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Wilson Mills , W. Va.
Once the Hill has been beaten, the mainline passes through the coal mining town of Wilson Mills. The Davis Coal and Coke Company has an older operation here that can load fifty cars a day. The tipple is accessed by a short branch that includes a holding yard for loaded hoppers of black diamonds. The loading dock at the mine received regular carloads of mine props, bagged lime, and machinery.
Click on a place name in the above drawing to continue the photo tour or scroll to the bottom for links to the adjacent places.
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Eastbound Extra 763 approaches the Wilson Mills depot. Club member Michael Hohn used brick sheet, window castings, and styrene sheet and shapes to build this structure. He used measurements and photographs of the real Morgantown depot as inspiration. Here's a historic image of the Morgantown depot with the original roofline. Just below the depot is a line drawing to assist train crews in working the town. These drawings are most helpful during our operating sessions. And before you think there is something wrong with your monitor, that funny line in the blue background is a pencil outline of a distant hillside. Club member Rich Henderson will add some color in the next step on painting the backdrop. |
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| Club member Eric Hansmann added several company homes on the hill above the coal yard. These were built from HO scale City Classics company house kits. Inspiration for modeling this town comes from the real coal town of Thomas, W. Va. Here's an image from the early 1900s. And another image of Thomas from a different perspective. |
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| Loaded hopper cars of coal sit on the coal yard above and behind eastbound Extra 763 on the mainline. |
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| Club member Jim Kubanick built Davis Coal and Coke tipple #34 using several images of real coal mine facilities as inspiration. Jim included two hoists for this deep mine; one to bring up the coal and another smaller hoist to bring the miners to and from work. Many styrene shapes and sheets were used to build the complex. Walthers HO scale modular building walls were used for the brick structures. |
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Here's the coal complex in late March 2005. Several extra details, structures and groundcover were added to make the scene more complete. At one time, the real Davis Coal and Coke Company had an extensive operation at Thomas, W. Va. All is now gone, except for some photographs. |
| On a West Virginia map, Wilson Mills would be just north and west of Thomas. |
Next stop, Dobbin!
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All content and images copyright 2005-2011 by EWHansmann, unless otherwise indicated..