Looking for a prototype.

[magickmaker]

For the life of me I can not find the reference prototype for something I've started work on, so I thought I'd turn here to the forums.


Anyone know of a mining railroad that uses a kind of push pull service with its ore trains? I remember reading about one that may have been in Germany (not sure) where trains were semi-permanently coupled and the locomotive was kept on one end. The loco was wider on one portion of the cab because after dumping the cars the train then pushed the cars back to the mine to be reloaded.

Alternatively, would you consider a system where locomotives were kept on each end of the train (again, semi-permanently coupled) as prototypical operation? This is for a donation ware route I'm rebuilding for release. Started the route in 2006, and now finishing it.

 

[cascaderailroad]

This may help.

See here: http://forums.auran.com/trainz/showthread.php?96115-Kickback-Trestle&p=1077846#post1077846

 

[magickmaker]

Wasn't what I was looking for. Well not exactly. It's been many years, but what I do remember was that it was something of a unique operation. The tracks were double tracked, but I don't recall there being cross overs or anything much of the sort. Trains were operated with an electric locomotive on one end of the train, and four or five cars behind it. It may even have been automated for all I know, but it struck me as being a very interesting operational layout.

 

[Konni]

Hi,

More or less permanently coupled trains operated in a push-pull mode were common with lignite opencast mining in Germany. A couple of years I made some assets for 04/06 relating to East German lignite mining together with OpAmp and erosch. Among them were several versions of a regular gauge DC powered electric locomotive with its cab and cars for transporting spoil. Some of them were uploaded on the DLS, where you can find them under my username.


Cheers,


Konni

 

[magickmaker]

I picked those up again. The more I've been looking at them, the more I think that the photos I saw originally may have been them. Though there's some differences in shape of the locomotive from what I remember. For one the locomotives were wider than the cars, at least their cab was. They had a kind of bay window on the cab side. In any case I've been playing around with the lignite trains some. As it is, it's currently a toss up between those and the chinese switching locomotives by Ocemy.