I’m modeling the Duluth area and wanted to include a coal dock on my layout. From pictures I have seen, bridge cranes were used to unload the ships and pile up coal in large mounds on the dock. Does anyone know how this coal was then transferred to hoppers for shipment? I’ve examined a bunch of photos but can’t tell. Any ideas welcome. Thanks.
Brad
It almost sounds like you’re describing what’s called a Hulett unloader rather than a bridge crane. According to the “Index of magazines” a scratchbuilding article for them was published in Railmodel Journal July 1998. They would actually scoup the coal out of the hold of the ships. According to the article in Trains Feb 1991, the Huletts could scoup 17 tons of coal, ore, or limestone out of the ship’s hold and load it directly into receiving hoppers, then to weighing hoppers and finally hopper cars, or they could move it to concrete trough for storage. Then a travelling bridge crane could move it to the cars or storage yards.
A bridge crane ran on wheels. It had a sort of cantelevered part of the bridge that extended out over the side of a dock so that the scoop or whatever it is called could be lowered into the hold of a ship, brought up, moved along the bridge back over land so that the coal could either be dumped into a pile (perhaps for later loading into a coal hopper) or lowered directly into a coal hopper. The operator’s cabin was up near the top of the bridgework
I think I have seen indications that Walthers may be bringing one out in HO soon.
A Hulett unloader was a bizarre beast almost arm and elbow like. The operator was right there with the scoop. I do not think Duluth had a Hulett.
Dave Nelson
Brad,
Not sure if this helps but here’s a link to Midwest Energy with some shots of their coal facilities.
Brian
Brad,
Here’s links to some photos that may help. They’re in the Upper Pennisula at Houghton, MI so these photos from the Copper Range RR are probably similar to the bridge cranes at Duluth.
Page down to the “Week 8” photo here. It shows how the bridge cranes had a drop section that was let down to carry the lift assembly out over the hold once a boat is docked:
http://www.copperrange.org/color3.htm
Page down to the “Week 14” photo here. It has a nice end-on shot of one of the bridge cranes:
http://www.copperrange.org/color2.htm
As for how the coal was loaded into RR cars, one way would be to simply have a siding that ran underneath the bridge crane. Then the crane would simply pick up coal from the stockpile and load it into the car. However, the Copper Range dock at Houghton had some overhead bins that are visible in the “Week 13” photo at the link right above.
A bit of a longer shot of the same area is at the “Week 8” photo here:
http://www.copperrange.org/color.htm
I would guess that arrangements at Duluth were similar, but I don’t have any handy links for there. Maybe there is a historical society that has something for Duluth.
Mike Lehman
Urbana, IL
my guess would be cranes
Brad,
The coal docks were of the overhead bridge crane type - at least at the Berwind and Reiss coal docks. A lot of heating coal was delivered to the port of Duluth/Superior.
Jim