Tichy Train Group 400 Ton Coaling Tower Kit prototype

[Valeriy]

Excellent work! Excellent images! Many thanks for your assembling instructions.

Valeriy.

[Valeriy]

Thank you for your links.

With the help of your second link I found Fairbanks, Morse & Co. 1935 Catalog  http://fr8car.com/fmcatalog.html. Highly recommended.

[doctorwayne]

The Tichy kit is based on the one built by Fairbanks Morse in Lamy, New Mexico, for the Santa Fe.  According to the instruction sheet, it's a slightly modified version of the prototype, but is a typical example of this type of coaling tower.
The kit's design allows quite a bit of leeway (as did the prototype) on chute placement and the layout of stairs, ladders and platforms. 
A friend expressed an interest in this model some years ago, and wondered if I would build one for him.  After he agreed to supply a second model for my own use, I got to work.

I built the basic structures as per the instructions, using lacquer thinner as a solvent-type cement - there's not really much choice for the "concrete" portions of it, as the real ones were generally a standard design which was then customised through placement of the chutes, platforms, etc.  I used a modified X-Acto #17chisel blade, held perpendicular to the surface and dragged, straight-edge-first, across the walls' surfaces to impart lines representing those left by form boards.   After these parts were assembled, I airbrushed them a concrete colour and then set about assembling the add-on "metal" parts.  I also painted the base, but didn't cement it to the tower, as you'll need access to install the chutes and associated hardware.

The instructions recommend the use of ca, mainly due to the fact that the you'll be installing pre-painted sub-assemblies onto the pre-painted structure.  In my opinion, this is a poor choice, as ca is notoriously lacking in shear strength and there are a lot of details sticking out from the basic structure. 
I opted for solvent-type cement ( again, lacquer thinner - it's cheap and very effective, and useful for a lot of other purposes) for all plastic-to-plastic joints, scraping paint from mating surfaces - a little more work, but well worth the effort, as both towers ( his installed on a layout and mine still awaiting layout construction) are both still intact after almost 20 years.
In addition to the solvent cement, I reinforced joints where plastic-to-plastic contact was rather minimal due to kit design, the most notable being at attachment points for the bucket hoist ironwork to the concrete.  For this, I used a pin vise to drill holes for short lengths of suitably-sized music wire, which was then ca'ed in place.  When the ironwork was in position, solvent was applied to the plastic contact points, then ca added to the plastic-to-metal joints, resulting in a very strong structure which has stood up well to handling.
I made all of the chutes and sand delivery pipes moveable, which means that the support and activating chains also need to be moveable.  This makes the model somewhat difficult to handle as assembly proceeds - not only do the chains get in the way, but they also disengage from their proper positions, requiring careful realignment.  Pay attention to both the recommended order of assembly and areas where your particular options may dictate a revised order of assembly.
I pre-painted all of the sub-assemblies using an airbrush, using a brush where needed to touch-up contact points as they were added to the basic structure.  The roof was originally left in the same concrete colour as the rest of the structure, but several years after assembly, I used a 1/2" brush to "tar" the roof areas with PollyScale paint.
(Click on the photos for an enlargement and then on the enlargement for an even closer view.)

You can see the reinforcing pins within the angles attaching the hoist bridge to the sloped roof, but the pins were used over the entire height of the bridge and also under all of the exterior platforms and catwalks and at ladder attachment points, too.

After building the two Tichy towers, I had quite a few parts left-over, and used some of them to detail the small Walthers coaling tower which I used at my Lowbanks service facility, where space is at a premium:

Wayne

[cuyama]

The manufacturer indicates it is a model of a Fairbanks Morse coaling tower.
http://www.tichytraingroup.com/index.php?page=view_product.php&id=196&category=Structures

A google search turns up many photos of similar structures in use around the country. This was a standard design from F-M and was used by a number of railroads.

[Valeriy]

Hello,

I would like to order Tichy Train Group 400 Ton Coaling Tower Kit. But I don`t know any information about prototype (railroad, location, era and so on).

I`ll be glad to have any prototype information.

Thanks,

Valeriy.