A "coal dump car" in the 1870s for $280?


R

RayDrueke

New Member
I'm just starting a project to model the Narragansett Pier railroad which commenced operation in 1876. I've found the railroad layout and lots of other information from the Sanborn Fire Insurance maps and by reading a lot on the internet. They purchased a passenger car and a combination passenger/baggage car from the Osgood Bradley Company of Worcester, MA. From the photos I have found the passenger cars are the typical cars of the era. The passenger car cost $3700. The railroad also ordered 6 "coal dump cars" for $280 each from the same company. I can't find photos of these or any other information about what type of coal cars these were. Small ore cars, gondolas or what?
Also, several of the Sanborn maps indicate a raised trestle from a 60' high coal elevator to coal pockets and to a grist mill at the Narragansett pier end of the line. Transporting coal from the pier to their woolen/cotton mill at Peace Dale, RI was one of the main reasons for building the railroad. What is missing on the maps over several years of updates is any indication of how an engine would get onto the trestle or, again, what type of cars were used up there. The trestle entered the grist mill on the 3rd floor so it was at least 20+ feet in the air.

What kind of coal dump car could be purchased for $280 back then and were ore dump cars moved about 200' fully loaded and dumped by hand?
Thanks, Ray
 
Search for "1870's coal cars" or "coal jimmys" and then look at images.

Generally they were 2 axle truss side hoppers. They were the default coal cars throughout the entire east coast. All the major coal roads owned thousands of them.

Here is a pic of one next to a "modern", 1900 era coal car.

In 1988 you could buy a picture of one for 13.2 cents from the USPS.

If you want some, they are for sale on Shapeways:
www.shapeways.com

HOR15 R16 coal jimmy, 2 types, 1 each by EricCox on Shapeways

Check out HOR15 R16 coal jimmy, 2 types, 1 each by EricCox on Shapeways and discover more 3D printed products in Trains.
www.shapeways.com www.shapeways.com
 
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Would something like this be appropriate ?

1703779716939.png
 
Thanks for the replies AND Happy New Year!
I went searching for jimmies and finally found a 2 pack kit at Bitter Creek Models for $20. The video that pointed to them was only a couple months or so old so I'll drop my order for 3 kits in the mail Tuesday.
I'm still looking for what to do about the trestle from the coal elevator to the coal pockets and a client's grist mill. I'm thinking I could use a slight decline, maybe 1% or so, from the elevator to the coal pockets and the grist mill. Maybe put a hand car with a coupling up there with 2 jimmies, one for the coal pockets and the other for the grist mill. The decline would allow the hand car operators to control the descent from the elevator and it wouldn't be too hard to pull the empty jimmie back up to the elevator for another load. The empty jimmies would stay at their destination until it was time for another load. Would that idea be reasonable?
 
Without some sort of map or picture of what you are doing, I can't offer any advice on what they were doing. It seems like an odd arrangement, and doesn't really make sense. Also if the cars are being moved by hand it's probably a different design of cars, the ones I gave you the links to would be locomotive hauled cars that had a capacity of 6-10 tons of coal. If they are to be hand moved then you need something more like a mine cart that only handles 1/2 to 1 ton of coal.

I can't see anything in any pictures of Narragansett that show a 60 ft high coal trestle. That would be HUGE. It would have been the largest structure in the city. The P&R had coal trestles on piers in Philadelphia that handled 100's of cars of coal and they weren't 60 ft high. Also a coal trestle on a pier would be for unloading coal into a ship or barge.

Somehow I think you may have misunderstood something.
 
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I've attached a jpg crop from an 1890 Sanborn Fire Insurance map showing the wharf and the elevated trestle. No tracks are shown on the trestle but there are tracks at ground level that parallel the trestle. These are the rest of that end of the Narragansett Pier RR. This map is consistent over several years of Sanborn updates. I haven't found any photos of this portion of the rr.
 

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The elevator might be 60 ft high but the trestle probably isn't.

It also doesn't look like the tracks on the trestle connect to the rest of the railroad, so they are probably hand push cars, MUCH smaller than the cars shown from Shapeways. They are most likely like the hand push cars in coal mine.

Here is a postcard showing the elevator in the distance and another hand drawn map :
Narr1.JPG

Narr2.JPG
 
The Sanborn map shows the elevator as 60' and states the trestle enters the gristmill on the 3rd floor. I plan to build the trestle at about 22-24'. Now to go find a couple ore cars... Those pics are great! I hadn't seen them before. I'd like to model a couple of the hotels there on Ocean Ave. The railroad contributed to the growth of the tourist business and a few more of the hotels. The railroad also started a steamboat ferry from Ocean Ave wharf over to Newport for people who wanted the Newport experience.
 
OK, so hand pushed coal carts.
1704144966003.png


You can own your own for £4650 :)

Seriously tho'you could look here, they have quite a few that would have been used in the era you're modelling.

www.dreamstime.com

159 Antique Coal Cart Stock Photos - Free & Royalty-Free Stock Photos from Dreamstime

Download Antique Coal Cart stock photos. Free or royalty-free photos and images. Use them in commercial designs under lifetime, perpetual & worldwide rights. Dreamstime is the world`s largest stock photography community.
www.dreamstime.com www.dreamstime.com
 
Up to the end of the steam era, coal cars were winched up inclines to put coal into coal docks. Some were quite steep, maybe 15% or more.

in the late 1800s, Seattle exported lots of coal to San Francisco. Sanborn maps show silos of several hundred ton capacity with a car elevator.
 
Hi,
Thanks for the replies and the information, I really appreciate it. I now have a general type question about layouts.

When 'you' say you are modeling some specific railroad in an era or a specific year, what does that mean? When I'm looking at layouts - really good images etc- I'm seeing lots of track and great buildings and scenery but I doubt it directly relates to a specific section of the modeled railroad. It also seems to be compressed into a rather small space. I'm not trying to be at all negative here, it's just what I'm seeing and I'm trying to learn.

I'm modeling the Narragansett Pier RR in the year 1900. I have the layout of the railroad from The Sanborn maps and pictures of of the locomotives and some of the cars. I have detailed pictures of a couple of the stations and they all still exist, one - the Narragansett station - is being rebuilt as original at the original location. The woolen/cotton mill mill at Peace Dale is standing, several buildings, all either stone or brick.
I've done a layout from the maps and not included the sections between the stations (the railroad was 8.5 miles long). I really want to include the 4 stations, the mill, some of the commerce the rr supported (some lumber yards, wood planing shops, 2 or 3 carriage shops, another mill or 2) and some of the downtown areas, including a few of the hotels along Ocean Ave. in Narragansett (see the drawing in post #9 above).
The layout is 32'x20' . There was an article in one of the mags in 1974 that included a layout that was essentially a U shape,some significant items were missing, like most of the Peace Dale mill and some were wrong.

I'd like to make this a little smaller but I don't have experience to know what to eliminate or how to compress the layout. I'm using SCARM on my laptop. I'll post the layout here if I can figure out how to output a jpg.
 
Ray: Boy, you got to the gist of MRR; how to compress something. You stated that the Narragansett was 8.5 miles. If I did the math right, you are looking at about a 500ft main line ( if HO ). I have a fairly big space and to shoe horn 500 ft into my space is not gonna happen even with 2 levels. Best I can do is somewhat under 400ft.

To compress buildings I think that you can take a look at them and keep what sticks in your mind. What attracted you to that specific building? That is usually the 'busy stuff' the building offers. Think about it, say you want a 1:1 1000ft manufacturing/warehouse with many freight doors on one side. That would be an ~11ft building. So you keep a few of the doors and what ever logistical/physical plant glue ( compressors, vortex tanks, storage tanks and associate piping .. etc ) that makes it busy and model that. Don't forget about the trucking part on the opposite side of the railroad ( what goes in, must come out ). Makes it a bunch wider too. Now the fun part. You can angle that building so that it fits in ... say .... a 24" wide space and have one side for the railroad, the other for trucks ( and small parking for the worker bees too ), and at least try to get a road to it that can handle bigger than go-carts. See where I am going? You might get the building into a 4ft long space. You get to decide what looks best for what you want to do. I have a bridge that I want to model that is just out of Sandpoint, ID. Called 'Long Bridge' and is now double track main. 3 years ago it was single track. That bridge is just short of 1 mile long. Height above the lake is not the problem, the scale 60ft length is. So if I decide to go with it, I probably would cut down the approaches and only have 2, maybe 3ft of railroad over the lake. Yes, there is a highway bridge close somewhat along side too.

Sidings are another gotcha. We have mile trains through here which means the sidings need to be somewhat longer than that. Most MRR will have trouble with 60ft sidings let alone the yard to hold those 60ft trains.

Sometimes there are places that you can model 1:1 because it is in the background or just something you just have to have.

The specific era or year is another fun part of MRR. I choose 1965 to 1970 as my era, with no specific time of year. This allows me to operate my favorite road names I so much loved when growing up. Don't get me wrong, BNSF here is fine, I just like the smaller FT's, F's, Gp's and various steam. Sure, steam is stretching it, but it is my railroad and have to have it.

Have fun figuring it all out. Could be the rest of your life!

Later
 
ctclibby said:
Ray: Boy, you got to the gist of MRR; how to compress something. You stated that the Narragansett was 8.5 miles. If I did the math right, you are looking at about a 500ft main line ( if HO ). I have a fairly big space and to shoe horn 500 ft into my space is not gonna happen even with 2 levels. Best I can do is somewhat under 400ft.

To compress buildings I think that you can take a look at them and keep what sticks in your mind. What attracted you to that specific building? That is usually the 'busy stuff' the building offers. Think about it, say you want a 1:1 1000ft manufacturing/warehouse with many freight doors on one side. That would be an ~11ft building. So you keep a few of the doors and what ever logistical/physical plant glue ( compressors, vortex tanks, storage tanks and associate piping .. etc ) that makes it busy and model that. Don't forget about the trucking part on the opposite side of the railroad ( what goes in, must come out ). Makes it a bunch wider too. Now the fun part. You can angle that building so that it fits in ... say .... a 24" wide space and have one side for the railroad, the other for trucks ( and small parking for the worker bees too ), and at least try to get a road to it that can handle bigger than go-carts. See where I am going? You might get the building into a 4ft long space. You get to decide what looks best for what you want to do. I have a bridge that I want to model that is just out of Sandpoint, ID. Called 'Long Bridge' and is now double track main. 3 years ago it was single track. That bridge is just short of 1 mile long. Height above the lake is not the problem, the scale 60ft length is. So if I decide to go with it, I probably would cut down the approaches and only have 2, maybe 3ft of railroad over the lake. Yes, there is a highway bridge close somewhat along side too.

Sidings are another gotcha. We have mile trains through here which means the sidings need to be somewhat longer than that. Most MRR will have trouble with 60ft sidings let alone the yard to hold those 60ft trains.

Sometimes there are places that you can model 1:1 because it is in the background or just something you just have to have.

The specific era or year is another fun part of MRR. I choose 1965 to 1970 as my era, with no specific time of year. This allows me to operate my favorite road names I so much loved when growing up. Don't get me wrong, BNSF here is fine, I just like the smaller FT's, F's, Gp's and various steam. Sure, steam is stretching it, but it is my railroad and have to have it.

Have fun figuring it all out. Could be the rest of your life!

Later
Click to expand...
And I forgot. I do not use SCARM, but there should be a way to 'export' the track plan to jpg, gif, png or the like. Should be in the 'file' menu.
 
The key to building a "prototypical" layout is to understand what make the portion of the railroad identifiable and unique and then capturing the key elements that make it look like and operate like the prototype in question. Then once you have that, you have to figure what of that can if fit and have FUN operating. I figure about 3 to 4 square ft of room for every running foot of main line, so a 500 ft main would require a 1500-2000 sq ft room, single decked. Probably not going to happen.

You want to include the 4 stations. Lets say a train is 2-3 ft long. 4 stations are maybe 10-12 ft of room and if you put two train lengths between stations, you are now up to about 30-35 ft of railroad. That will easily fit around 3 walls of a 12x12 room. Put it in a 1 car garage space of 12x20 and you can easily have 48-50 ft of main, with a single peninsula, that ups that to almost a scale mile, somewhere in the 60-65 ft range.

You should definitely be able to fit 4 stations and still have a lot of "negative space" of just running between stations.

Major industries can be compressed by reducing the length of the buildings (8 widows vs 12 windows) but retaining the overall architecture.
 
The attached jpg is where the layout is currently, only on 'paper'. The next step for me is to try and 'scale' some of these track lengths to see if I can gain some compression. Other suggestions are welcome, thanks in advance.
.
 

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