Hi & Hello,I was wondering what type of material should I use too make Coal,Instead of buying the stuff that is already made.This will be for an HO-Scale Layout,I am modeling the ATSF/SP from 1950’s-1960’s.So any help would be very helpful Thank You.Also some Photos of some of your Coal Structures will also be a big help.Good Niight
Posted On 10-28-06 8:05PM Saterday
Smash up some charcoal or some burned wood.
If you can get a lump of real coal, smash that up.
Yeah! That’s what some of the WS stuff is made of.
If you have, or know anyone who does have, a Brita water filter pitcher, the charcoal granules in their filters are perfect for that – or go to an aquarium supply store and look at their charcoal filter materials.
I use WS “cinders” ballast. I think it’s the “medium” grade. It’s lightweight and black, and looks like coal to me. This is the coal dump platform. I also use the same stuff in the hopper cars. The coal dumps through the “crater” of the “volcano” into a box beneath.
black sand makes good coal
Just curious…what’s wrong with the stuff that’s already made? It’s usually inexpensive, readily available and comes in every possible size. Why not just buy from one of the hobby manufacturers?
I’ve tried the real coal lump and hammer thing and it’s not very satisactory to me. Getting the proper sizes is way too much work compared to the cost of buying ready-made coal.
Roger
For those of you who already or are contemplating using real coal on your layout: I was told by a very reliable and seasoned MRRing veteran recently that real coal and nickle-silver track don’t play well together. The coal contains an acid that will eat at the nickle-silver surface of your track, if the two come into contact with one another.
I stick with WS and have both mine run and lump coal in my hoppers.
Tom
I will second that, especially if you are in a geographic location where high humididty persists. Some of the older coal hoppers suffered as a result of that, but I don’t know about the newer aluminum hoppers.
I grind up charcoal that goes in an aquarium filter. I have an old sausage grinder that i use. It has a set of 6 different plates, so I can vary the size of the coal by changing plates. This has proved to be very handy in that I fill all my loaded hoppers, my coaling tower, and the area all around my coal mine with the gound up charcoal. I would hate to have to buy all of this. I also grind up kitty litter/oil dry to use as ballast on my mainline. Tweet
I use woodland scenics coal, its real coal that comes in 2 or 3 sizes. I made lots of hopper loads with this stuff on top of roughly shaped upholstery foam and they look great. I glued it all down with 50/50 elmers glue, make sure you glue it well so the coal doesnt get all over the place.
I have a neighbor that works at a coal fired electrical generating plant and he brought me a lump of real coal. Nothing looks like coal like the real thing!
tstage wrote: <“I was told by a very reliable and seasoned MRRing veteran recently that real coal and nickle-silver track don’t play well together. The coal contains an acid…”> Tom, it’s not that the coal contains acid, but depending on the type and grade of coal it contains a certain percentage of sulphur. It is this sulphur that reacts with the moisture in the air to make sulphuric acid, which I have no doubt would harm nickle-silver track in the long run. Cheers, Mark.
Ok Thanks for the Replies everyone,I apprecoeate it alot.I will do like ya mentioned.Dose anyone here have any Photos of ther Coal Industry mine is Sratch built.From Walther Kit’s and Etc.Thanks Again everyone.
What era are you and what part of the country?
Early era in some places coal came out like small boulders and wasn’t broken up until it reached the user. Then mid era coal would be fist to head sized lumps from some mines. Modern stuff is cut out of the ground in the specific size(s) wanted by the power plants that will move it by converyor and burn it in the most efficient coal/air mix they can almost “inject”. A lot of modern coal is about 1/4" granules and would be best represented by sand painted black in modern coal gons and hoppers.
Hope that this helps.
Anyone know when “flood loading” started?
TIA[8D]
OOPS! SP/ATSF 50s-60s … but WHERE? Where would the coal be coming from?
Someone has recently been posting about there being a Gon/Hopper divide not the same as but similar to the Mason-Dixon line [what is that and where - for a foreigner’s knowledge please]. I suspect that SP would run coal in Gons while ATSF would run either with a bias to Hoppers… at least to the north…
Can anyone confirm this please?
Anyone got a guide to where the coalfields are? Maybe with coal types?
I would guess that you could run home/industry coal in Gons from SP and power plant coal in hoppers from ATSF… but that’s pure guess work. I doubt that you would be looking at high sided gons on SP… could be wrong… only ones I recall seeing though were racked high for sugar beet traffic…
SP went oil fired steam early because of its lack of ready coal supply…
Marknewton wrote:
And react with everything else too! Sulfuric acid ain’t nice stuff to have lying loose anywhere.
That’s why Powder River Basin coal (which is low sulphur) became such a huge product for CNW to ship east to power plants. I believe it was open cast mined and cut very small for blowing into power plant furnaces.
It probably kept CNW alive and then made them worth swallowing up by the Big Armour Yellow MONSTER [V]
Good Morning Santa Fe: I am using the Woodland Senics coal manly because it is already sized and isn’t really to expensive. The surpher in coal can cause corosion problems with any metal so I’d stay away from that. I have about 2 tons of coal on hand for my live steamer. I try to keep it dry so it doesn’t eat the barrels it’s stored in.
Check the forums for the thread on the New River mine. There is about 8 pages of good ideas and information there. Also check into the forum Model Railroading. Rio Grand man has posted 12 threads dealing with mining in the Birmingham area. That is both coal and iron mining.
Also goggle coal mining. You’ll find a bunch of stuff there. The only problem with that is that there is so much information that I spend too much time reading and not enough time modeling.[8)] I enjoy doing the research.
And lest I forget,[#welcome] welcome to the forums. I think that you will enjoy your self and find a lot of help here. Stop in the coffee shop and I’ll buy.
Not to be the one to state the obvious, but why not real coal as coal? Oddly enough, it looks just like the real stuff.
And as far as the sulphuric acid thing, it would take a whole lot of coal to produce enough to do anything. We’ve been using real coal in our scenery and as live loads for over ten years with absolutely no ill-effects. No corrosion to the nickel silver rail or to any other metal on the layout, beyond what is normal in a basement in the northeast. Which is to say, maybe a little rust on untreated metal.
We get our coal from Smith & Sons Ballast, they have several different grades. Their stuff is also sold by Scenic Express, but they don’t carry the whole line.