into the coaling towers
I have a Bachmann coaling tower and can’t figure how they loaded the coal
Was there a lift system inside that column in the rear
It has no doors etc
In addition it doesn’t look like it could coal for very many tenders
Yes, the column is a lift. The real one would have had a pit on an adjacent track into which hoppers could dump the coal, and then a conveyor carried the coal to the top of the column and dumped it into the tower.
The Bachmann tower probably represents one at a place like Durango, Colorado rather than on a busy main line track.
So now I need a track to the rear of the tower and a pit ?
Plus I was told I need an ash pit
This is snowballing out of control
Didn’t I already mention you needed a track to serve the coal tower?
Think of them as industries (which they are, hoppers delivering coal, gondolas hauling away ash) and the operational potential.
Mark
I am beginning to think of them as GONE
Too crammed for that space
Bob,
The ‘service’ track can go under the coaling tower or behind it. Ash pits can go from simple to complex. Sometimes they are just iron sheets that the ashes are dumped on before the engine goes to the roundhouse. Some are under track pits with conveyors to dump the ash into old gondola cars.
Jim
From the looks of the picture in your other thread, moving the water tower across the tracks, and re-arranging some of those smaller structures in the foreground should allow enough room for a coal delivery track between the mainline and the enginehouse lead. You could then put the ash pit on the existing track to your enginehouse, with a cinder car spotted alongside on the coal delivery track.
I managed to cram an icehouse, station, coaling tower, coal delivery track, turntable lead and turntable, outdoor crane, loco shop, car shop, and an oilhouse, plus a double tracked mainline, in just slightly more depth than you’re working with. I was unable, however, to include an ashpit - it would’ve fit on the turntable lead, but there would have been no place to park a cinder car.
Even if you’re not interested in operations and using that area as a traffic generator, an engine terminal is a great place to photograph your locomotives. We always enjoy seeing photos here.
Wayne
Bob has some (as I have understood him) rather unusual goals for his layout. He does not want any sidings (except for the engine house), no industries, not much in the way of landscaping, mainly just two ovals around the whole thing, and watching the trains loop and loop from outside the layout, not from the pit in the center.
Not what I would have wanted to do with that space, and I have no clue why he seems to want it that way, but those seem to be his preferences.
Stein
My layout will never rival yours for detail etc etc
It is really a work of art
And My shelf is only 18.5 inches and the tracks tak
Umm
That suggestion to move the water tower might just work
I can get a NO 4 RH turnout and put a stub track under the coaling tower
Maybe there is hope
Thanks for the kind words, Bob. Your layout should be whatever you want it to be, and while my layout is wider (30"), yours can still be as detailed and interesting as you wish to make it.
I’m not familiar with that coaling tower, but if it has a chute beneath it similar to the one that’s hanging over the track, then you could leave it over the enginehouse lead (you could remove the exterior chute or simply leave it, with the story that there used to be another track there at one time.) You could still run your additional siding for coal delivery, but it would be behind the coaling tower. All that’s needed is a pit in which to dump the coal - some were in the open, while others had an open-ended shed over the pit. If you extended this siding beyond the coaling tower (towards the engine house), you could add an ashpit (Walthers has a nice kit for this) under the enginehouse track, with the ash hoist positioned between the enginehouse track and the coal delivery track. This would give you room to spot a cinder car under the ash hoist.
If there’s no additional chute under the coaling tower (or even if there is) you could leave the coaling tower as you show it, with the coal dump-pit assumed to be under the tower itself. This still leaves you the opportunity to add an ashpit and hoist beyond, too.
Wayne
Uncbob have you ever visited Gatsme, up the road from you?
http://www.gatsme.org/index.html
They have some great stuff that will give you some good ideas.
That is what I will do
The coal dump track will go under the tower
I can put the ash pit just after the engine house
So it will be Y out of the engine house to the sanding tower and then the ash pit and then coaling tower --this will be on the right --the track under the coaling tower will extend far enough to go along side the ash pit
then on down to the water tower on the left
I was there about 3 times for open house during the holidays
EDIT:
You posted before I got a chance. I’m used to coaling tower underneaths to be for engines, but I guess it diesn’t matter.
Bob, I can make it real easy for ya. Fip the coaling tower onto the existing engine house, and stagger it far enough from the water tower so that each of them can be filling the tnder simultaniously. Next, place the ash pit down from the coaling tower, so the engine do whatever dumping it needs. The Ash Pit, coaling, and if you wanted to go so far, the sanding tower could all be handled on the track that is unnattached to anything in the photo above as a service track, and everything is compact.
If you go the above route, I replaced your first curve with a 4, used the curved side as the replacement curve. You will need to play with the rest of that curve to rematch with the Wye into the engine house.
ANd as far as anything else goes, have fn with your railroad.If at some point you decide a building would look nice, great. But I say RUN THE DARNED thing, ifyou want to run the darnd thing. Hope the above works.
Flash
Thanks for the CAD
That is what I will do but the coaling track will go under the tower
SWell the Ash Pit and turn out are ordered
Meanwhile I can watch them go roundy roundy
Unc Bob,
I am disappointed that you did not buy that book on Locomotive Servicing Terminals [%-)]
http://www.walthers.com/exec/productinfo/400-12228
You could spend hours looking, reading and dreaming about the further development of your engine servicing facility while watching those trains go roundy roundy.
Rich
No it’s not, it’s called growing your railroad empire!
Why do I need the book when I have designers right here on the forum that came to my aid [:)]
Here is the mockup
Ash pit will go between the sanding tower and the coaling tower
