Modeling East Broad Top Mine Number 1

The Rockhill Iron and Coal Company opened its first deep mine on Broad Top Mountain in 1875 -- the same year that the East Broad Top Railroad reached Robertsdale at the southern end of the tracks.  Mine number 1 was a slope mine that proved to be one of the most productive of a number of deep mines on the Broad Top.  Over the next 75 plus years number 1 closed and reopened several times.  It was still active when the railroad ceased operations in 1956.

The mine was a short walk from the center of Robertsdale, where the EBT tracks crossed Main Street at what became known as "Company Square" -- so named because of the four railroad-owned structures that bracketed the crossing: the Company Store, the Robertsdale station and scale, the old Post Office, and the coal company office building.  The Company Store was demolished years ago, but the other three buildings are still standing. 

The mine openings are still visible, but the tunnels have collapsed.  However, tours of the area are offered by the Friends of the East Broad Top (FEBT) on weekends.  What is visible today is a pile of "boney" where the tipple once stood.  The above photo is a rare shot of engine 15 pulling a string of hopper cars past the tipple.  The wood structure with the chimney was the scale house.  The metal building next to it was a shelter for crews during inclement weather.  

Two sets of tracks served the tipple: Loaded mine cars carrying a long ton {2200 pounds} of coal were hauled up by a continuous cable that also lowered the empties back into the mine.  A long trestle for the loaded mine cars rose slightly higher than the floor of the trestle.  Cars were cut loose from the cable and drifted down the incline to the scale, where they were weighed prior to dumping their loads into waiting hopper cars below.  The empties then rolled back down a return track to the mine.

The deck of the tipple was constructed of 12 x 4 boards resting on heavy timbers.  I decided to make the decking from coffee stirrers cut to size and stained various shades of gray and brown.  To make construction easier, I cut out a sub-floor from 1/16" basswood sheet based on scale drawings by Lee Rainey published in Along the East Broad Top by Donald J.  Heimburger (Heimburger House Publishing, River Forest, IL, 1987), pp. 84-85.  I drew guidelines on the floor to make sure the boards were square.

Planks were dipped in various shades of stain for random lengths of time, then dried on a paper towel and cut to size.  The boards were glued to the sub-floor with Aileen's Tacky Glue.  After the floor planks were in place, I used the plans to lay out HOn3 code 40 rail for the tracks.  Rusty brown colored powders were applied to the tracks to give a sense of rust and dirt.  The rails were secured to the deck with Pliobond, an adhesive that is strong, quick drying and flexible. The walls of the scale house can be seen on the left end of the tipple floor.

The tipple rested on heavy timbers and cross beams.  I laid the floor upside down on the workbench, then carefully set the supports along the near side of the tipple.  Here is a photo of the structure on a bare section of the railroad that would later be covered with vegetation and trees.

Note that the loaded mine cars were hauled up to the tipple on a long trestle that rose to an apex slightly higher than the deck of the tipple, allowing the cars to coast down to the scale house, where they were weighed.  Workers would then push the car to one of the chutes, where the wheels would actuate a mechanism that tipped the car, dumping its contents either into waiting hopper cars or a truck for local deliveries.  

The return track (furthest from the camera) did not run on a trestle, but on a bed of boney, which still stands today.  The back of the tipple is supported by timbers largely hidden by a bank of boney.  To model this embankment, I cut a piece of 2 inch pink foam insulation, cut to resemble the fill.

The foam was then shaped with a surfoam tool, painted black and sprinkled with finely crushed boney I collected from the EBT yards in Rockhill. The pile of boney supports the back side of the tipple, and the tracks for the empties slopes down to where it will eventually disappear into the trees.

Since I was working with code 40 rail, not flextrack, I had to create a length of track for the empties.  I laid out a series of tinted wood ties on a sheet of glass using doubled sided sticky tape.  I then used Pliobond to glue the rails to the ties, using HOn3 track gauges to keep the rails 3 scale feet apart.

Before gluing the tracks in place, I needed to finish the scenery for the hillside above and behind the tipple.  The mountain was made with strips of plaster bandages with several additional layers of plaster added.  To give the smooth hillside some "tooth" I applied a layer of adhesive screen used by contractors to plaster over sheet rock.  For trees, I used some of my collected of lichen found in low-lying areas of Cape Cod, then cleaned, boiled in glycerin and water, sprayed with adhesive and sprinkled with green foam. If you look closely at the following photo, you can see one of the company houses in Robertsdale on the extreme right.  This is not scenic compression.  The town really is that close to mine number 1.

That left only the details.  I added a small corrugated shed for the crew, railings all around, and chutes made from Polystyrene sheet to protect the decking.  Here is a close-up shot of how it looks.

 The project is not yet finished.  I still have to construct the trestle that will run parallel to the boney roadbed, for the loaded cars to make their ascent to the tipple.  Before I can finalize the model, I also need to ballast the tracks and add other scenic materials.  But here is a photo designed to reflect the prototype shot at the beginning of the article.