So, take my biggest steam engine, and all the hoppers I own, and put together a coal drag to service the Mt Tim power plant (off layout). The coal loads are all homemade from white pine and HO scale coal. The locomotive is an ancient AHM/Rivarossi Berkshire. The hoppers are a mix of Bachmann trainset, Athearn, Atlas, and Accurail. The train is passing the Franconia Paper Co on the way into Lisbon.
And here we are leaving Lisbon, passing the switch tower.
And here is the full length of the coal drag running over the liftout sections that give access to the train room, the closet, and the bathroom. That’s 15 hoppers and a caboose. The Berkshire has no trouble pulling them. The layout is flat, no grades, 22 inch curves. The train is already too long for my passing sidings. But, I have enough unbuilt kits and train show finds to make it a lot longer.
Looks really good and thanks for the inspiration—I haven’t run a coal train in a long time (been too busy with refrigerator extras, lol) and it’s time for me to get out the big 2-10-2 and my collection of hoppers.
I like that AHM Berkshire–as I remember, they were pretty decent pullers.
Just love 'coal drags". Modeling B&O and Chessie allows modeling my favorites.
I’ll run various eras, EM1 or SD7s w/ couple dozen 55T composite/ rebuilds (early to mid '50s), 2nd Gen EMDs w/ string of couple dozen mixed 55 and 70T ('60s) and working on a few dozen Bowser 100T to be pulled by Chessie SD50s or GP40-2s.
And some “modeler’s license” foobie, all sort of era equipment, it’s all fun
Video, think all the bugs are out of Photobucket
Dave, looks like you’re having fun, that’s what’s it’s all about. Enjoy
Can’t see the photo’s as they are blocked at work.
I’m going to try for 25 car coal trains to get a longish look although I have enough to build 40 car coal trains in a couple cases (UP/D&RGW Thrall gons and CSDU/CDDPU 5-bay hoppers). I guess the term “long” is relative isn’t it?
Rich, a lot of my old pics were w/ a cheapo digital and never knew proper settings. It’s a bit blurred. been having great pics lately w/ galaxy S5, quite the camera in them.
Dave, that “Berk” may be an oldie, but sure looks great. The NP Berkshire is my all time Fav steam.
It’s not bad. I stuffed in as much lead as would fit, which helped. It came out a little tail heavy, balances back around the third driver rather than inbetween the 2nd and 3rd driver. Slow speed operation is pretty good considering the motor is only three poles, a mostly plastic Rivarossi design with the drive shaft pointing straight down, the likes of which I’d never seen before. It’s running on the original magnets, couldn’t figure out a graceful way of upgrading to supermagnets.
T’is a subject near to me heart. My favourite coal drag engine is the daunting Y6b from the Norfolk & Western Railway. I believe that only the 2-8-8-4 Yellowstones exceeded its tractive effort.
A tripod will improve the photos from even the lowest end camera. Use the selftimer to trigger the shutter, to avoid any camera shake from a quivering finger wiggling the shutter release.
Set the lens aperture (f-stop) as small as it will go, (biggest f-stop numbers) for best depth of field and best lens sharpness. Compensate for the small lens opening with a long exposure time. With the camera held steady on the tripod, exposure times of several seconds become practical.
When it came to coal drags, Rio Grande liked to head them up with their big F-81 2-10-2’s, built by Alco in 1917 and the most powerful non-articulated loco on the roster. Here’s #1408 with its original smallish Vanderbuilt tender hefting about 20 hoppers up the 2% grade out of South Yuba Canyon. The “snow” around the mine in the backdrop is an unfinished cliff.
The 2-10-2 is a Precision Scale import that runs like a Swiss watch and hauls like a team of oxen.
I run regular coal trains from the lowest level of staging to an unmodelled power plant in staging on the upper level. Trains are steam-powered, either a pair of Athearn Mikes or Bachmann Consolidations (or one of each), with train length limited to 12 hoppers and a caboose. This is mainly due to the 2.5% grades, most of them on curves, and the fact that I use “live” loads. Because of that, the train (hoppers and caboose) weighs 100oz.
The longest coal train I’ve run (on the same grades) was behind a couple of modified Athearn U-boats. One of them couldn’t pull the 42 loaded hoppers up the grade (mostly Athearn 34’-ers), but two could have handled quite a few more. The problem was that I’d run out of “coal” - actually, it was locomotive traction grit, very similar in appearance to Black Beauty blasting medium. Total trailing weight was a little north of 21lbs. [swg]
Wayne, any pics of that coal drag? That Bachman EM1 pictured above really surprised me. There’s a temp ramp on the club layout that is close to 2 1/2%, the single EM1 will pull 34 hydrocal loads in Proto hoppers. Will start on the grade w/ minimal wheel slip with 26 of them. Quite impressed w/ the over running, pulling and detail.
And after 1955 when the last steam was retired, D&RGW turned to it’s fleet of F, geeps and SD units, and a hand full of RS’s to pull coal traffic. In the 1960’s coal traffic started to pick up and the Grande strung together long consists of F7s and GP9s, and around 1967 SD45’s were purchased especially with the coal traffic in mind.
In the 1970’s, the coal boom was well underway and coal traffic exploded on the D&RGW compared to prior decades, and D&RGW began a purchase program of SD40T-2’s to handle the upsurge in traffic, eventually accumulating 73 tunnel motors, along with 27 SD45’s; GP30’s, 35’s and 40’s helped too.
Athearn has produced a nice upgrade of the MDC Thrall gondola in versions represented in common D&RGW 1970’s and 80’s coal trains, inluding the UP/D&RGW joint unit coal train, Indiana Power and Light NORX yellow end unit train, and Public Service of Colorado coal PSCX. In addition there are the upgraded MDC 5-bay Ornter rapid discharge hoppers as well. Here is a list I compiled of coal cars that have been produced in HO that are fairly accurate for D&RGW coal trains and based on Jim Eagers Color Guide to Freight & Passenger cars book:
HO COAL CARS AVAILABLE to model Rio Grande coal trains:
Stewart 3-bay Bethlehem 70-ton 12 & 14 panel (black small D&RGW 14 Panel 1957/58, 12 Panel 1960/62/66)
Bowser 3-bay 100-ton built by C&O Raceland shops (reporting marks only - no stacked logo, acquired 2nd hand in 1990 from UMP)
Walthers 3483 cu ft 4-bay Bethlehem 100-ton hopper (D&RGW small logo 5/64, large logo 1968/69/71/74&75)
ExactRail 3483 cu ft 4-bay Bethlehem 100-ton hopper (D&RGW small logo 5/64, large logo 1968/69/71/74 and later dates) same car as the Walthers but fine scale tooling and more detail. Version in 16xxx series should have angle irons on upper chord for the number
