The Virginian Limestone Corporation at Klotz produced most of the dolomite limestone ballast for the VGN. On my model, a crusher/loader will be built at the midpoint of the two seven-car loading tracks (approximately where the men in the photo are standing).
The room corner will be hidden by a large limestone rockface, nearly two feet high with an overall length of about five feet. A section of that rock is in the photo, showing my painting experiments. As you can see from the small photos leaning against the white rock casting, dolomite limestone is colored orange. Clearly I need to experiment a lot more to achieve the right colors.
The tracks are built on a grade, and I've installed remote-control "brakes" to allow an operator to use gravity to move the next hopper under the loader. Flip a switch and small paintbrush bristles between the rails disappear, letting the cars coast forward. Reverse the switch and the "brake" reappears, stopping the cars' movement.
The smokestack is for the small generating plant that powered the quarry. Click here for details on how I made it from a replacement table leg.
Here is an invoice from the Virginian Limestone Corporation in 1956, along with a truck ticket for five tons of stone. Crushed stone was 75¢ a ton in those days. It's also interesting to note the small trucks (today's dump trucks carry about 20 tons), the simplified address ("P.O. Ripplemead, Va."), and the telephone number ("Pearisburg 12").
