I have an engine house that has a pile of coal beside the engine house near the back. It is near what could be either an office or a power house.
What I’m trying to figure is if I am modeling an old-steam wood burning area, would that pile be: coal, charcoal, or wood?
I’d imagine they might use it for heating the building in the winter?
Or maybe they had to clean out a space in the tender for the speaker? [(-D]
You’re right. The coal from the tender has to go somewhere. Genius!
Hi, Chip, “back in the day” late '50’s early '60’s I worked on SP in Oakland CA All the teakettles that were left were oil burners and on the dead track, but we had plenty of coal! All the crummies, crew shacks, yard offices, etc. had potbellied stoves for heat and coal was the only fuel. First guy in the morning dumped in a heap of coal, lit a fusee (flare), and stuck it in the middle of the pile. The carman’s shack/office/caboose whatever was toasty warm in a half hour or less! jc5729
Coal wasn’t unknown on the West Coast in the 1880s, it was just less frequent. You still found it, because wood just isn’t nearly as good a fuel as coal. Wood-burning locomotives don’t need any special modifications to burn coal, so if they have it they can use it. A small pile out back, though, wouldn’t be enough coal and not handy enough to fill a tender, so it’s probably the pile for the boiler in the enginehouse that powers mechanical tools, or the stove to keep the office warm.
The Old Dog would suspect that the engine house and office would be heated and powered with same fuel as would be used by the engines. The exception might be coal or charcoal for a forge if one was present.
That leads to an interesting question, what would an ash pile for wood burning engines look like?
Have fun
Good point! Also note that it is an excuse to occasional run a work train consisting of a gondola load of coal and an old coach so that the section crew can fill all the coal bins. Don’t forget the stations, section houses, and gate tender shacks.
Have fun
I believe the shops also needed steam to keep boilers pressurized when they were doing certain types of work, or if they needed a cold boiler but steam, none the less, and would hook up steam tubes or pipes to appliances for testing or whatever. So, it was not always good to keep the boilers fired in the shops, but some steam was needed anyway…it came from a stationary plant nearby or from an in-house boiler.
Having cleaned out a wood stove for ten winters, I would say that the typical wood-ash pile would look like the contents of an ash tray - less the butts and crumbs of unburned tobacco. Compared to the cinders and clinker left over from burning coal, the quantity would be miniscule.
Chuck (nonsmoker, modeling Central Japan in September, 1964 - including wood burning locos)
Sounds like that pile of coal is about to become a pile of wood. Thanks guys.
Don’t forget to split it!
Maybe use something like this to get it to size.
http://www.ares-server.com/Ares/Ares.asp?MerchantID=RET01229&Action=Catalog&Type=Product&ID=50330
Then paint the dowel to taste, cut it to length, and then quarter it.
Have fun
Not worried. Already did this…
and I have this
I can take the saw down to 1/32.
Do worry, fire wood is usually quarter round or half round with the bark left on the round parts. Although, that Climax looks pretty good as is.
As to the saw, have you had any problems with it? When one sees one in the hardware catalogs, it certainly sounds like a good buy.
Have fun
Dog,
I’ve been around tools all my life. This is the Micro-Lux sold my MicroMark. There is nothing wimpy about this sucker. I’ve ripped popsicle sticks for an hour and a half straight with no over-heating. The only reason, I’ve had to stop was to empty the sawdust out of the motor compartment.
The wood on the Climax was twigs cut to length and split into quarters using a #11 blade.
Thanks for the info.
Have fun
Remember that the pile of fuel (wood or coal) isn’t just for heating: a vertical boiler and steam engine would be used to power belt-driven power tools inside the roundhouse for various mechanical tasks.
To reiterate, coal wasn’t unknown in California in the 1880s. Even if your locomotives are wood-fired, there is no reason to exclude coal from your layout.
The engine house in question is this one, the coal pile is in the shadows.
From the size of the stacks, you can pretty much bet that there is a horizontal boiler/steam engine in there.
That doesn’t mean it wouldn’t be wood fired. It seems to me that a railroad would probably be consistent with their fuel unless otherwise would be more profitable.
A couple other thoughts;
Firewood is usually dried before use. Would there be another pile around somewhere for the wood to dry in? Would there be a roof over the wood pile to keep it dry?
One would suspect that the wood being dried would be neatly stacked as cord wood to assure the best results and that it would be split. But would the wood be cut off with a saw or chopped off with an ax? Would the bark be removed or left on?
Would the wood in a tender be stacked or simply thrown in? Would there be some sort of raised platform for loading wood into tenders, or would it simply be throw from a pile on the ground?
And of course, the answer to many of the above questions would probably depend on the location and railroad.
But the question that is really got the Old Dog wondering is what about couplers. In that period, the railroads used link and pin couplers. What could one use that would look right, yet allow fairly easy switching.
Have fun
Dog,
We sorta had this conversation before. Harold M. went with link and pin, but I want to protect the hands of my crew and am going with knuckles. Besides, that big old toothpick from the sky won’t undo link & pin.
It is just an engine house or also a loco shop? Wouldn’t a repair shop have a furnace for metal working in the blacksmith shop? I don’t think they would want take every metal thing that needed some work over to the local blacksmithy on a wagon. Coal produces such a hotter and cleaner fire than wood does.
I think the ideas for heating are good, but it seems coal would be much to expensive to use in a pot belly stove when one could step out the door and have almost an unlimited supply of California redwood to burn.