OVERVIEW
The interim between creation of a defining concept and development of a completed layout can span a great deal of time. Some modelers use the time to model areas of interest, whether related to a layout or not. Others become more collectors than modelers since there is no layout to provide guardrails around purchases. In some cases, a protracted time frame can give rise for the modeler to fully detail operations and build models aimed specifically toward the finished layout. Time between a concept design and a functioning layout does not have to be a barren gap in the process from one to another.
Using the idea of Layout Design Elements (LDE), operational overviews and model making can be ideal in the struggle to go from initial ideas and to final layout design and overall operation scheme. Emphasis focused on the “how and why” of operation and its relationship to the whole becomes a useful part in testing the design as a type of simulation so the finish layout will have a high degree of finish operation prior to construction. This is especially critical for the finished layout to be as good as it can get on the first build, reducing critical and costly mistakes when the principal designer, builder and operator are one in the same. Defining and developing a finished concept is paramount for a mature, concrete layout plan, particularly in prototype freelance modeling. A plausible world has to be created and prototyped. Focusing on each LDE that will comprise scenes and operational centers on the potential layout allows exploration and experimentation before the first benchwork boards are cut. Many times, operational issues are exposed as these specific parts are fleshed out. Revision becomes part of the process instead of an attempt to correct issues otherwise unidentified until the functional layout is up. Operations can be tested on paper, exposing hidden issues in track plans and operational quirks specific to each LDE and how they interact.
CONCEPT
The idea of LDE and simulation have proven a useful tool in designing Georgia Road Transportation—Alabama Interstate Division in HO Scale. With the concept focusing on Alabama coal operations with a freelance twist, one critical LDE is the design of Brookwood, AL. Brookwood is located approximately halfway between Birmingham, AL and Tuscaloosa, AL and is the interchange between the Georgia Road and the Warrior Met Coal (formerly Jim Walters Resources) mine-to- rail operation, known on the Georgia Road as the Six Mile Railroad operation. The Six Mile Railroad is completely owned by Warrior Met Coal, a prototype coal company operating in the Brookwood area. Where the prototype operation decided to use nearly 30 miles of combined overland conveyor systems to move raw coal from nearby deep shaft mines to its preparation plant and rail load out, the freelance Six Mile Railroad altered history by seeing a rail system built INSTEAD of the conveyors to move the coal. Where the prototype CSX moves coal from the preparation plant fed by mine linked conveyors, the Warrior Met Six Mile Railroad Operation moves the coal from mines to a large preparation plant. Georgia Road unit trains then take the place of the prototype CSX coal trains on what is a major connector mainline instead of the prototype branch.
The Six Mile Railroad is a dedicated railroad built by predecessor Jim Walter Resources (JWR). Which historically delved into railroading in the 1960s with its Mary Lee coal mining operations northwest of Birmingham, AL. JWR moved coal to subsidiary Sloss Industries on the Mary Lee Railroad to create coke to feed the Sloss Blast furnace in downtown Birmingham which in turn fed its United States Pipe and Foundry operations later renamed simply as US Pipe. Using its coal mining and railroading experience, JWR opened several new mines around Brookwood, AL in the early 1970s. These mines were linked by rail to a central preparation plant and finished coal load out. The cyclical nature of coal demand both domestic and export eventually took its toll on JWR sending it into bankruptcy in the mid 2000s. Warrior Met Coal rose from the ashes and operates the local mines and connecting railroad today.
The 21st Century operation of the Warrior Met Coal involves company owned shuttle trains used to load raw coal from three mine-mouth locations and move it by intraplant railroad to a recently expanded preparation complex. Coal is dumped, stored and eventually pulled into the preparation plant to be washed cleaned of non-coal debris and sized to customer requirements. From there it is staged in large silos and loaded on waiting Georgia Road unit coal trains. Finished coal is produced primarily for export as coking coal for foreign steelmakers. Some coal is also taken to barges for use as steam coal or for domestic coking. Occasional Six Mile trains load and exercise trackage rights over the Georgia Road into nearby Birmingham to supply coal to the ABC Coke plant in the Tarrant City area of Birmingham proper.
Six Mile is both modern and recent when compared to other coal operations in the US. The four principal mines were opened in the 1970s and the new Six Mile Mine was opened in the mid-2000s when the decision was made to build a railroad instead of the conveyor system that is in use on the prototype today. As with many coal, ore and steel operations of the time, 2000hp normally aspirated SD38, SD38M and SD38-2 units augmented with traction extending slugs were the primary choice for power. These units tended to strike a good balance between lugging ability and ease of maintenance for the intraplant railroad. A few odd ball units finished the roster, due to suitability for specific tasks required in addition to shuttle train movements. With the addition of the ABC Coke shuttles between the Six Mile operation and the Tarrant City facility, newer power was introduced to meet minimum PTC requirements on the Georgia Road portion of the trip.
While I did take modeler’s license to enhance operations, keeping the feel of the prototype coal operations was key. As a result, I have the makings for a modern coal railroad operation in a part of the country rarely seen. Although freelance, there is enough prototype history and form to maintain the feeling of what “could have been had a railroad system been built instead of the prototype conveyor system.
PROTOTYPE HISTORY
Most railfans and model railroaders rarely connect coal mining to the state of Alabama. Truth be known, the close proximity of dolomite limestone, iron and coal deposits around Birmingham, AL made the city a perfect location for steel making. The late 18th and most of the 19th century saw the growth of cast iron founding, steel making and heavy fabrication. Several steel mills cropped up around the city, fed by surrounding mining in the foothills of Appalachia located in North Alabama. By the mid 20th century, Birmingham was coined “the Pittsburg of the South” due to the sheer number and concentration of foundries, steel producing mills and heavy steel related manufacturing. As the 20th century closed, cheap foreign steel encroached on remaining iron related industry. Higher quality iron ore was shipped into the few mills still using it, and coal supplied Alabama steam plants more than steel making. The one bright spot was the Warrior coal fields of the Blue Creek Seam between Birmingham, AL and Tuscaloosa, AL. This bituminous coal had a high carbon content which made if perfect for metallurgical coking. High strength steel required the addition of pure carbon in its manufacture, and coke produced from the Blue Creek coal was perfect for such high-end steelmaking. Blue Creek metallurgical coal was sought after by Japanese steel makers in the 1980s, and later emerging markets in China and Eurasia in the 21st century. As a result, coal mining in the region survived past the idling of the last BOF furnace in Birmingham in the 2000s. Large scale coal mining, once as prolific around Birmingham as the furnaces they fed, was also a shadow of its glory days in the 1970s and 1980s. As of 2025, Alabama is home to three large mining companies, Drummond Coal Company, bankrupt former Jim Walter Resources Inc (JWR) property reconstituted under the name Warrior Met Coal and Peabody Coal. A few smaller independent operations also existed into the 2000s, also.
Drummond Coal Company was a major player from the 1950s into the 1990s, digging and strip mining the Blue Creek seam to feed Alabama steam plants and coal for coking and steelmaking in Birmingham, AL. Drummond started and remained a family-owned business headquartered in Birmingham, AL. Drummond Coal began in 1935 as an independent mine at Sipsey in Jasper. AL and later expanded to own several strip-mining locations including Arkadelphia, Bessie, Sipsey and other minor locations. Drummond entered the modern strip mine business in the 1970s with the opening of the Kellerman and Shannon Mine Strip Fields, purchased in the 1969. Drummond purchased three massive drag lines to work the Kellerman-Shannon fields to supply a 15-year contract to supply coal to Alabama Power Plant Miller off the BN at Palos, AL. In 1985, Drummond bought ABC Corporation which owned a large coking plant in Tarrant City in Greater Birmingham, AL. Coal was mined around Brookwood, and sent by rail to the Miller Steam plant, or to the export docks at Mobile, AL or to the coke ovens at ABC Coke. The coke supplied not only Birmingham area steelmaking but was also exported to Japan for Nippon Steel. During the 1990s. Along with its later Shannon mine stripping operation, it opened up a deep shaft mine at Shoad Creek north of Brookwood that was accessible only by river. It loaded coal barges to transit coal to power plants around Mobile, AL and later export. With increasing EPA emissions standards, Alabama coal was substituted for cleaner burning Wyoming Powder River Basin coal at Plant Miller, and Drummond lost its major domestic contract. Other steam plants closed or switched to low sulpur coal from out of state. Drummond transitioned the bulk of its coal mining operations to Colombia where it built a complete mine, rail line and export dock to export Colombian coal to consumers around the world. The Colombian operation could easily satisfy coal export contracts to Japan and Europe at a cheaper cost.
As EPA rules curtailed emissions from coal fired generation plants in the 2000s, most fossil fuel plants were forced to add expensive limestone scrubbers or in most cases, switch to cleaner out-of-state Wyoming Powder River coal. Many of the oldest plants were closed with capacity replaced by natural gas turbine plants as domestic fracking released new natural gas fields. Add to this the public accusations of bribery of certain Alabama politicians and the bad reputation of strip mining in general ended most Drummond domestic production by the early 2000s. Drummond moved all of its production to Columbia at what would become the of the largest coal strip mining operation in the world.
A surge in the worldwide metallurgical coal market prompted Drummond to attempt a resurrection of its Shannon strip mine during the coal boom of the early 2000s. During the coal boom in 2011, record high prices and demand prompted Drummond to build a new rail load out near Dudley, AL and load test coal trains for export in conjunction with CSXT via a subsidiary called Twin Pines Mining. Drummond also rebuilt its long-idled Drag Line “Mr. Tom” and moved it nearly 18 miles to the new Shannon #4 strip mine at Dudley. The boom was short lived, and “Mr. Tom” never moved from its staging location near the new loadout, which fell dormant also. In 2025, It still waits for a domestic resurgence and is a curiosity to railfans and onlookers who see it beside the partially opened strip mine and idle coal loading tipple. ABC Coke continues to be a going concern, coking coal produced at the former USX Concord mine inside northwest Birmingham, AL. Its only remaining deep shaft mine at Shoal Creek was maintained at a fraction of production until it was sold to Peabody Coal Company in the middle 2000s. As of 2025, Drummond Coal’s only significant domestic holdings are ABC Coke and the idled Shannon Mine Complex.
Jim Walter Resources Inc (JWR) came on the scene in the late 1960s when Florida builder Jim Walter Industries bought the United States Pipe and Foundry (USP&F). Owner Jim Walter built a home construction empire in Florida building homes for returning WW2 soldiers under the name of Jim Walter Homes. He purchased mills to produce the lumber, roofing (Celotex) and eventually house plumbing fixtures (US PIPE). He built a corporation around a novel business model where homes were built and sold complete or near complete to middle class families in the Deep South using an integrated supply chain and in-house financing. The USP&F (US Pipe) purchase introduced him to the blossoming coal business in Alabama. USP&F had its own mine and railroad supplying coal to its own coking operation and foundry. Called the Mary Lee Railroad, the line worked south and east from the large Mary Lee Mine in Northwest Birmingham to the Sloss coking plant near the sprawling USP&F complex. JWR also purchased Sloss Industries, which included the historic Sloss Ballast Furnace in downtown Birmingham and the Coking plant in Tarrant City next to US Pipe. Sloss iron and steel was used at the US Pipe operation.
Coal mining in Alabama proved to be more lucrative than the housing industry, which was slumping in the early 1980s. Sloss had ceased production at its Blast Furnace, and the Mary Lee was mined out. Lawsuits over asbestos in Celotex roofing and siding material forced it into bankruptcy during the same period. As a result, Jim Walter Corporation (the corporate holding company) sold most of his homebuilding supply business to invest heavily in coal in the 1970s. With the exception of the sales and financing side of Jim Walter Homes, the corporation founded on homebuilding divested much of its building supply chain including US Pipe. Jim Walter Industries developed a series of deep shaft mines around Brookwood, Alabama under the name Jim Walter Resources (JWR) in 1979. JWR inked deals with Alabama Power and Nippon Steel in Japan in the 1980s. This was a boom time, marred only by the JWR #7 mine methane explosion that became the worst mining disaster in US history.
The boom of the 1980s and 1990s gave way to a global recession in the early 2000s. EPA regulation of emissions, strip mining and increasing competition from global coal producers (such as Drummond in Columbia and new producers in Australia) gutted coal prices and weakened the coal industry in general. A short boom followed in the mid-2000s but anti-fossil fuel politics and increasing competition from abroad softened demand for metallurgical coal as the 2000s wore on. JWR changed its corporate name to Walter Energy as it exploited coal, natural gas and coke. Walter Energy extended its reach by purchasing additional mines and gas fields in North America, also betting natural gas and foreign demand for metallurgical coal would bolster the company long term. However, natural gas prices also bottomed as domestic anti-fossil fuel policies in the Obama and Biden administration were implemented. This proved a proverbial last nail in the coffin, as Walter Energy now carried highly leveraged debt from its gamble to expand coal and gas capacity through lease purchases. Walter Energy filed bankruptcy in 2016 as the price collapse result of oversupply in world metallurgical coal markets only deepened rather than recovering as was first predicted.
Warrior Met Coal formed out of the collapse two years later. Local managers of the defunct JWR coal operations purchased the local Brookwood coal mines and land leases. Three active mines and all supporting infrastructure was included along with the unfinished Blue Creek Coal Project that drained JWR cashflow when the coal market collapsed in 2014. While mining had almost stopped, the Trump administration encouraged clean coal, and the world market rebounded as additional emerging nations in the pacific added coal and coke demand as the world moved into the post Pandemic 2020s. Warrior Met Coal increased efficiencies through upgrades and capacity improvements. In 2025, the opening of the Six Mile mine presented a new operation for Warrior Met Coal along with the commissioning of a newer coal export pier at Mobile, AL by the Alabama State Docks. These investments in updated facilities and new efficiencies in operations guaranteed the smaller company the ability to find profit in the cyclical nature of the metallurgical and steam coal markets. Below is a link to the prototype and its history which forms the basis for the prototype freelance Six Mile Railroad and the Brookwood LDE:
Peabody Coal makes the top three list only as an after-thought. Peabody came on the Alabama coal mining scene by purchasing the former Drummond Coal #5 site, called the Shoal Creek Mine. Drummond sold the Shoal Creek operation along the same time it moved Mr. Tom with the intention of opening the Twin Pines Mine at its Shannon site. The coal market collapse that ended the Twin Pines imitative encouraged Drummond to cut its losses in the its failed domestic operations revival by selling the #5 deep shaft at Shoal Creek. Peabody stepped in to purchase the asset but idled the mine during the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic as coal demand tanked in the worldwide shutdown. Changing political tides saw Peabody restarted the mine, making it the second largest mining player in Alabama during the 2020s. This operation had no rail access, continuing to load coal on barges destined for South Alabama coal generators and export at Mobile. As a result, the Shoal Creek operation is only a footnote to the scope of this writing.
A local and independently run operation to the south of the Jim Walter mines was the Kodiak Mine near Helena, AL. This mine worked the Kodiak coal seam and consisted of a long spur off the NS Birmingham- Selma secondary main line at Gurnee Junction, AL (originally part of the L&N Birmingham mineral Belt). The branch was part of a loop toward the old GM&O Moline Branch off its Tuscaloosa to Montgomery mainline. built by the L&N Railroad as part of the Alabama Mineral Belt around Greater Birmingham, it was truncated and eventually the trackage from Gurnee Jct to the Kodiak mine was all that remained. The Moline branch was removed completely in the 1990s around the same time IC abandoned the Tuscaloosa- Montgomery main. The Gurnee Jct branch historically reached several smaller mines and at one time was a coal outlet for the GM&O via its Moline branch during and after WW2. As they closed, only the remaining few miles from Kodiak Mine to the present NS Selma District is in place. Kodiak mine ran in the 1990s and fell idle. It was sold and resold to various operators including Australian Atilla Resources who had plans to restart the operation in 2011. After clearing much of the mine site, little else was done leaving a former SP unit used as the tipple shifter rusting away on overgrown rails. The short-lived coal boom that upended Drummond and bankrupted JWR claimed yet another victim.
The Oak Grove Mine on the former Birmingham Southern RR north and west of Birmingham proper is another deep shaft mining operation formerly owned by US Steel through its acquisition of Tennessee, Coal and Iron Company (TCI) in the 1960s. This mine supplied coal that used to be coked for the Fairfield Works of US Steel prior to Fairfield’s closure through the Birmingham Southern Railroad (BS). With the BOF mill closure looming in the mid 2000s, Birmingham Southern RR was sold by US Steel subsidiary Transtar to WATCO. The mill closed two years later and WATCO operated the remnants of the BS operation as the Birmingham Terminal RR (BHTR). Coal still moves from the Oak Grove mine via conveyor to the original prep plant at the Concord Mine site which ended onsite mining in 1985. WATCO crews switch CSX unit coal trains into the linear coal yard at the Concord prep plant and deliver them to CSX who runs them south to Mobile for export. Watco still moves occasional coal to the former US Steel /Birmingham Southern Railroad barge load out at Birmingport to the north but movements are sporadic compared to the heyday when trains traveled the branch several times a day moving iron ore, coke and coal for the Fairfield mill.
The prototype railroads serving mines are CSX and NS. CSX operates over the former L&N branch to Brookwood, AL as part of its Birmingham Terminal Division. It moved the few test coal trains for Drummond at the Shannon Mine at Dudley, AL and all Warrior Met Coal coming from the original JWR mines. CSX constructed a coal marshalling yard just south of Bessemer in Greater Birmingham at Temerson, AL where loading crews working the mine loadouts around Brookwood swap for mainline crews moving the coal south toward Mobile. NS works the recently opened Warrior Met Coal Blue Creek Project operation from its Berry Branch to the north of Brookwood, AL.
FREELANCING THE PROTOTYPE
From my formative years in college in the 1980s and 1990s, I was fortunate to be exposed to many articles and books in railfan publications highlighting the likes of the Clinchfield, L&N Kentucky Coal lines and NW Pocahontas lines. I also read many articles on the coal around Grafton, VA on the Chessie roads. As a modeler, I discovered “The V&O Story” by W. Allen McClelland where he literally wrote the book on how to create a operations-oriented prototype freelance railroad set in the coal hollows of the Appalachians. For many years, I practiced concept design trying to emulate his principles, designing something akin to the Clinchfield.
During my college years in the 1980s-1990s, I got to explore my new home state of Alabama, primarily the lines in and around Birmingham, AL. I witnessed the SBD and later CSX operations at their peak on the Brookwood line that is the focus of my layout design. At the time I did not know the operation or history in any depth, but the fact coal operations were in my new home state a good distance for the typical Appalachia coal haulers in KY, TN, WV and VA fueled my freelance thoughts. During these years I created Georgia Road Transportation, a modern prototype freelance set in the Southeast in modern times. The idea of the Georgia Road reflected heavily from articles written about not only Allen McClelland’s V&0, but Tony Koester’s Alleghany Midland, Eric Brooman’s Utah Belt and Jim Heidiger’s Ohio Southern. I mixed all this with research into all the 1980s spin-off railroads featured in railfan magazines and my own research and observations of CSX and NS operations as they worked around me.
In my adult years, looking at modeling what I knew around my Deep South home. This was mostly mainline railroads moving manifests and coal to and from places far away that I only read about or seeking out shortline branches that made a living moving paper and timber products as best they could. I had a penchant for shortline and regional spin-offs of the 80s-90s also. The troubling point became how to draw from all this information and create an actual layout? I wanted a little of everything I saw, researched and read about.
As I pieced together a “third Deep South” welter weight Class One called the Georgia Road (GARD reporting marks) using secondaries and long abandoned lines, I settled back on the Brookwood coal operations in Alabama. While an end of the line branch, it connected to Midsouth, then KCS and finally a WATCO shortline called the Alabama Southern Railroad. Georgia Road was weaved out of a lot of old ICG GM&O tracks into MS, and Brookwood looked like it could be a mainline connection for Georgia Road from the South to the Midwest with a little manipulation of history to compete with the likes of CSXT and NS. Using the “local color” of what I observed close to home, I could easily integrate the pulp and paper traffic, manifest, long distance steam coal trains and even personal experiences with the foreign automotive OEM assembly plants settling in the South and creating a manufacturing Rennaissance in the 2000s. The area between Birmingham and Tuscaloosa offered a little of all of this. I could embellish the lines some without it feeling completely outlandish, but at the same time capture every point on my wish list for the Georgia Road layout. Modeling aspects of what I observed on a daily basis near home could easily be used as the basis of the train operations. While different, these operations had the same general traffic patterns and commodities.
I now had my locale around Brookwood, decided to keep the time period modern (though the loss of diversity in all aspects of the industry since PSR implementation in the 2020s has stagnated my “constantly modern” concept). I had coal operations, and due to the resurrection of some old connections I could also incorporate my love for short lines with the advent of a regional concept. Add to this the prototype Mercedes OEM Assembly plant near Brookwood and some “imported” industry from the region created a good mix. Looking at the first picture attached of an older Georgia Road System Map, it was obvious that the Brookwood line was the backbone connection between the former CofGA, SAL and FEC lines in GA, SC and FL to the IC lines and connections in the Midwest. This fact gave me the ability to create a heavy mainline with sections of double track. The Brookwood line was curvy and had a significant grade around what is now the Drummond Coal -Shannon Mine according to an inside source around the prototype CSXT Brookwood Branch of the Birmingham Terminal Subdivision. A little freelance tweak there created a helper section that L&N used back in the early and mid-1900s when rail was the only means of reasonable transportation. I had My regional railroad connection through the Genesee & Wyoming shortline empire inspiration the Florida & Gulf Coast and its recently merged subsidiary, the Alabama Midland RR. My concept was actually gelling into something that touched all my experience as a railfan and modeler. The work now focused on drilling down operations, rosters and actual track plan ideas. I decided to focus on each facet of operation, designing track site maps, assigning industries based on prototypes I documented in my travels, and building locomotive and railcar fleets to address the needs of a living and breathing railroad similar to the V&O, UB and many others I followed over the years in railfan publications and recently via the Internet.
Coal was king on my list, but instead of a few random loadouts, I dug deeper into the modern version of the CSXT Brookwood line. the US Steel Cumberland Mine Railroad mine to barge operations came to mind, and I later discovered the US Steel Subsidiary Transtar had a similar operation on the Birmingham Southern RR based in Ensley (greater Birmingham, AL) along with its primary task of supplying and serving the US&S Fairfield Works BOF, Rolling mill and continuous Pipe mill. It moved coal from Concord Mine to the West of the steel mill to Birmingport where the coal was moved by barge for export. I also learned about the Teepee Coal SECX trains and the Shamrock Coal O&W trains running on the L&N between Kentucky and Duke Power steam plants. Detroit Edison Power had similar trains into the late 1980s. I like the idea of a working coal company owned railroad.
A book published by Ron Mele called “Birmingham Rails” gave me a background history of the steel and coal industry around Brimingham, AL. I found out about the United State Pipe & Foundry (USP&F) Mary Lee Railroad, moving coal from a series of Mines to coking plants and consumers that eventually came under Jim Walter Resources ownership when they bought USP&F. Jim Walter was a staple in the South as I grew up through the 1970s and became an adult in the 1990s and 2000s. I did not know it as a mining business, but through Jim Walter Homes, the builder. Signs and model home centers were all over the south in the 1980s with the signature Jim Walter Industries logo. With an acre of land, anyone could have a modest 3-bedroom, two bath home built to about 90 percent complete. The owner had to do the inside painting and floor covering and add appliances. This made an affordable way to build a starter home for many middle-class couples starting out in life. Here is a TV ad from the 2002. notice the logos at the end.
Much to my surprise, this was the same Jim Walter but in the Brookwood area, the name and logos substituted “Homes” with “Resources”. Apparently, Jim Walter decided to invest profits in its original home building and supply business into mineral rights and later coal and natural gas around Brookwood. In the 1980s and 1990s, each mine worked independently, loading trains full of steam coal for various Alabama Power steam generating plants as well as exporting the rather high carbon bituminous coal for growing steel production in Japan. These mines were consolidated and modernized and connected not by rail but overland conveyor lines. Changing that one detail from conveyor to rail (the cost of either was comparable in the late 1990s-2000s) would give me grounds for a fully integrated and independent coal mining railroad, which I would eventually dub as the Jim Walter Resources –Six Mile Railroad Operations. This concept was designed as a rail conveyor instead of an overland belt system that JWR chose in reality.
Most of the rail needed was already in place when JWR opted to use overland belt conveyors to connect its deep shaft mines to a new preparation plant. A small alteration in history made this a rail operation. The only need was to connect the mines with a “mainline” running track paralleling the mainline and construction of the new prep plant at the #5 mine instead of the #7 mine where it is today. The #5 mine would have its balloon loadout upgraded and a bottom dump house added so raw coal from the outlying mines could be brought in for sizing, cleaning, washing and finish loading on Georgia Road trains outbound for export at the port of Mobile or local coking in Birmingham, AL. Trains would also deliver steam coal to at least two Alabama Power steam generator plants, which JWR actually served using a barge loader on the Black Warrior River a few dozen miles north of Brookwood.
What about motive power? Again, I looked at prototype operations such as the DMIR, Northshore, BS, EJ&E, Cumberland Mine and even Mine to Generator operations such as the Squaw Creek and TVA Widows Creek operations in TN. The SD38 series locomotive seemed to be a reoccurring favorite for many of these operations. The 2000hp normally aspirated locomotives were equally adept at heavy switching and short runs at speed with heavy, homogenous loads. They lacked the extra complication of a turbocharger and could negotiate less than perfect track with a good balance of spread weight and tractive effort. Like most mining and heavy industry, the idea was to standardize to make repairs easy and economically in the modern cost-conscious late 20th century. As a result, the Six Mile Operation pulled SD38, SD38-2 and even converted turbocharged SD38M units for its trains. I noticed the use of slugs was common, so the railroad also got a gaggle of secondhand ex NW trainmaster and EMD SD slugs. To add a hint of something different, a single SD9M from the BN became the shop and yard switcher along with a Trackmobile for quick work when needed.
Rolling stock was easy. Jim Walter Mines in the area supplied steam coal to Alabama Power steam plants thorough the1960s, 1970s and early 1980s. EPA rules forced a shift to cleaner burning Wyoming coal until plants could either upgrade with limestone scrubbers or be phased out in the 2000s for cheaper natural gas turbine generating plants. A fleet of Ortner built 5-bay Rapid Discharge steel cars with JWRX reporting marks did the honors in the 1960s through the early 1990s. These looked like long versions of the Ortner 100T aggregate cars. The Blue Creek coal was considered sticky and required steeper end slopes in the coal cars to help them unload. Ortner kept the design as close to standard production cars as possible. The JWRX rapid discharge cars had the “porch” on each end, similar to the short 3 bay aggregate cars which shared a similar end slop angle. I documented several in the 1980s around Birmingham. These were mixed with standard Ortner cars in the later 1980s until they were phased out for Aluminum cars such as the Trinity RD-4. The JWRX reporting marks disappeared with the cars for good in the 2000s, used in aggregate and general service on at least one Carolina shortline in their final days of service.
As for modeling these cars, I have built several using either the old Roundhouse kits or even newer Ready-to-Roll Athearn versions with all the upgraded detail. I used some old upgrade kits to improve the original roundhouse cars, though the difference in a train is negligible to me as I adopted Mr. McClelland’s “layout quality modeling” and “good enough” philosophy. The Six Mile Railroad even in truncated model form will need a great many cars. Also, kitbashing the JWRX version is much more tedious using Athearn RTR upgraded cars. Check out the pictures for examples.
Operations on the Six Mile Railroad are divided into intra mine operations and Georgia Road finish unit train moves. On the prototype, as export coking prices rebounded, modest expansion has occurred. CSXT built Walter Yard around the prototype station of Adjer, AL near the beginning of the branch. This is a five-track yard with widely spaced sidings to inspect as many as four trainsets or hold three trainsets at the time. The fourth and fifth track are spurs, used to hold and service protection power and DPU units and store spare cars. The ends of the spurs are also used for running repair of coal cars, mostly changing wheelsets and correcting small defects. The inbound empty trains get repairs or car and locomotive consist changeouts. This is also where road train crews end and loading train crews meet. Loading is done by a turn crew, moving empty trains from Walter Yard to one of two loading tipples at #4, #7 or Shannon mines who bring the now loaded trains back to Walther Yard. From there a road crew again takes over to move loaded trains to their unload destinations. A new yard office and crew facilities were built also, and tanker trucks have a field office there where locomotives are fueled off the trucks. There is no other locomotive or railcar service as anything requiring extensive repair or FRA service or inspection goes to the main Boyles Yard location in Northern Birmingham, AL Boyles is the location of the full diesel maintenance and car repair shops. These coal trains cycle outside the Boyles Yard area, so rudimentary running service and repair is required to keep the trainsets working efficiently. Currently, with three mines running, CSXT cycles ten to twelve trainsets, most of which go to the Port of Mobile for export to China, Japan and recently India.
In the case of the Georgia Road concept version, this yard would actually be located just north of the primary finish coal tipple at the #5 mine site. The Georgia Road Blue Creek Coal Operations Yard works much like the prototype CSX Walther Yard with a few differences. Brookwood sports part of the original main through town where Georgia Road local L26 has to regularly cross over the Six Mile Running Track to reach several industries. Along with a Sabel Steel which operates a scrap reclamation yard and a structural beam fabrication mill, the old main serves a Berry Plastics extrusion plant, LNG regional distributor, lumber distribution yard and a GM parts warehouse. On the east end past the access crossovers, Hank’s Truck and Electric (HTEX) runs the coal car repair yard. This operation is capable of heavy repairs, though running repairs and spare coal car storage is its primary function. A very worn and equally tattered SW moves cars around. Georgia Road has its agency/ yard /crew facility south of the HTEX car repair shop across the unit coal train holding and inspection yard. A highway tanker truck dispatch office similar to the real one at the CSX Walther Yard is also located there. The Georgia Road main is set to itself, allowing Georgia Road coal trains to crossover onto the Six Mile Railroad, traverse through the Six Mile Walter Yard and travel the #5 balloon loading track. All of this can be done without fouling the busy mainline. After loading, these trains make a reverse move through the Six Mile Walther Yard and back into the Georgia Road Blue Creek Coal Operations Yard where a road crew will move them toward Mobile or the end user.
Six Mile Operations consist of a series of shuttle trains moving raw coal from the Six Mile Complex, #4 or #7 mines to the Preparation Plant at #5 mile. These trains are designated by their mine origination point and move coal from breakers to the bottom discharge dump house at the Preparation Plant complex. A total of three trains may be looping over a 24-hour period. If a finish coal train is loading, the Six Mile Waiter Yard is used to hold these trains as the loop trains then swap loads for empties and keep operations fluid. Later a yard job will dump these loads when the loop trains resume. Along with loop trains, the yard job assembles a regular train that supplies coal to ABC Coke in Birmingham using Six Mile equipment. These are called ABC Coke turns.
Georgia Road brings in 120-car DPU equipped trains for loading. These trains are brought to the Georgia Road Coal Operations Yard at Brookwood (known by local crews as Blue Creek Yard for short) where they are inspected and serviced as needed. Bad Order empty cars are switched out with spares and sent to the HTEX shop. Locomotives are swapped and fueled as needed. Six Mile Railroad Crews do the actual loading of the train and return them to the Georgia Road yard where road crews take them toward Birmingham and finally the Port of Mobile. Georgia Road adjusts the number of trains in the pool by storing full trains of cars on the dormant #3 mine loop that connects at the helper station at Herrin, AL. Georgia Road also works the Shannon #3 Mine with empty trains running to the Georgia Road Coal Operations Yard for inspection and servicing. Once ready, the empty train has its power reversed and the empty train moves east to the Shannon loadout. The empties are spotted for loads, and the loaded cars are assembled into a road train which takes the cars east to Birmingham for routing to end customers. Drummond uses its own locomotive to pull the coal cars under the tipple. If Georgia Road has no loaded train to pull, power deadheads to either Herrin or back to the Blue Creek Yard.
Georgia Road Transportation 