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 Posted - January 15 2014 : 7:44:56 PM
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Came across this photo that works for me and I thought other folks who are working with limited space layouts and old time era . . .
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Posted - January 15 2014 : 8:41:26 PM
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Barry,
Cool beans.
Thanks
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Posted - January 15 2014 : 9:55:31 PM
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| Yeah John, this photo was actually taken in Texas (I forget where; I found it on google images while looking for coal loading pictures). But, I think it's kind of era specific and I'm planning on trying to build something like that on my (hope to be) Colorado railroad layout.
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Posted - January 15 2014 : 10:15:51 PM
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It looks like a lot of goon spoon work getting the coal from the gondola into the buckets, but at least that can be done at leisure and not while an engine waits.
Speaking of the gondola, a person who wanted some old-time gondolas (Barry, for instance) could fairly easily build up sides on a truss-rod flatcar and have something pretty close to the one in the photo. It should require less skill and time than building a craftsman kit hopper car.
Carpe Manana!
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Posted - January 17 2014 : 5:55:13 PM
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| Yeah Don, I'm thinkin' buildin' up a flat car may be the best shot. After looking around, I discovered I had one of those (Bachmann) old time gondola pieces that fits on one of their old time (old west?) flat cars which I have and maybe will repurpose (how about that, just like one of those corporate folks that burns your chaps when they whip out some term like "repurpose"?).
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Posted - January 17 2014 : 9:37:57 PM
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quote:(how about that, just like one of those corporate folks that burns your chaps when they whip out some term like "repurpose"?).
Originally posted by Barry - January 17 2014 : 5:55:13 PM
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It'll be fine as long as you don't start saying "actionable." Now there's a word from The Book of Gooder English.
Anyway, it should be enough that you're thinking outside the boxcar.
Carpe Manana!
Edited by - scsshaggy on January 17 2014 11:06:35 PM
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Posted - January 20 2014 : 8:30:30 PM
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| I've been looking at the photo Don because I really want to model it for my small layout. Looks to me like the platform the crane is on is just a "repurposed" flat car; seems you can even see the truss rod end bolts and a stake pocket along the side. That, and I also think they just grabbed some rail ties and "repurposed" them for the four corner posts?
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Posted - January 20 2014 : 10:42:40 PM
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The business of building with what you have on hand was very popular with the railroads back in the day when they had texture and character. It's a practice that's fun to imitate in modeling, not just by building models of their "repurposing", but by changing stuff the modeler already has on hand. This car is a case in point:
It's built around the frame of an old Roundhouse truss rod boxcar (the old tooling with the metal floor). The car body was built out of 1/32" sheet balsa wood that I cut into planks and built up in a fairly obvious way. It was all stuff that I had on hand serving a new purpose.
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Posted - January 21 2014 : 11:02:26 AM
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That gondola looks real good Don. I'm curious what you did to make it look like bolt heads on the stakes? I started a mock-up of the coal loading facility I want to do. My gondola is a Bachmann Old West that I tried to tune-up with paint. I'm waiting for another to arrive that I can flip over and use for the platform. At some point, I would like to scratch build a few gondolas. Actually, the first cars I ever scratch built were these types of gondolas; I believe from a Model Railroader article circa 1963. I gave them to the local hobby shop when I began my 50 year hiatus from model railroading. I don't believe they were the quality and detail of your example though.
I think the plan will be to put a pin (wacked off needle?) on the top and bottom of the crane post to allow it to swivel between the gondola and the tender.
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Posted - January 21 2014 : 1:07:03 PM
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quote:I'm curious what you did to make it look like bolt heads on the stakes?
I started a mock-up of the coal loading facility I want to do.
My gondola is a Bachmann Old West that I tried to tune-up with paint.
Originally posted by Barry - January 21 2014 : 11:02:26 AM[/right] [/i]
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The bolt heads on the stakes are dots of glue. The thing is glued together using Elmers Carpenters Glue, so I just dotted some on with a tooth pick.
Your mock up looks pretty good. I think at least parts of it should be included in the real deal; they're good enough.
I also like the gondola car in the picture.
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Posted - January 21 2014 : 1:47:49 PM
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| I like to use Elmer's glue, though I did just put some "turnbuckles" on by applying a "gob" of JB Weld. I like the way I can glue some plastic things with Elmer's so I can take them off later. I think I will use what I can off the mock up. Big deal is it makes me realize I need to change my layout for a more realistic and somewhat operational yard set-up.
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Posted - January 21 2014 : 6:31:13 PM
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Rolled up some cardstock and bent some wire and smeared on some paint. They look more beat up than they should (e.g., compared to photo; likely heavy steel that could tolerate abuse), but maybe from 6 feet away, hey?
Need a little more paint to hide that brass.
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Posted - January 21 2014 : 9:25:44 PM
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Those buckets look pretty good. The paint looks convincingly like the mix of rust and coal dust one would expect. It's great when a simple method produces such a good result.
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Posted - January 23 2014 : 4:42:36 PM
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As Shaggy said, early railroads used anything they had on hand, so those buckets might have done double duty unloading rocks or gravel. They don't seem unnecessarily beat up to me. Also, you don't know their age in the photo. The steps look newly built, so the picture may have been snapped when it was all relatively new.
Interesting how they laid lengths of rail on the platform, probably to make pushing the buckets easier.
Cool work as always, Barry.
The Tyco Depot
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Posted - January 24 2014 : 10:43:03 PM
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I happened on a video of a bucket coal loader in use:
http://youtu.be/dHd5c5nc_UI
It's just a short clip between 1:05 and 1:16
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Posted - January 25 2014 : 09:42:46 AM
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s2YH-djIASE
Also can be found here on this vid from New Zealand
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Posted - January 25 2014 : 6:22:53 PM
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| Great videos Don and Mike, and with better resolution than the photograph. Interesting that the buckets in the Maine video seem to be made of wood, and interesting crane and the way it's operated in the New Zealand video. Thanks much.
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Posted - January 27 2014 : 10:00:28 PM
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More to do, but this seems to be coming along . . .
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Posted - January 27 2014 : 11:20:54 PM
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Very nice! Structures like this are one big advantage to the era you're modeling. You're capturing a time when railroading had texture to it. Today, that facility would be a tractor with an end loader bucket on it.
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Posted - January 28 2014 : 9:14:10 PM
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Stair construction . . . found a google image of a stair stringer that when printed in contact sheet size seemed to be appropriate scale . . .
I guess what I'm doing is building this and then altering my layout track plan to accommodate it. We'll see how that goes.
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Posted - January 29 2014 : 8:49:58 PM
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Barry your fine detail modeling skills are impressive. Love seeing your work. 
http://tycodepot.com/
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Posted - January 30 2014 : 9:31:21 PM
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That coal dock's coming together really nicely! I just saw an article for a bucket loader in the Nov. 2013 RMC, but I like your prototype better. The one in RMC had a big pile of coal on the ground and it was unclear how it got there.
The article mentioned a neat feature of this type of loader. I noticed a lack of some sort of hand winch or block and tackle that would multiply force enough for a human to lift that huge bucket of coal. The prototype for the one in the article had some means to hook the other end of the cable to the locomotive to lift the bucket. Then the cable was locked in and the tender spotted where the boom would swing. The crane was pivoted into place with a long pry bar set in rings in the vertical beam and the bucket was dumped.
It's resourceful when you think of it.
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Posted - January 30 2014 : 11:35:16 PM
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Maybe some sort of "power take off" on the locomotive? (On my 50 Chevy, if you pull a side plate on the transmission . . . and given that you have the accessories . . . you can run several different machines) Up to this point, I've been thinking of just putting on a couple of pulleys and maybe a gear and hand crank; thinking that a hand crank, geared appropriately could lift a bucket of coal; like a hand crank jack will lift a car.
Yeah, that business of "where did the pile of coal come from?" kind of bothered me as well. Now all I can say is "well that gondola brought a load of coal in from a yard a couple of layouts away." Ha!
I did mess with the construction today to get the crane post to swivel (as the one in the photograph must do; though I don't see any sort of bearing plate in the photo?). It will swivel, but it's pretty darn fragile. Maybe when it's actually on the layout, with the support poles and cables in place?
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blaneo
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Posted - January 31 2014 : 09:21:22 AM
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Looking very nice Barry. I can see this located in an out of the way, or backwoods location. It gives me a lot of inspiration for other types of unloading facilities.
Blane is the name,
Trains are the game.
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Posted - January 31 2014 : 09:34:13 AM
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| hi barry,its looking good,nice little diorama on its own ken
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Posted - February 14 2014 : 3:42:42 PM
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I finally committed to trying a pulley design. Found a ready made wheel (product in the photos) that turned out pretty decent. The package includes 2 sets and each set has a wheel, an axle, and a couple of axle mounts (that's probably not the correct terminology). Anyway, the thing even turns to raise the hook! I wasn't happy with any of the ready made hooks that were available, so this is a piece of wire with a glob of JB Weld on it. The smaller pulleys on the upper crane arm are made from circles of cardboard cut out with a leather hole punch and then a smaller diameter between the two outer skins.
This next photo shows how the crane post sits on a rail spike that has been glued up from under the flat car. A similar set-up connects the top of the crane post to the rest of the frame and allows the post to swivel.
Presently, the weight of the bucket with coal wont allow the bucket to remain suspended above the tender. I'm thinking maybe a smidgen of "Elmers" somewhere in the line up may hold things steady?
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Posted - February 14 2014 : 6:57:21 PM
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Posted - February 14 2014 : 7:05:07 PM
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| much better barry,great diorama ken
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Posted - February 15 2014 : 11:37:41 AM
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| Thanks Ken. I guess that's what a layout is, hey? Track running around and through a bunch of dioramas? Now I need to figure out where I can put this on my small 54 X 72 layout.
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Posted - February 28 2014 : 3:40:45 PM
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I decided to go ahead and get this set-up on my "layout" . . . layout in quotes because it's like something out of control. My original intentions were simply to have a solid circle of track to test locomotives on; I wanted my models to be able to run well. Anyway, it's standing now . . . here you see an older Mantua mogul 2-6-0 getting some fuel, though it looks like all the workers have taken a break . . .
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Posted - June 04 2014 : 3:10:16 PM
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B:
Really liking that bucket coal station. I may have to make a copy for my own RR. :)
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Posted - June 05 2014 : 11:32:43 PM
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quote:It looks like a lot of goon spoon work getting the coal from the gondola into the buckets, but at least that can be done at leisure and not while an engine waits.
Speaking of the gondola, a person who wanted some old-time gondolas (Barry, for instance) could fairly easily build up sides on a truss-rod flatcar and have something pretty close to the one in the photo. It should require less skill and time than building a craftsman kit hopper car.
Originally posted by scsshaggy - January 15 2014 : 10:15:51 PM
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Pretty much just some posts and 4 or 5 horizontal boards on the outside of them, or put stakes in the pockets and boards on the insides, and you've got a gondola from a flatcar. I found a scratchbuilt pair or cars recently, 36' flatcar and the same car turned into a gon that way. This is some seriously awesome detail and scratchbuilding work here, I think I know what use I'm gonna put that gondola to! Love what you've built, Barry!
--CRC
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Posted - June 05 2014 : 11:49:50 PM
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quote: Now that right there is Model Railroader material. Looks marvelous!
-Steve
"A lot of modellers out there who go to these train shows see broken HO stuff and go, 'This is useless' when, in reality, they can still be used for modeling whether it's as a prop on your layout or a cool project to make something old new again."
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Posted - June 06 2014 : 12:50:28 AM
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B:
Looking again, I love that coal in the prototype photo. Must be straight from the mine, look at the size of the lumps. Imagine firing those boulders. :D
Edited by - Autobus Prime on June 06 2014 12:51:43 AM
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Posted - June 07 2014 : 2:15:40 PM
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B:
Barry, you're an inspiration. ^_^ As it turned out, though, I didn't follow the prototype as closely as you did - I couldn't get it to fit my yard area, and I had different stuff in my scrap box that I wanted to use.
I did this on the cheap. I already had a bunch of stripwood from a train-show junk lot, pre-painted a chippy barn red, so I went with that and drybrushed the new wood to match. Pulleys, gears, and cable reel are turned from scrap plastic wheelsets with files, in an old-fashioned hand drill fixed in a vise as an improv lathe. (That tip is straight out of 1930s Model Craftsman. :D) The hoist does work, though not as the double-reduction it is pretending to be (the 'gears' are dummies) I drilled out a piece of solder to hold the hook down, it's from one of those weird IHC sheds with the cranes attached. Still have to make coal buckets and maybe add some guy wires and struts. The upper and lower bearing 'castings' are cut from old broken plastic trucks - the top is from a Life-Like bolster, the bottom is a central boss from some unknown brand.
Not sure how prototypical the design is, but there are SO many variations on the coal-loading theme. Water tanks are generally similar, but every RR seemed to have a favored way to load black rocks. My tracks are so overloaded with multiple uses that I really couldnt spot a gon semi-permanently; I figured adding a bin would at least make it a semi-occasional thing. The bin would hold about 20 tons I think, and this coal facility is basically just servicing a couple of switchers in this location. I moved the struts between the tracks, which is structurally a little questionable, so I added more reinforcing.
The crank is a compromise between scale and 1:1 operators. It's bent from a jumbo paper clip. I should have filed the end flat. The cable spool is drilled through and cross-drilled with a pin vise. The thread slips into the cross-drilling, then the paper clip pushes through and jams the whole assembly together. Quick and sloppy but it works. If this was really a double reduction, and my calculations are correct, about 20 lb of pull on the crank would raise a ton. Of course you'd have to whip a 3 foot crank handle around 200 times to lift the bucket, but at least it's a break from shoveling, right? :D
(That Maine crane appears to be a pretty cranky mechanism. :D )
The coal is Woodland Scenics mine run coal, which is way too civilized looking. I should crush up my own to get that great boulder/dust mix they appear to be loading in Texas. :D
The NZ powered crane is really cool.
Edited by - Autobus Prime on June 07 2014 3:27:10 PM
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Posted - June 07 2014 : 10:35:45 PM
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| That looks pretty fine Autobuss and the pictures are great. What's catching my eye again is that locomotive in the background; what is that? I think you said what it was once, but . . .
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Posted - June 08 2014 : 12:25:09 AM
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quote:That looks pretty fine Autobuss and the pictures are great. What's catching my eye again is that locomotive in the background; what is that? I think you said what it was once, but . . .
Originally posted by Barry - June 07 2014 : 10:35:45 PM
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B:
It's an MDC Old Timer 2-6-0 that I built from a kit, which I bought juuuuust before they stopped selling the kits.  Very nice kit to assemble and a very sweet-running mechanism when finished. Had a lot of options, too; the ones I put on are now a little too early for my era, as is the paint, but I can't quite bring myself to redo it. It's numbered 9 because I like Roger Miller. ^_^
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Posted - June 17 2014 : 10:38:06 AM
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Great job modeling these early coaling facilities, but my back aches just thinking about shoveling a that coal into those big buckets! Also just imagine the safety issues with this type of operation, big heavy buckets of coal swinging in the air suspended from a thin cable  I bet it could be easy to get hurt or killed in such a process! Then again, back in that era railroaders were at risk of severe injury or death performing most of their duties. So much for the "good-old-days"! 
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Posted - June 17 2014 : 10:59:06 AM
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quote: Also just imagine the safety issues with this type of operation, big heavy buckets of coal swinging in the air suspended from a thin cable I bet it could be easy to get hurt or killed in such a process!
Originally posted by Srenchin - June 17 2014 : 10:38:06 AM
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Cranes are dangerous to this day. You want the guy at the controls of a crane to be better than good. People working around a crane need to be very alert and very careful. The crane may be holding all the weight of a heavy object, but you'll catch all of its inertia if you get in its way.
As for the shoveling, you can get used to that.
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