simulating coal loads?

[Anonymous]

how can I simulate coal loading and pickup using fake coal loads

[mls1621]

My neighbor and I have constructed a steel mill on his n scale layout.

The coal delivery to the coke facility is through a dump shed with a removeable rear wall.

The coal laods that came with the hoppers have been sanded and a piece of steel glued to the under side to allow easy removal with a magnet.

As the cars are pulled through the shed, they are stopped and the coal loads removed.

Once emptied, the train is returned to the mine and backed in. From there, we pull it out another track to reload the cars and return it to the mine entrance far another trip to the steel mill.

I hope this is helpful.

[cacole]

That's an ingenious solution. You could also get scale sized plastic coal and load hoppers at the mine, then dump it into a box of some type at the other end. This would require that the loading and unloading be out of site unless you can model a mine tipple and coal dumping facility. I don't recall ever seeing an HO model of a rotary dump, and it would be difficult to model without actual operating models of the special couplers that the real hoppers use.

[dehusman]

Get some styrofoam, the type used for floral arrangements, the stuff used for insulation or sheet packing material. All you need is material 1/2 in thick or so.
Cut it into rectangles that are the size of a hopper car. Using a se steak knife and/or coarse sandpaper or a wood rasp (a coarse file), round the tops of the foam pieces over to look like coal piles. You may have to cut the ends of the foam at a angle to fit into the car. Avoid breathing the foam dust.

Paint the foam with black latex paint, (DO NOT USE SPRAY PAINT). When it dries paint the top of the foam with white glue and sprinkle on scale coal. Let dry, tap off the excess and you have a coal load that drops into your coal car.

If the fit is too tight, rub the edges on coarse sandpaper until it fits loosely adn then touch up with black paint. You can knock out dozens of these in an afternoon.

Dave H.

[Anonymous]

What Dave describes here is exactly what I did, except I used black aquarium gravel from the dollar store (guess how much it cost) to simulate the coal.

Here's some pictures: http://the-gauge.com/showthread.php?t=5406&highlight=coal

Andrew

[cwclark]

the way i do it is glue weights in the hopper until it's 4 ounces...then take a sheet of black construction paper, cut it to fit inside the hopper walls, crumble it a bit to form mounds, and glue it in place. Now, brush some glue on top of the construction paper, take some charcoal..(the kind that goes into fi***anks), sprinkle it on the glued section of the paper and whalaa! ..A coal load....[:D] Chuck

[Anonymous]

Hi
well me I use the foam block trick painted black then grab a rag with a lump of real coal in it head out the back pulverise the coal sift out the stuff that's too big stick the rest on the coal load nothing quite looks like coal other than coal
regards John

[ClinchValleySD40]

QUOTE: Originally posted by cacole

That's an ingenious solution. You could also get scale sized plastic coal and load hoppers at the mine, then dump it into a box of some type at the other end. This would require that the loading and unloading be out of site unless you can model a mine tipple and coal dumping facility. I don't recall ever seeing an HO model of a rotary dump, and it would be difficult to model without actual operating models of the special couplers that the real hoppers use.

Mike Ritschdorff (of HGTV fame) in Chicago has an operating rotary dump. It's one car at a time (steam era) so no special couplers needed. The cars dump into a small bucket which is then taken back to the mine and dumped into the coal prep plant ready for reloading. It works great and the dump master is a job that goes pretty high on the seniority list.