coal cars

[Rolo Tomasee]

 A coal car came with my new set. Although they look neat they seem to be a pain to operate. My car dumps its load way to fast, the coal tray is to big to easily refill the car and accidental dumping makes a mess. I may just glue the coal in the car for looks and forget about operating the coal car. Sorry I just had to rant. Is there a better built coal car or is my giving up playing with this feature of my set my best option?

[EIS2]

All coal accessories are a mess.  I switched to logging which is much cleaner.

Here is the way I cleaned up the coal on my railroad.  I used our portable vacuum and placed and old teeshirt across the hose where the hose entered the cannister so that the teeshirt formed a membrane to catch the coal.  I then vacuumed up the coal and retrieved it from the vaccuum hose.  It made a fast and easy method to retrieve all the chunks of coal from the layout.

Earl

[Chris F]

Rolo, I'd recommend against glueing the coal in place.  You might want to sell the car eventually, and you'd be reducing the number of potential buyers.

If you're operating on a carpet, you definitely don't want to dump coal!  Consider loads with larger particle sizes, like small stones.  Make a smaller bin from cardboard or foamboard to allow easier re-loading.

If you're operating on a permanent layout, leave the small coal spills where they lay (as long they don't interfere with operation).  That's basically what the real railroads do.

[underworld]

All coal accessories are a mess.  I switched to logging which is much cleaner.

Here is the way I cleaned up the coal on my railroad.  I used our portable vacuum and placed and old teeshirt across the hose where the hose entered the cannister so that the teeshirt formed a membrane to catch the coal.  I then vacuumed up the coal and retrieved it from the vaccuum hose.  It made a fast and easy method to retrieve all the chunks of coal from the layout.

Earl

That is a great idea!

underworld

[fifedog]

Rolo - I ordered one of Lionel's Rotary Coal Tipples (6-32910) when they first came out.  It is the best accessory I have ever seen in any scale.  The caveat is you can only use Lionel COAL TIPPLE COAL (6-24148), as traditional coal will jam up the gearing.  This tipple coal has been panned for its size (kinda RAISENETTE shaped) but it is easy to clean up.  I saved my bathroom sink when I remodelled, and when I get around to installing the rotary tipple on my layout, the sink will be mounted under the industry to collect the dumped coal, which will pour into a bucket underneath the benchwork.