I received my O scale coal cart kit the other day, guys, and it's a beaut! It's made from laser cut wood (hope it's 2-ply!) and quite intricate. Train Troll must've measured a prototype--which was used for coaling steamships in the early part of the 20h century--and the fine-spoked wheels are five feet in diameter. I wondered why, as the cart I remember from the late '40s had wheels only about three feet high, and then I realized: the one I saw rolled on concrete, but a ship's coal cart likely rolled on timber docks and gangplanks.
(The thing is actually scary, it's so delicate-looking. It'll have to wait until I have the rest of the project's finished--and hope my fingers are steady enough.)
Deano
Here's the picture from Train Troll:
And it does look to me as if a janitor could save a little time by 'scooping' into the bin and then tilting back on the handles.
OT DeanEd, it was your photos that got me thinking, and searching, so thanks a lot!
Glad you found something you can use, Deano! I'll bet I spent a good two-hours browsing all sorts of hand carts and enjoyed every minute. I usually comb through old photos like a detective. I always enjoy the Shorpy site as they usually have many old views of industry and city streets.
Looking at early 1900s scenes you see all sorts of hand trucks from the street sweepers, fish mongers, knife sharpeners, coal and ice trade, popcorn vendors, rag collectors, manure scoopers and nut roasters — among others. These were all competing with the streetcars, horse carts, automobiles, bicycles and pedestrians!
In the boiler room of the old GE plant where I worked the ashes were hauled in small narrow-gauge, vee shaped dump carts. Even after the boilers were converted to gas the carts were still around and I used to push them around sometimes.
I have a bunch of the old International Correspondence School Textbooks which are a great reference for much information about how things were done "back in the day".
Glad I could be of help. I enjoy reasons to reminisce Ed
gmpullman Hi, Deano I really enjoyed your memorable story. I remember being about seven or eight and went with my dad on a C-N fantrip to Stratford, Ontario. The roundhouse there had small push cars that ran on what was probably 2 foot gauge track. Like your memory, I had to find carts like these for my roundhouse area. So, what I found so far are these coal tubs from Artitec. Are they close? https://www.artitecshop.com/en/3-coal-tubs-for-coaling-station.html I recall seeing dump carts like you describe but I seem to believe they were used for carrying hot asphalt and/or gravel for roofing jobs. They sort of looked like the two blue ones in the upper left of the photo here, except with the large spoked wheels you describe: https://www.modeltrainstuff.com/preiser-ho-17107-forklifts-handtrucks-and-wheelbarrows-unpainted-26-pieces/ Did it sort-of look like this? dump-cart by Edmund, on Flickr This is the sort of hand truck that I recall the roofers using for gravel. I'll let you know if I find any thing else. Cheers, Ed
Hi, Deano
I really enjoyed your memorable story. I remember being about seven or eight and went with my dad on a C-N fantrip to Stratford, Ontario. The roundhouse there had small push cars that ran on what was probably 2 foot gauge track.
Like your memory, I had to find carts like these for my roundhouse area.
So, what I found so far are these coal tubs from Artitec. Are they close?
https://www.artitecshop.com/en/3-coal-tubs-for-coaling-station.html
I recall seeing dump carts like you describe but I seem to believe they were used for carrying hot asphalt and/or gravel for roofing jobs. They sort of looked like the two blue ones in the upper left of the photo here, except with the large spoked wheels you describe:
https://www.modeltrainstuff.com/preiser-ho-17107-forklifts-handtrucks-and-wheelbarrows-unpainted-26-pieces/
Did it sort-of look like this?
dump-cart by Edmund, on Flickr
This is the sort of hand truck that I recall the roofers using for gravel.
I'll let you know if I find any thing else.
Cheers, Ed
I bought some of Newton K. Gregg's Train Shed Publications, including "Buildings & Structures of American Railroads (1892)," by Walter G. Berg, a Civil Engineer with the Lehigh Valley RR. These paperback reproductions are a mine of information for modelers of late 19th and early 20th century railroading. In his book Berg discusses, in detail, the best materials, details, considerations--and the relative costs of structures and even the cost of operation. He describes the number of employees, and their hourly pay, usually at cents per hour, for operations. Shoveling things was the usual answer for locomotive servicing with coal, sand, etc.
An hour or so ago, I typed "coaling carts" into the Google search window, got "Images of" them, and found a photo of a wonderful little coaling cart very similar to the one in my memory: "O Scale (1:48) Coal Cart Kit," the right scale and everything! I clicked "Visit," saw a reasonable price and shipping fee, which saves me the time and energy of designing and building it, and ordered one immediately. (And as usual, when I typed in the same search, to recommend it to you, I couldn't find it again!) However, if you search for "train troll kit o-401-a" will give you a photo of it.
Ed, it was your photos that got me thinking, and searching, so thanks a lot!
Can't contribute anything about the carts, but it looks like Ed may have a close example.
Just wanted to say it's good to hear about someone else modeling in the early part of the 20th cent. Seems like most of the current model marketing is contemporary. My period is the '20s, only about a decade later than yours. Those "golden" years are inspiring for me. Coincidentally, my dad was born in your modeling year, 1912.
I'll be adding a boiler house adjacent to my 3-stall roundhouse. I live west of Chicago and am generally patterning my layout around part of the EJ&E.
I have a vivid memory from 70 years ago that's stuck in my mind for my 2-stall engine house project. I started school just after the end of WWII, in a beautiful red brick building with hardwood floors and shrouded radiator heaters under the windows of classrooms. These had electric blowers in them to circulate the heat and I remember being cozy warm all winter, with no drafts. The grade school, kindergarten through sixth grade, was in one building and grades seven through twelve were in a building across a concrete court from it. I wasn't aware of it for a few years, but there was a steel door in the courtyard where coal was dumped into a bunker under it.
I admit I was scared when we traveled from the basement of the grade school through the boiler room, on a platform running along the wall behind the big boilers, on our way to the lunch rooms in the basement of the Senior Building. The boilers were screw-fed from big square (red) hoppers at the edge of the platform and had an evil roar and isinglass "eyes." (Of course, I knew nothing about stokers at that time, but when I became a railroad nut in my teens, I realized what they were.) When I was older, I got used to them and the coal bunker fascinated me. We'd had a coal bin in the basement at home and my dad and oldest brother hauled coal scuttles upstairs to stoke the little kitchen heater stove and the big heater in the corner of the living room.
There was a steel cart in the coal bunker, with big wheels of steel and heavy rod spokes, and my brother later told me the janitor/fireman would scoop up stoker coal like you'd scoop up snow, tilt the cart back, and wheel it out on the platform to dump coal into the stoker bins. Now, here's the thing: no matter how I word my search, I still can't find any photos of these carts (my usual problem with the internet). I already have lost-wax spoked wheels I can turn down to simulate the formed steel rims, but I have no idea of the dimensions of such a thing. I can't imagine this was the only boiler room that used carts to fill the hoppers, even though the thing was rather rudimentary looking. I'd like to have one sitting on the dock in front of the boiler room addition to my engine house (I know where to get a boiler kit and I already have a steam engine driven generator to light up the place; it's 1912, after all!) Is there anyone out there who knows what I'm talking about--and is better at winnowing information out of the 'net? Thanks.