Seriously. I’m at the beginning stage of scratchbuilding a wooden coal tower that will be all wood with corrugated steel sheets for roofing.
What is that little “house” or “shed” for and why is it usually up on stilts above the rest of the tower? Like who’s up there way in the air and why?? I get the rest of the form-follows-function looks of a wooden coal tower, but I don’t get this part and haven’t been able to find an anatomy drawing of an old wooden coal tower explaining the parts. I’m usually pretty good at finding stuff on the internet but this one has me stymied.
The “house” is where the hoist mechanism/pulleys is located, used to hoist coal up into the coaling tower. Usually there is an outside or enclosed bucket system on the “back” of the coaling tower to do the lifting.
The “house” is where the hoist mechanism/pulleys is located, used to hoist coal up into the coaling tower. Usually there is an outside or enclosed bucket system on the “back” of the coaling tower to do the lifting.
Thanks Bob, I really appreciate it. And, by the way, I’ve poured over your photography site many times looking at the great pictures and getting tips on how to photograph models. Thanks for that too!!
Now then, let me ask you this. My coal bin is fed from an upper level of tracks running on a “cliff” above the freight yard. Given the nature of the hoist mechanism/pulley housing on top, I’m thinking I will leave this feature out altogether, unless I decide on a belt-and-suspenders approach where coal could be delivered from the lower track level in the freight yard and the upper level.
If I decide on upper-level loading access only, what do you think the top should look like? It needs a roof presumably to keep the rain and snow and debris from getting into the coal and then into the engine tenders. Don’t you think? The necessity for a roof would make the top look nothing like a simple rock or ore hopper that feeds ore cars.
Would a simple chute into the upper side of the hopper structure represent a realistic approach? The roof would might then slant at about the same angle as the chute…why waste space and wood?
Sorry to ask such goofy questions, but there seems to be an absence of information about wooden coals towers, unlike ore mills which are voluminously documented.
There’s been an article series in Narrow Gauge & Shortline Gazette on building a model of a gravity loaded set of coal chutes. It’s been in the past 3 years, but I don’t recall specifically, and I’m not at home to check out my back issues.
Thinking about such a setup on the prototype, a couple of th
Another thought is that often the coal would be graded, especially by size, and perhaps thermal quality too. Customers are most annoying - they have specific requirements. So most higher volume mines would have several processing steps between when the raw product reached the surface and its loading from the tipple into a rail car. It would be very rare to be able to do it all solely with gravity flow, and so hoisting machinery is the norm. The smallest operators probably didn’t produce enough volume for grading to be feasible, so perhaps could rely on gravity. But they no doubt had to accept a lower price as a result, and wouldn’t be shipping as much on your model railroad either.
R. T., the Pennsy had one coaling tower fed by a track that was perpendicular to the several tracks served below. Hoppers ran directly over the bins and unloaded through grizzlies. There was no roof over the unloading track, so the tops of the bins were open to the weather.
Facilities that were basically trestles with bins in them were not uncommon. The one at Scranton was between two loco service tracks. It survives in the form of a walkway from the Steamtown parking lot to the mall across the tracks.
There is a similar arrangement, concrete bins on top of a concrete retaining wall, opposite the East Broad Top shop area. It’s been out of service for years, but it’s still there.
My own prototype liked to fill overhead coal bins with a clamshell bucket-equipped crawler crane. The alternative was a flat concrete platform slightly above car floor level for a drop-side gondola. The ‘hoist’ system, from gons to platform and from platform to tenders, consisted of a couple of beefy yard workers with shovels.
To see a photo of this kind of arrangement type “thorndale coal wharf” into Google. Click on the 4th item down on the first page. (The Pennsylvania Railroad During World War II). Scroll down to page 44. IINM the base for the north end of the wharf can still be seen today between US30 and the Amtrak mainline, but the wharf itself is long gone.
Quick edit: There was also a similar wharf at Denholm, PA.
Thank you, all of you, for the informative and thoughtful comments and the various links. I just knew I could count on you.
With this information, I’m going to sketch up a little drawing and maybe take a picture of the lay of the layout land and impose on you for some more feedback. I probably won’t be able to get to it until later in the week (real life needs attention!) but I’ll post whatever I come up with here.
