Anybody here know of anywhere online where a large quantity of HO Scale Coal can be bought for a reasonable price? Looked around earlier and just seen the same things most hobby shops have for roughly the same price + shipping. I’m looking for enough to fill about 50 coal hoppers.
Is there any reason why you couldn’t make your own and save buying it already at HO size?
Make your own. Small bag of coal from woodland scenics and some sheet styrene and some glue. Maybe about 1/4th the price of ready made. I filled some tenders with real coal crushed with a hammer in a canvas bag. You cant get more realistic than that.
Pete
Well, I don’t wanna make removeable loads using the Styrene method. I was the cars to be fairly heavy and realistic. I’m thinking of doing what I saw elsewhere online. Line the inside of the cars with wax paper to prevent actually sticking the coal to the plastic it’s self. And then pour in a loose load and use a glue mixture similar to laying ballast to secure my loads. I found some on ebay just now thats 10 lbs of coal. I may end up buying that, should be enough. I see that the seller “Teachnshopgirl24” has sold quite a bit of it in the past. Anybody bought any of it before, experiences?
I used some fine chicken grit from the feed store a 40lb bag for about $5
Buy a bag of real coal and beat it with a hammer was done back in the 40’s. A really good substitute and is under $5.00 for a 50 pound bag is a grit blast media called Black Beauty. It is an aluminum oxide material (read does not conduct electricity) used for sand blasting and is very common at sand blast supply houses. My one bag has been sprinkled on my driveway after yearly tarring twice and filled over fifty hoppers. I still have ten pounds left.
Try Smith and Son Ballast, you’ll find they have an ad in Model Railroader. Scenic Express sells some of their stuff, but only some and they charge a little more. You can deal directly with Smith and Son Ballast and get it in quantity. They sell it in small bags or inbilk by the pound. You can also get small bags of the various grades/sizes to see what it looks like in person for a small charge per bag.
We use their unit train coal for the live loads we run and their ballast and cinders too.
They’re really great folks to deal with and like their ballast, it is real coal that they crush. I think they have a little rock crushing rig in their garage.
This is their address: Smith and Sons Ballast 13630 Gar Highway Chardon, OH 44024
Namerifrats, i don’t know how long of coal drags your going to have, but i’m wondering if it is possible to make the cars too heavy.
I would like to know how many packages of Life-Like or Woodland Scenics coal is required for the Walthers O. L. King and Sons Coal Yard. Do you have this coal yard on your HO layout as a destination for your hoppers.
What you could do is the already mentioned styrene sheet topped with coal powder/bits but add a weight to the car to make it heavier. This way you can get the weight you want and the coal you have will go that much further.
In earlier times I crashed real anthracite. Now I use Walthers coal:
Wolfgang
I bought ten packs of life like coal when it was on sale. That way i can fill my hoppers cheap.
Magnus
use crushed charcoal
There is no coal(except charcoal) in Sweden so I was forced to get the Life like but I think it looks OK in hoppers.
Magnus
Back when I had my coal mining layout I used charcoal that I had broken up on a concrete block with a hammer. I didn’t have to hit it really hard, just enough to fracture it. After that the smaller peices broke up easily.
Do charcoal look good as coal that comes from a mine? I have never seen “real” coal in my life. As I said, we do not have any coal in Sweden? If so that is great!
Magnus
You can buy bags of sandblasting grit that is black if you need 20-50 lbs of it.
Black aquarium sand also.
If you use something out of the ordinary, be sure to bring 3 things to test it:
A magnet - magnetic particles will get sucked up into the motors.
A ohmmeter - electricly conductive particles will short out the track.
A bottle of water - it can’t dissolve in water.
Dave H.
Magnus,
I use Pennsylvania coal on my Pennsylvania layout. There’s a Buffalo and Pittsburgh track about a 1/2 mile from my house through the woods and the daily coal drag doesn’t keep it all in the hoppers.
You pay postage and I’ll ship what ever you want.
It’ll be quite the conversation piece.
Sand blasting grit, “Black beauty”, can be bought in bulk and actually scales out to look like coal as good or better than the real thing. A previous club member who does all sorts of loads professionally now, uses this in the different sizes for his Motrak Loads. I would like to show these, but it is an Ebay link to the store.
You need to be careful with the weight of the load. It sounds like you want to fill the entire hopper. Any of the methods described already will weight the hopper plenty. Too much weight will not only make the train too heavy to pull ,but you will wear out the trucks in no time.
Thanks for the offer. How much does coal weigh? As I said I do not have a clue about what real coal is like? It would be quite good and actually fun to have. Say, how much would a litre of coal weigh? Since shipping would be rather high if it’s heavy. Could you check how much shipping would be on say a few litres? I might be mad but I always imagined coal to be rather light.
Magnus