Walthers HO Scale Ore Dock help

[Trucklover]

Hi Guys,

Who here has the Walthers Ore Dock kit? I need some help on answering a few questions about it and placement on a layout

First, i need to know how much of the total length of the ore dock is the approach that is included?

Second, should one build an incline of 10" to reach the top of the ore dock deck? Or sick the Ore Dock into the scenery a bit by lowering part of the benchwork for a harbor?

If anyone can help me with these questions i would greatly appreciate it. Pictures of your ore docks are welcome too and would really help me out

Thanks in advance

[Russ Bellinis]

Josh, I would lower the harbor. Typically the water at high tide will be at least 10 feet below the dock. I'm not sure what the practice on the Great Lakes are since the lakes are not subject to tides as far as I know. On the other hand, they would have to have the docks well above the lake level to protect against a storm surge. I also don't know how much the level of the lakes increase/decrease with the seasons.

[Bigsteel]

heres a pretty good shot of a VERY large HO ore dock that i believe is scratchbuilt.
http://www.greatlakesmodeling.com/museum...eelton.htm
heres one in N scale all the way at the bottom of the page
http://www.grvs.com/missabe/nscale/index.htm
this shows some good underneath shots and an aerial shot showing the massive operation of the GN and from what i can se in all these photos,the dock looks much lower than the walthers dock.
http://wikimapia.org/1805862/Allouez-ore-docks
i have some more pics on a CD at home of prototype ore docks for when i was going to build my steel mill layout that fell through.but ill try to upload them.i think it shows the ramp also.but id assume that theramp on the walthers model isnt full length,they ha one heck of a run up to the dock itself.--josh

[Trucklover]

Russ and Josh, thanks for the info

Josh, that first link, that is an incredible looking Ore Dock!! Bookmarked that page with those pics for sure

If you can find the disc with the pics, i would like to see them if you have time

Sorry to hear about your steel mill layout not happening. What happened? Are you planning another?


Here is the Ore Dock i started on the plan for the bottom level of the Steel Mill Layout i hope to do somewhere in the future, the ore dock is 11' 3" long lol and uses 4 Walthers kits




This is a rough, i do not know how long each kit is without the approaches. Only the right ore dock in the plan above is the full length kit, the other 3 are modeled without the approach. Ive heard that the approach on the Walthers ore dock is about half the kits length..... Once i find out exactly how long the approach is, i can do a more accurate drawling of it

[Bigsteel]

this guy did exactly what you want to do and kitbashed 4 docks together.i cant find an approach length but this should give an idea of the finished size of the dock itself http://algomacentral.railfan.net/models.htm--josh

[Trucklover]

this guy did exactly what you want to do and kitbashed 4 docks together.i cant find an approach length but this should give an idea of the finished size of the dock itself http://algomacentral.railfan.net/models.htm--josh

Josh, thanks for the link, its funny you should post that, another member on another forum i asked this question posted the same link to his ore dock lol

He has a sweet looking double sided ore dock, his is double sided where mine would be single sided.

I joined the yahoo group called "STEEL" and also asked the ore dock question i asked above. Shure enough, i got an e-mail a few mins ago and i got the measurements i needed. Seems that i will not be able to use 4 kits end to end lol. That would make it the Ore Dock nearly 13' long single sided double track lol

He told me that the approach was about 13" long. 13"-48-1/2" = 35-1/2" x 3 (3 kits) = 106-1/2"

106-1/2" is the Ore Dock with all 3 kits minus the approaches for each of them. Take 106-1/2" and add 48-1/2" to it (the length of a full ore dock kit W/approach) and it comes out to 155" = 12.91 feet of Ore Dock and have 72 Chutes

If i take one Ore Dock kit out of that (one of the inner kits that does not have the approach) it becomes 119-1/2" or 9.95 feet of Ore Dock and have 54 Chutes


Anyways, ive got some work to do to decide how long i want this dock lol.

Thanks again for your guys replies

[Bigsteel]

wow,sound's like you got you're work cut out for you for the next 6 months ,well can't wait to see one of your great build threads on your build,ill be watching --josh

[Trucklover]

wow,sound's like you got you're work cut out for you for the next 6 months ,well can't wait to see one of your great build threads on your build,ill be watching --josh

Thanks Josh. The first thing i want to build is the ore dock. I want to build it separately on piece of lumber so moving it will minimize damage to it when it gets moved around lol

When i get a new job, these are one of the things i hope to buy first, well have to see. Ill do a step-by-step thread on the build too