By using an old Tyco operating coal car piece of track inside the building of the Warthers coaling tower
I added an operations feature to my layout
they made operating coal cars in C&O Pensy DTI and Virgnian
Here’s a over view of the coaling tower
Here’s a car Dumping
A picture inside the building showing the track that opens the doors on the cars
they dump into a plastic container under the layout
then i just reload the cars from the container
I have that piece of track and the Virgnian car somewhere. Nice use of those pieces. How many of the operating cars do you have?
Now to create a loader.
Keep the good ideas coming.
Have fun,
Richard
Great idea. I was thinking about modifying a Walthers Kings Coal trestle, but this sounds better. Besides the Virginian that came with the coal dump I have several of the Tyco Boston & Maine operating hoppers.
I’ve got this old Vollmer coal loader which I bought when I was a teenager.
It has two chutes which are solenoid activated. The building, unfortunately, holds very little coal, but it’s fun to load a car or two.
The coal is dumped elsewhere on the layout:
I built a “volcano” out of scrap foam, painted it black and covered it with WS cinder ballast. The coal drops through the actuator, through the “crater” of the volcano and into a box beneath the layout.
I’ve got 11 of these cars - one C&O, 2 U.S. Navy, 1 Virginian and the rest PRR.
I had one of those also but never knew who made it bought it at a train show
the chutes worked good but it held so little coal i sold it on ebay
I had no idea those cars came in a US Navy road name
there was a guy that had a web site that gave tips on tweeking the cars for better prerformance
and coupler conversion saw it back a few years ago but lost the link
The coupler conversion is a bit of work, but straightforward. I removed the trucks and used a Dremel to cut off the coupler mount, being very careful to not cut into the wheels. The trucks are very solid, and I’ve never succeeded in removing a wheelset, so I just live with the old plastic pizza-cutters.
These cars have nice solid metal frames. I got a bunch of Kadee #5s and some draft gear boxes, plus some 2-56 screws. I drilled and tapped the frame for the screws, and just put them together.
So you are body mounting the KDs ?
Yes. Body-mounting is much better, particularly when backing up. For these short cars, there is no reason for truck-mounted couplers at all.
Glad to see other modelers using Tyco operating hoppers. I have 10 Tyco hoppers that I have modified with sprung trucks and body mounted couplers. Tyco hoppers are a near prototype for Southern Pacific ballast cars. This is how I modified my cars. http://lariverrailroads.com/gravel_pit.html
Very nice “How to” on your site thanks for sharing
I’m thinking that if i super glue several ball point pen springs together end to end then place them in an open top straw to use as a trough by rotating the springs with a slow speed motor
it should move the coal thru the straw
much the way a stoker system does
It would be larger, but this auger bit in a channel would move a lot more coal:
LOL So true mr B
does it come in HO scale ?
Here’s a photo of the home made auger in the bottom of the container
Here’s the container inside the mine tipple
Here’s the container inside the mine tipple