I am looking for coal tower blueprints.
Conditions are as follows.
Must be made of wood.
Serve one track.
And be small width and length wise.
Can be tall, as that is not a factor.
Most of the ones I seen on google [194 pages of them by the way] were concrete or huge. Also there were no blueprints except on one site but the blueprints were for concrete made ones.
The scale does not matter as I can convert it easily enough. But for the record I am modeling in On30.
fsm1000 if you can find them get the kalmbach and carstens books on engine servicing facilities. they have both steam and diesel service ares and should have wood coaling towers
I don’t have it with me right now, however I’ll check as soon as I can to see if there’s a measured drawing of a coaling tower in Norfolk & Western Standard Drawings.
But are you dead set on a coaling tower? Check out other options that would be suitable for a small narrow gauge line. Narrow gauge railroads were usually a low budget operation especially if they only had a few engines on the line. The cheapest method was to hand shovel coal from a gondola or pile of coal on the ground, transferred using a bucket and hoist or conveyor.
Then again, if you are modeling a 19th century timber railroad, it probably would have burned wood for fuel. Of course, if the model has coal in the tender, it would have to be replaced with logs.
It seems like everyone who models steam has a coaling tower (including me) and rarely model other methods of fueling. On the prototype, the cost of a coaling tower is justified if there are many locomotives to be fueled quickly on a daily bases.
There is a lot of info on coaling towers and other methods of fueling steam locomotives (sorry, no blueprints) in Steam Locomotive Coaling Stations and Diesel Locomotive Fueling Facilities. Although the book is focused mostly on late steam era, there is some info earlier fueling methods like trestles, cranes and conveyors.
I thought I put a bug in your head just because you might like something unique. You know, being narrow minded and all.
gsetter to be honest I did think of the other ides but believe it or not they take up more space than a very vertical coal tower. Some of the others require a road for the truck, or a loading and unloading area etc.
Thanks for the links but I don’t have the money to buy blueprints just now. Also I wouldn’t buy them unseen or without knowing what the coal tower looked like. Maybe if they had a prototype picture [even hazy] of what the blueprint was for I might have considered it.
Thanks again though.
You might start with the Index of Magazines (link at the top of this page) and look up plans published for these. There were a couple that were used on the narrow gauge D&RG that might be just what you’re looking for.
TomDiehl Thanks but all that gave me was what magazine a certain picture might be in. There were no blueprints there. And as I do not have ALL the back issues of those magazines I won’t be able to use the information.
Thanks for the idea though. [:)]
So out of the thousands of members here no one has a blueprint, or a link to one,of a coal tower? Funny.
Oh well. Thanks anyhow guys.
Thank God there are more than one forum. [:)]
In my magazine collection I have a Aug 1953 edition of railroad model craftsmen. In this mag on four pages is schematics of a 1925 wooden coaling tower. In HO scale with measurements . Is this what your looking for ? E-mail me off list and give me your address. I’ll make copies of this article and send them to you.
P.S I had to think about it, I knew I had something like your project laying around somewhere.
Patrick
Beaufort,SC
Dragon River Steel Corp {DRSC}
fsm1000 for a coal dump where a truck backs up above the locomotive tender you dont necessarily need a road, just an idea that a road is there and dont put a truck permantly there. or have a truck coming up the “road”.
tjsmrinfo true I suppose but still not quite what I had in mind. But I still like the idea and played with it for a while as well.
It is just not for me at this time for this layout. Thanks though
The entries that say “drawing” are the one’s you’re looking for, they don’t say “blueprint.” Once you decide what type you’re looking for, then ask if anybody has that issue and can copy the plan for you.
Just a quick search under “coal tower” gave 76 replies, so you’d need to tell us exactly what you want.
I am not sure which particular issue, but in 1975 Model Railroader published the plans for the wooden coaling tower on the old DRGW in Chama, NM. You might look for that.
Eric Stevens did a four-part article (Model Railroader, October 1951 through January 1952) on a beautiful, classic two-track (straddle one track, service another track via chutes) coaling station. It was based on a Central Vermont Ry. structure in St. Albans, Vermont. Although standard gauge, it was compact: the main part of the structure is 20 x 28 feet, and it is tall – about 60 feet to the top of the hoist tower. The prototype was built in 1922, and Stevens obtained the builder’s blueprints from the railroad for construction of his model, which was well detailed and certainly not a simple two- or three-evening project. It represented my idea of the classic wood “railroady” coaling station. I plan to build one for my O-scale railroad.
Tom ANY of them LOL and that’s coal tower not cola LOL.
Older ones that were used for narrow gauge preferred. I can rescale them so no need for them to be in my scale.
Must be made of wood not steel or concrete.
Serve one track. Multiple track ones are simply too big.
And be small width and length wise.
Height is not important.
Hi…Campbell Models and Alexander Models both made single track coaling tower kits - I have sold both on ebay recently…I might have one or both instruction sheets available to copy for you for a copying charge, since they are over sized + mailing. Let me know. locosteve ( aka Steve Zucker – St. Louis ).
Stephen,
The four part Eric Stevens series totaled about 20 pages, and there was no overall drawing of the coaling station but there were 30 individual drawings of the individual parts and components – walls, framing, bracing, bents, supports, etc. It would simply be impractical for me to try to scan the 20 pages of text and figures then e-mail them to you – my slow dial-up connection would overload or timeout. Really, the practical solution if you are seriously interested would be to get Kalmbach to photocopy the series of articles for you.
John
Check out John Maxwell’s drawings. There are drawings listed for the coaling tower at Chama, NM. This tower is still standing and an image search will provide you with some pictures of the tower. The Maxwell Collection of drawings are listed at www.colorng.com
