I’ve spent time online with no success and in some books.******* I’d like to know if large 5 track coal bunkers such as the style used in Cheyenne WY. (650 ton) were ever used or after dismantling of some yard through/main tracks, on stub ended tracks OR if the bunker tracks were reserved ONLY for loco servicing tracks leading directly from the Roundhouse.******* In transition era were some bunker chutes closed permanently and freight trains allowed to use those tracks under the bunker for storage/making and breaking up trains?*** Thanks as always.
Kinda hard to separate the questions, but I think what you are asking is were the tracks under a large coaling tower ever used for anything else than a coaling tracks.
Short answer yes. BUT the coaling towers and engine service areas were probably out of service as such. Looking around in HABS-HAER there were pictures of a large concrete coaling tower whose tracks were being used as a transload facility. The tower was out of service and it was there only because it was too hard/costly to demolish.
If the tower was built over main tracks or running tracks, then yes they would continue to be used as main tracks and running tracks. Would you convert main tracks and running tracks into class tracks, no.
It sounds like you are trying to justify putting a large coaling tower over your stub end classification yard. Don’t think its prototypical at all, sorry. But as always you can do whatever you want.
Dave, yes you got the gist. Sorry it was not more clearly written. I have the (in)famous IHC Cheyenne Coal tower from a previous layout that I did an especially nice weathering job on and would like to see if I can use it again.)******* It sounds like a yard that no longer uses all of it’s bunker chutes can/has stayed in place in prototypes due to the cost of removal. (?) I’d have four stub tracks with freight and passenger trains parked under it and two tracks (A/D-mains) running alongside it.******* Two ready tracks to the R.H. run along the opposite side.******* I’d be willing to forego the use of the chutes aside from the ready tracks’ in order to use the bunker as a scenic block/divider that looks “right” in the city yard.******* If this is totally off base prototypically or historically, I’ll use it as part of a mine further down the road.*** Thanks for your response.
Why not build a diorama for it or just put it in a display case where it can be, well, on display. It would gain interest from others in our hobby among other things (model building in general, painting/weathering, accurate fine modeling, history to name a few. And best of all it would show off your skill and personal ability in modeling.
Not UP but the PRR had two massive mainline coaling stations at Denholm and Thorndale PA. They were basically identical and were twelve tracks wide where trains could refuel, sand and water while on the mainline. Hoppers took a circuitous route up to a holding yard where they were fed to the top of the wharves by gravity, unloaded and then rolled to a holding yard at track level. these were very similar to ore docks for loading and the Cheyene coaling tower for unloading.
Well, a diorama is certainly a possible solution to keeping the model if all else fails and I don’t sell it.
That would have to take a long term back burner approach though, as all of my building time is taken up getting the layout track all laid and up and running.
I’ll try to find some online images of the Pennsy yards, ndbprr.
My thoughts were that I’d have a newer 130’ turntable installed that eliminated some former through/ready tracks from the original yard so that freights and passenger cars could be sorted on the now stub ended tracks, leaving the original bunker (with now non-operating chutes) in place due to the cost of removal and the remaining usefulness of the two still existing ready tracks.
If anyone knows of a prototype scenario that fits that (or a similar non-turntable) scenario, please let me know?
Thanks. PS: If my “new” method/attempt at installing paragraphs works here, thank you Gerhard!
This seems so far from typical that you will likely always be justifying it to even semi-knowledgable viewers – even if you do find an obscure reference photo from somewhere.
If that doesn’t bother you, then do it. if it does bother you, don’t.
If I HAD to use such coaling tower, here’s how I would use it.
I would have a 5 track hidden staging yard with a train length behind the coaling tower. The coaling tower would hide the entrance. Trains would come out of staging by pulling under the coaling tower, coaling up, then entering the layout.
Trains going into staging would just drive into the tracks.
It’s the obscure end of steam era reference photo I’m looking for! It certainly would bother me less if one or two existed. 
For me proto-lancing means being able to document that something very similar existed in a prototype -somewhere as opposed to free-lanced where nothing necessarily has to have existed in prototypes at all.
Thanks for letting me know that it’s not likely to have had this scenario exist in real life.
Dave, that’s an excellent idea and I’ll see if it can be incorporated in that manner when I add staging after the primary layout is built. I’m planning a rail barge/cassette style fiddle yard so far but that could change. Thanks.
This seems so far from typical that you will likely always be justifying it to even semi-knowledgable viewers – even if you do find an obscure reference photo from somewhere.
If that doesn’t bother you, then do it. if it does bother you, don’t.
Unfortunately that is the rule of thumb for most model railroaders. We tend to go for the obscure over the typical in many cases.
Keep in mind the massive size of a 650 ton coaling tower, given that railroads are all about revenue it’s completely feasible to see a coaling tower no longer in use in a now diesel facility, even smaller concrete towers were kept standing long after the last steam engine filled it’s tender. Not until it was necessary woudl the railroad demolish the towers. It may be a little difficult to incorporate it’s existence into a new mainline situation but being modelers were are alowed a certain about of flexability when it comes to being creative.
One thing I did see on a club layout on Long Island, NY where they took tow of the model your describing and used them as large coal tipples placed ar right angles to each other. That just looked plain dumb.
The question wasn’t whether the coaling tower would still be standing, but whether freight and passenger yard tracks would now be running under it. That’s the implausible element.
It seems unlikely that one would use a former service area in the manner you describe, perhaps storage of company mw equiptment. When UP razed the tower and associated structures, they too removed all the trackage except for a solitary lead to the turntable.
Dave
I have a Pentrex video about the Illinois Central that was shot around 1995, showing mainline trains running under an old concrete coaling tower that straddled the main lines in southern Illinois. The amount of rebar in those old towers and the difficulty and expense of tearing them down meant that many railroads just left them standing, especially if they straddled main line tracks that would have to be shut down during demolition.
There was an incident several years ago when the Rock Island was still a viable road, that they tried to implode an old coaling tower that straddled two of their main line tracks, but the tower fell straight down instead of sideways, blocking both tracks until it could be cleared away.
I also have a video wherein Steve Lee, the person in charge of the Union Pacific steam program at the time, is showing the layout of the facilities in Cheyenne using an aerial photo that was taken in the heyday of steam operations. The coaling tower at Cheyenne straddled service tracks that led to the turntable and roundhouse, not main line trackage. Sanding towers, water spouts, and ash pits were in the same general area.
I don’t have photos of RR demolition, but here is one resulting from bombs/shells of officers’ housing from the Battle of Corregidor:
I realize that the Cheyenne Bunker stood over ready tracks to the gigantic roundhouse. It’s OTHER locations & roads using similar sized bunkers standing over YARD TRACKS that I was hopefully (wishfully?) seeking photographic or text verification for/of.
It seemed initially that coming dieselization and at least the partial removal of roundhouse stalls and ready track “ends” thus converting them to yard tracks would have been likely to have occured somewhere, but it seems not.
I’m not trying to justify the use on my layout unless without some documentation (at this point anyway) just trying to gather prototypical info. I’d love to buy many more prototype books and videos but at $40-$60 ea. on average I’d never get the layout built! I imagine this is a common dilemma for all of us to some degree?
This section of the forum is all the more treasured because it points us to specific resources so readily. Thanks again.
EDIT Addition: I just saw on www.coalbunkers.com, a pic of a truck loading bunker that looks very similar. Wondered if that could be an alternate use for the IHC kit or perhaps part of a mine would still be better. Anyway, interesting bunker up in Fairbanks Alaska for you guys to view if you’re interested.