My H.O. D&H line required the building of the massive Erie coaling tower in Oakland PA just west of Susquehanna …
I elected to cast the majority of it out of plaster as I wanted to replicate the broken and deteriorating concrete. I made forms to cast the individual walls and reinforced them with lengths of coat-hanger wire …
The bin was cast using two diameters of form tubing making the wall thickness about 3/4" …
Mocking it up for size …
Base assembly glued together, gaps filled, details carved in and base colour painted …
Detail of leg casting showing the broken concrete and exposed rebar …
Final assembly and base colour sprayed on. The rectangular structure on the top is constructed of styrene. The cone shaped roof was made by pouring plaster in an appropriately shaped funnel !
It still needs some final colouring and a heavy dose of weathering. It’s still somewhat smaller than the proto-type, but I feel it made a fairly decent representation of the real one. Fortunately my benchwork is solid as this tower weighs nearly 16 pounds !!!
Please post a picture of that decomposed footing with the rebar when you have it all done up. I would like to see how it looks with rusted rebar and any streaking.
Having been a high school teacher in the past, I can say that your tutorial is right to the point and very clear. I appreciate your sharing this project with us because it will certainly incent me to try something similar. What a great looking result.
As unfortunate as it is, the prototype will eventually have to come down. I would sure like to see how they do that!! I can only imagine what the prototype weighs.
BTW, that is an awesome model!!! I wish I had that sort of talent, but I suppose with enough determination and practice, I could get there. That would be a great method for older concrete bridges and so forth (or any older concrete structure).
Typically, there would have been a shed were coal was dumped from a hopper car into a pit and lifts and conveyors to bring that coal to the top of the tower. Many if not most railroads removed the metal equipment from there coal towers either for scrap or safety after steam service ended but left the concrete towers standing because of the cost to demolish them. Now many of these towers have deteriorated to the point that they must be torn down before they just collapse.
Not to question his work (which is obviously awesome), but I would hate to have that thing collapse on a train. I guess if it were mine, and it did collapse on a train, I would have to make lemonade from lemons and bring out the recovery crews, cranes, dozers, and whatever else it would take to clear the right of way.
