added plaster to form a mound relief.

IMG_1528



Painted/sealed the forms with latex paint. I coated the top surface with carpenters glue and then added a topping of stone and sand. Once I was satisfied with the look, I used the typical ballasting glue mixture to set the surface. When the weather warms, I will airbrush the loads to highlight the various shades of ore.

IMG_1573

New and old.



The many mining areas in northern Minnesota produced a variety of ore grades. Trains would deliver cars to the Proctor yard where each car load would be graded. I had a good friend who’s summer job, while in school, was to climb up on jennies and collect ore samples for analysis. Iron content usually ranged from 32-48% with a mix of other compounds and moisture.   In the early days, iron content ran as high as 68%.   The job of the switch yard would be to sort the cars and build a train that met the analytical requirement desired by the steel company buying the shipment.   A crew would then deliver this collection to the ore docks in Duluth or Two Harbors.    Here the cars would be positioned over the dock pockets, some on the outside track and some on the inside track so that when the loads are dropped and mixed in the pockets they would contain the same uniform analytical ore mixture.    Each pocket would be a mix of 5 cars and a typical shipment would require about 250 car loads.   This sorting and arranging of cars was accomplished without the use of modern technology.   A daunting organizational task that actually began way back at the mine.    

Today it’s a far easier process with the advent of taconite pellets which are produced near the mines.  To process taconite, the ore is ground into a fine powder, the magnetite is separated from the gangue by strong magnets, and the powdered iron concentrate is combined with a binder such as bentonite clay and limestone as a flux.

Taconite pellets have a uniform analytically consistency, can be stock piled, bulk loaded with conveyer belts and transported efficiently.



Dock at Two Harbors:  Loading from the stockpile of taconite pellets.   This ore boat has a self-unloading system which has moved out of the way during the loading of the rear hatches.  



Note the absence of ore jennies on the dock.  Taconite is loaded and unloaded using conveyer belts.



Heading soon to Two Harbors to dog sit!  Have a good week!

Cheers, Dave

Outstanding work!

It was Super-Chuffer day at the shop, so I knocked out another one.  This was a straight Super-Chuffer & Chuff-Generator upgrade.  It did get the Rule-17 LED headlight and the automatic cab light control, those are standard features when I do these upgrades.  Needless to say, since the customer is going for the Super-Chuffer, it's assumed he likes smoke, so I also tune the smoke unit for maximum performance.  Not bad for a stock Lionel smoke unit, almost like MTH smoke.

It was Super-Chuffer day at the shop, so I knocked out another one.  This was a straight Super-Chuffer & Chuff-Generator upgrade.  It did get the Rule-17 LED headlight and the automatic cab light control, those are standard features when I do these upgrades.  Needless to say, since the customer is going for the Super-Chuffer, it's assumed he likes smoke, so I also tune the smoke unit for maximum performance.  Not bad for a stock Lionel smoke unit, almost like MTH smoke.

Nice wall decor beyond that stair railing.          j

Two 3rd PRR P54 coaches just left the bench after a few updates. Originally my plan was just installing figures, but these cars deserved a lighting upgrade too.

I used the JW&A 20100 Passenger Car LED kit and couldn’t be happier. It was a super quick install and the capacitor works great. Was able to make use of some of the old lighting boards to mount the new strip too. Talk about easy.

Now I just need to find a few 1 or 2 more of these cars!

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@Alex W posted:

Two 3rd PRR P54 coaches just left the bench after a few updates. Originally my plan was just installing figures, but these cars deserved a lighting upgrade too.

I used the JW&A 20100 Passenger Car LED kit and couldn’t be happier. It was a super quick install and the capacitor works great. Was able to make use of some of the old lighting boards to mount the new strip too. Talk about easy.

Now I just need to find a few 1 or 2 more of these cars!

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I like the green seats, that's a step up from the mono-tone interiors of most cars.

@Alex W posted:

I used the JW&A 20100 Passenger Car LED kit and couldn’t be happier. It was a super quick install and the capacitor works great. Was able to make use of some of the old lighting boards to mount the new strip too. Talk about easy.


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Alex , what would be the cost for the lighting kit for each passenger car ?     Are the lights brightness adjustable ?       From the looks of your photo the light seems to be pretty even.

Nice job on the passengers and seats .

Alex , what would be the cost for the lighting kit for each passenger car ?     Are the lights brightness adjustable ?       From the looks of your photo the light seems to be pretty even.

Nice job on the passengers and seats .

Each kit does two cars, here's the listing at Henning's Trains: Passenger Car LED Lighting Kit

The lights are flicker-free, adjustable intensity, and the power module is DCS protected so it won't affect MTH DCS signals.

Each kit does two cars, here's the listing at Henning's Trains: Passenger Car LED Lighting Kit

The lights are flicker-free, adjustable intensity, and the power module is DCS protected so it won't affect MTH DCS signals.

OK John. These are the same ones I've been installing ,it seems forever, designed by you.   I was buying the ones that were sold individually and required soldering.  They also worked well for cabooses that came with only incadescent bulbs.

Perfect lighting system for 3 rail operation.

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