Large Scale Central

Hecla Mine, Burke Idaho

Modeling
#1

Okay I am most likely jumping the gun. But I am daydreaming and just wanted to share my thoughts for the sake of conversation. In other threads I mention that I have changed the theme of my railroad. Same era, same general principle, but narrowing the scope to one town instead of an entire RR. The town is Burke Idaho and is a blend of 1890-1910 ish. In doing so I want to add some of the key elements of the town in that day. One of the most prominent features of that time period was the Hecla Mine. well I was trying to figure out how to add the mine to the bench and make it work. Now I am not asking for a replica. just a representation. But the tracks were inconveniently laid. Or so I thought. I had always intended to do flats on the wall against the bench. All of this is actually gonna work I think. Here is the bench area i am wanting to play with.

The lower section from the wye to the bottom of the picture is where I want the mine to go. But the tracks are right close to the house. What to do. The spur track that isn’t connected can go away. I thought I could always run the train through the building, but how goofy is that. Ha not goofy at all. That is exactly what they did. All be it a spur and not the mainline but lets not be so picky.

the real mine and a Sandborn map showing them putting the track through the building.

So knowing they did such a thing i can make the main mine building on the right side of the track and the shops on the right side of the track flats. I can then extend the main mine building over the tracks and build the rest of the mine on the left side of the bench. and the best part is that not seen in my layout picture it that there is a set of double tracks just below the bench to the left of the picture which means I can even drop the ore bins off the side of the bench down to the tracks below just as they did the real thing. So what I once thought was going to be a difficult build is actually going to be pretty realistic to get the main jist of the Hecla.

Shouldn’t take more than 30 or 40 years to build it. Need to draw up some windows, doors, and details in CAD and start printing

2022: The Year in Review
2023: The Year in Review
#2

Here is a construction picture that shows the lower section of track below the bench where I would place the ore bin.

man looking at these construction pictures makes me really appreciate how far I have come.

#3

Well Cliffy set the gold standard for mine buildings, so you’re pretty much screwed from the start. (http://largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-tongue-out.gif)

I think it would be cool to see it run thru the building and that’s quite the impressive complex. Looking forward to what you come up with.

#4

Devon Sinsley said:

Okay I am most likely jumping the gun. But I am daydreaming and just wanted to share my thoughts for the sake of conversation. In other threads I mention that I have changed the theme of my railroad. Same era, same general principle, but narrowing the scope to one town instead of an entire RR. The town is Burke Idaho and is a blend of 1890-1910 ish. In doing so I want to add some of the key elements of the town in that day. One of the most prominent features of that time period was the Hecla Mine. well I was trying to figure out how to add the mine to the bench and make it work. Now I am not asking for a replica. just a representation. But the tracks were inconveniently laid. Or so I thought. I had always intended to do flats on the wall against the bench. All of this is actually gonna work I think. Here is the bench area i am wanting to play with.

The lower section from the wye to the bottom of the picture is where I want the mine to go. But the tracks are right close to the house. What to do. The spur track that isn’t connected can go away. I thought I could always run the train through the building, but how goofy is that. Ha not goofy at all. That is exactly what they did. All be it a spur and not the mainline but lets not be so picky.

the real mine and a Sandborn map showing them putting the track through the building.

So knowing they did such a thing i can make the main mine building on the right side of the track and the shops on the right side of the track flats. I can then extend the main mine building over the tracks and build the rest of the mine on the left side of the bench. and the best part is that not seen in my layout picture it that there is a set of double tracks just below the bench to the left of the picture which means I can even drop the ore bins off the side of the bench down to the tracks below just as they did the real thing. So what I once thought was going to be a difficult build is actually going to be pretty realistic to get the main jist of the Hecla.

Shouldn’t take more than 30 or 40 years to build it. Need to draw up some windows, doors, and details in CAD and start printing

Devon didn’t you mean 30-40 years of Devoning to get to the build?

#5

David Marconi,FOGCH said:

Devon didn’t you mean 30-40 years of Devoning to get to the build?

Yeah that’s probably closer to accurate. I did get a good chuckle but only because its rather close to the truth. I have given up setting deadlines. I have so many unfinished projects. I hope this isn’t yet another. But with the way things seem to go I aint making no promises. Hence the day dream reference in the beginning.

Chris,

in no way shape of form am I even gonna come close to replicating that facility. It was an impressive set up. Then they updated it in the 20’s and it became very impressive. It still sits there today very much abandon and in ruins.

Same place 1925

1929 other side looking back.

Today

#6

Craig got to you with his nut and bolt recreation of a small part of a town as the whole layout!!!

looks like an ambitious plan and like it may take some time to complete. Get a couple of sheets of foamboard and start to build the stuff so you can see where things fit and what doesnt look right

#7

Pete Lassen asked me privately and i thought I would share a little of the history. The whole area that follows the I-90 corridor from Cataldo, Idaho east to Mullen, Idaho and its adjacent canyons are collectively called the Silver Valley. The prospectors having found gold up the North fork of the Coeur d’Alene river came to the South Fork looking for more. What they found was not gold but galena. galena is a lead and silver bearing ore and they found alot of it. At one time it was the largest deposit of silver in the world and may very well still hold that title. While it was famous for silver, they mined far more lead out of it. Mines were located just about everywhere you looked. These were deep hard rock mines.

What I am calling the Hecla mine is actually two different claims. The Hecla and the Star. I can’t say for certain but I believe early on the Star’s hoist was abandon and they used the Hecla’s hoist as they went deeper and tunneled laterally between the two shafts. Don’t hold me to that one. I also believe that at one point the Star was the deepest mine in the world at over 5000’ deep. The Lucky Friday is now the deepest at 9,587 feet below the surface. I found out recently that the Lucky Friday and the Star are connected underground by a tunnel. What is amazing about that is that they are not even located near one another. The lucky Friday is in Mullen Idaho several miles away as the crow flies.

At any rate these two mines that collectively became the Hecla complex in Burke produced a lot of galena ore, tons and tons of silver, lead, cadmium, and zinc.

#8

Glad to influence you Devon!

#9

So I am dredging up this older thread. I think once the MIK is over I want to start work on this complex. I don’t host the club meeting until at least September this year. This will give me plenty of time and incentive to try and pull this off. Sorry for the dead photos, I will try and fill them in, but as can be seen from the earlier posts this was an expansive facility. No way I can get it all in. But here is the main pieces I want to represent.

Hecla labeled
Hecla labeled1148Ă—926 324 KB

The power plant/compressor section as well as the main part of the hoist house will be a flat on the wall with maybe a couple inches of relief. The 90 degree section of the hoist house that crosses the track will be represented and cross my tracks. The machine shop will be a flat. And then the rest of the labeled buildings will be modeled in one fashion or another. I even have some HO rail to make the little cart track.

I have already started making the print files to print the windows and doors. You will see them on my MIK build. I actually don’t think this will be as hard as it seems. The hardest part will be building the ore bin that drop down onto my lower track.

#10

one of the harder pieces of this to see is the ore bin. I found some other pictures taken during construction that show it better. All are from the Barnard-Stockbridge Collection University of Idaho.

Hecla 3
Hecla 31504Ă—736 286 KB

hecla 4
hecla 4745Ă—624 85.9 KB

#11

j start printing buildings, then in a few months all you have to do is decide what goes where and if there is room for fronts or whole buildings to finish out the whole town

#12

Neat mine complex. Visible on street view on Google maps.

#13

The “new” version built around 1929 or so is still there as you can see from the street view. This is about an hour from my house. I wish there was a way to convince someone at Hecla to let me look around. I’d love to tour the facility. It is not technically abandon but it is not also currently in production.

I really do like this particular mine. there are a few that I could have chosen. If I didn’t model this one I would have done the Tiger-Poorman. Which is in the background. Its crazy to me how much stuff was crammed in this valley. It was estimated that in its prime as many as 3000 people lived in Burke

#14

Mock Up
Mock Up724Ă—465 26.4 KB

A very rough draft of what the main building could look like.

#15

Devon, this looks like a cool project. Will enjoy watching it come to life.

#16

I would wander around until someone came and asked me to leave , is there lots of no trespassing sign or can you feign not seeing them( blame Brain fog)!!!

#17

Its a weird town. The few remaining people are very protective and really don’t like strangers. Its a dead end road to nowhere and they will eyeball you as drive through town. And the place is pretty well fenced up not that you couldn’t get around it but there would be people watching.

#18

I will need to buy resin. Lots of detail work to put in it.

#19

FS7623 looks like a fun ride through the valley. Gravel and well maintained.

#20

Bob,

Its actually pavement up to and past Burke. I can’t remember where it turns to gravel. But it is well maintained all the way to the dead end. It is a interesting drive packed with remnants of the many various mines that operated in the area. Here is a link to an excellent photograph resource of the area. This collection starts with the very beginnings of this area, the Silver Valley. We were fortunate that an excellent photographer, Barnard Stockbridge, lived in the main town and hub for the area Wallace, Id. What is fun is he began taking photographs of the town when it was in its infancy right through its boom years. So we can literally watch the town grow.

image
image731Ă—1054 111 KB

Burke 1887 about 1 to two years after the first claims were made. About where the #538 in the lower right is at is where the Hecla was eventually built.