Grab that hopper and turn it upside-down! Rotary Dumper???

[Anonymous]

I grew up beside Ohio Power's Philo Plant, located on the old Ohio & Little Kanawha Branch of the B & O. I used to watch a piece of equipment that I think was called a rotary dumper. It would grab a hopper car of coal and turn it upside-down. It was very quick and the car would then roll down a slope to join its empty brethren. The coal would fall through a grate onto a conveyor belt which carried it into the plant. In winter weather, though, the coal would freeze and men would have to break up the frozen chunks with long spud bars, a dreaded and dangerous job. I would like to scratch-build a working model of one in N scale. My question: Has anyone ever made one of these or seen published the plans for it?

[Anonymous]

Walthers made a kit for one as part of their Paper Mill 'subscription' series.
http://walthers.com/exec/productinfo/933-3145
Don't know if it's still available though...

[nfmisso]

There is a club in the Niagara Falls area that has one in HO, scratch built.

Here's another: http://www.ida.net/users/tetonsl/railroad/dumper.htm

http://members.trainorders.com/pmack/couplers.htm



Do a goggle search.

[TBat55]

This week I went to the B&O Railroad Museum in Baltimore (I'll post in Sunday Photo Fun). They have an HO layout in a railcar built by professional model makers from MD. Here's a picture of an excellent coal hopper dumper (sorry for the glare). Note the 2 tracks with turnouts and wood covering.



If you go there, just look for the gigantic roundhouse with a 60' turntable inside:


... or look for one of these outside:

[Anonymous]

THANKS A MILLION, GUYS! I can make this thing and I think I can make it work in N! I guess you gotta know who to ask and you've been great! Larry J. Morgan

[Anonymous]

The Antlope valley model R.R. club had one of these, & it was rotatable too.

[cefinkjr]

Now let us know when you've built a string of N scale bathtub gons with rotary couplers so they don't have to be uncoupled when you dump them. The really tough part of this project would be training ants to do the work for you.

[}:)] [swg]

Chuck