Do you have an issue date, even approximate, for that auger loader? My loader only holds about 1 carload, so I’d like a way to replenish it automatically. Thanks.
Our club uses coal instead of fake loads. It takes time to put it in the cars by hand and then you have to dump it out at the destination.
If you derail enroute you do have a mess to clean up.
What this means is you get more of a feel for the real thing as the train with each car loaded handles substantially different than if it had fake loads. It also handles different when you are returning the empties. As this is a club layout it is large and 30-50 car trains are not unusual, thus the noticable difference in train handling while going over the line. This adds realism to the experience.
In real life a derailment is a cleanup mess as well thus that aspect of realism is
available with the loaded cars but hopefully not experienced.
Dale
There is always the “Dust Buster” to aid in the clean up, sure beats a scale sized shovel and a group of lazy gandy dancers leaning on them!
Will
Exactly.
In reality it is a shop vac when we “put one on the ground.”
I’m not sure what we use for coal but when you load 30-50 cars you better start adding engines, especially when they start up the grades.
Dale
If you need to make many loads for the same hopper, make a mold of the shaped foam/ balsa. Resin or hydrocal will work. Resin is perfered because it will not break if dropped. A light coat of glued on black beauty, charcoal or real coal will produce some of the most realistic loads for minimal cost and labor.
Bob K.
What we do for coal loads at the Bitter Creek and Western MRY here in town is build a thing out of wood that sits just below the rim of the hopper, and then we form it rounded, and the we actually glue REAL coal onto it, that way we have real looking coal, and if it happens to overtunr to will not get loose, We actually take and glue a small layer of coal to the tenders on our steamers too.
I use a material used by some prototype roads as traction grit. Individual pieces scale out at about 3" HO and it has a realistic sparkle. An Athearn 34’ hopper holds 6 ounces of the stuff, so your motive power needs to be up to the task. I run loose loads (loco tenders too) but my trains are limited, both by grades and passing siding length to 12 to 15 cars. This stuff will teach you the benefits of proper train handling, track and rolling stock maintenance, and per-haps lead you into the interesting pursuit of better performance from your loco-motives. If I do have a derailment, I call out the big hook (hand) and use a soft bru***o sweep up the worst of the spill onto a sheet of paper. Vacuum the re-mainder or leave it, as you wish. About the only negative aspect of this stuff is that some of the particles are slightly magnetic; could be a problem with open frame motors or if the derailment is over an uncoupling magnet. It takes me about 5 minutes to empty a train and less than 10 minutes to refill it . As for a source for this stuff, I’m uncertain (a good size bag of it followed me home from work several years ago), but you could contact your nearest prototype and they might be able to direct you to a supplier or perhaps even sell you a small amount directly. I think that you would have to buy a fairly large (100lb?) bag from a supplier but it should be pretty cheap, seeing as the material is more or less just dumped onto the ground when it is used. You could probably re-coup your costs by selling the excess to other modellers. Hope this is of some help.
I have tried just about all the commercial loads available and like CM shops the best. Have one hundred fifty two hoppers with loads and about one hundred are CM loads. If you can’t find them at your local hobby shop, they can be mail ordered from Model Railroad Post Office.
I do have a deap river tipple that has been converted to load hoppers with coal, have had the best luck with the water filter charcoal. Have had a rotary dump powered with small electric gear reduction motors and controled with micro switches in the past , am in the process of upgrading it at the present. Also have a fleet of Tyco hoppers that I use to dump with also. Hope this helps.
Howdy, Buffalo Bob, thanks for doing your Doody.
Are those Tyco hoppers operating bottom-dumpers? I pulled mine out of storage, and I can’t wait until I can load them up again and drop the load into a bin. I’ve got 10 of them, and I think they’re a real treasure.
I know someone earlier mentioned putting lead shot into the base of hoppers because they are notoriosly underweight without a coal load. I just want to add to that posting. After I glue the lead shot into the hopper and before the glue has dried, I sprinkle on a small amount of my “coal” to hide the lead shot. I use “Alene’s Tacky Glue” because it is thicker than Elmer’s and therefore won’t drip through to the underside of the hopper if there are openings on the bottom. Once the Tacky Glue is dry, I usually add a little more coal to level off the “load” and then I add Elmer’s glue cut 50% with water so the coal will spread evenly and be flat. When I pull the coal loads out to return the hoppers as “empties”, you can hardly notice the small amount of coal at the bottom of the hopper.
Hope this helps.
Mondo
Personally, I use Motrak Models for my coal loads. The company is owned by a friend and former club member that I’ve known for a few years (he moved to Florida). That being said, he still makes some nice looking coal, gravel, sand, granite, & etc. loads. He primarily uses hydrocal as the base for the load, then puts the rock on top of it.
Paul A. Cutler III
Weather Or No Go New Haven
MisterBeasley:
Can’t remember the original publication, but it was reprinted in the MR book “Realistic Animation, Lighting and Sound.”
In a nutshell, the key is a standard auger-style wood bit, rotated in reverse by a junkyard motor (presumably an automotive window motor - it was 12v) inside a piece of PVC pipe. Coal was stored in a hopper that completely filled the over-track structure, feeding the auger at the motor end. As the auger turned it moved the coal (actually charcoal) to a slot over the car to be loaded, The pilot screw of the bit had been de-threaded, and ran in a bearing in the cap over the end of the pipe. Capacity was around 20 carloads, if my memory serves.
When I build my version of this gadget I,ll lay my rails on longitudinal beams, with a hole under the loading spot so anything that misses the car will end up in a container under the minehead rather than scattered all over the countryside. I don’t have to worry about dragging loads upgrade, since the colliery is at the top of a continuous downgrade. (I’m in `preparing the space’ mode in the aftermath of a cross-country move - hopefully my last.)
Go to your local salvage yard and purchase a charcoal cannister from a junk car; they all have them since 1968. Cut it open with a hacksaw, spread the “coal” out to let the gas fumes evaporate ( one or two days), then use what ever base you like and glue the coal to the base.
Looks a little small grained for HO and a little large for N but is a very cheap solution. I’ve used it on several Steam tenders and it looks very convincing.
Dean
Loathar gave me the idea to use floral foam ( the stuff they stick the base of flowers in when they put them in an arrangement ) as the base to form a coal load, and then add some sort of material to simulate the coal. Well, I gave it a shot, and here are the results. I used ballast for the coal, (attaching it to the foam with the same method and materials used for ballasting track) and then painted the whole thing black.
This pic shows the foam base, then what it looks like in the hopper, and then the finished product.
Here is a better shot of the finished load.
I’m not sure if the shape of the load is quite right, but it’s just my first attempt. Now I only have to make about 11 more of these loads to fill the rest of my hoppers.
Not sure if the shape is right? You’re too picky. I think it looks great.
Looks good to me! If I didn’t know any better, I would say you loaded it with coal from top to bottom.[;)]
looks nice. I’ll be doing that someday
Andrew
To the guy who has a fleet of Mantua/Tyco hoppers and wants to use ‘real’ loose coal loads. The model has a pair of ‘clam shell’ gates on the bottom(sort of like ballast cars) and they are not a tight fit. They bounce as the car moves and lose their load along the way. I had 3 of these cars back in the late 60’s. I had a AHM ‘mine’ with a selonoid activated loading chute, and a Tyco ‘unloading’ ramp. The best ‘load’ was fine ballast, but the fine stuff leaked out of the cars! The more course stuff hung up in the cars and need a little ‘pushing’ to get the load out. The weight of loose loads also is quite high. A couple of loops around the railroad, and a single derailment ‘spill’ was enough to cure me!
Jim Bernier
LOADS…the coal car looks very good… butttttttttt …remember to look at prototypical loads… when coal is loaded with a chute flood loader the top of the coal is usually level ( parallel with track ) and sloped on the edges…when cars are loaded by premeasured drop loaders the cars are uneven and have a peak of approx 2 ft in the middle… these are the modern types of loaders… … a small loading facility may only consist of a large front end loader loading 10 to 30 cars a day or less and this will have a very uneven profile… so as a general rule the more modern the complex the neater profile of the load
SIZE OF COAL… in the early steam era the coal could sometimes be quite large almost the size of a loaf of bread and may be thrown into the fire box…modern steamers with mechanical stokers used very small lumps of coal… the smaller the better so that the pusher and stoker could operate a lot easier…coal size is determined by the customer… run of mine coal that is loaded straight from a mine without a crusher would be all diferent sizes from dust to lumps… the customer from a power plant may want and they usually do want coal the size of wallnuts… the coal will still be put thru the tumble crusher at the power plant to ensure that the coal is sized right before being BLOWN into the burner…
PLEASE… remember that coal is a carbon product and carbon is something that you do not want near your model railroad… you may clean up spillage etc HOWEVER you will not remove the fine dust from loading and unloading… so i would NEVER use or recomend loose loads of coal
hope this is of some help to you all… any question please feel free to email me…peter
Looks great! Sounds like a good idea for coal loads. I can’t figure out a good coal load for me. I might have to try this.
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