A coal car came with my new set. Although they look neat they seem to be a pain to operate. My car dumps its load way to fast, the coal tray is to big to easily refill the car and accidental dumping makes a mess. I may just glue the coal in the car for looks and forget about operating the coal car. Sorry I just had to rant. Is there a better built coal car or is my giving up playing with this feature of my set my best option?
All coal accessories are a mess. I switched to logging which is much cleaner.
Here is the way I cleaned up the coal on my railroad. I used our portable vacuum and placed and old teeshirt across the hose where the hose entered the cannister so that the teeshirt formed a membrane to catch the coal. I then vacuumed up the coal and retrieved it from the vaccuum hose. It made a fast and easy method to retrieve all the chunks of coal from the layout.
Earl
Rolo, I’d recommend against glueing the coal in place. You might want to sell the car eventually, and you’d be reducing the number of potential buyers.
If you’re operating on a carpet, you definitely don’t want to dump coal! Consider loads with larger particle sizes, like small stones. Make a smaller bin from cardboard or foamboard to allow easier re-loading.
If you’re operating on a permanent layout, leave the small coal spills where they lay (as long they don’t interfere with operation). That’s basically what the real railroads do.
That is a great idea!
underworld[:D][:D][:D][:D][:D]
Rolo - I ordered one of Lionel’s Rotary Coal Tipples (6-32910) when they first came out. It is the best accessory I have ever seen in any scale. The caveat is you can only use Lionel COAL TIPPLE COAL (6-24148), as traditional coal will jam up the gearing. This tipple coal has been panned for its size (kinda RAISENETTE shaped) but it is easy to clean up. I saved my bathroom sink when I remodelled, and when I get around to installing the rotary tipple on my layout, the sink will be mounted under the industry to collect the dumped coal, which will pour into a bucket underneath the benchwork.