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I am working on a "retrofit" Coaling Tower for one of my yards. By retrofit I refer to the fact that the trackage was originally designed and laid back about 20 or so years ago when I used to know everything...... Need to get some opinions from you good folks.
The coaling tower is close to the roundhouse and is on the service track leading to the turntable and will have water, sand, and coal as well as an old fashioned ash pit. The tower also serves one mainline track as well. Therein lies the problem. The mainline track is on a curve at that location (Poor planning, I know. Told you I knew everything back then....not now.) Here is a photo of the problem:
The curve allows good access for coaling at the left hand chute, but not at the right hand one. So what would you folks do? I figure I have the following options (no! destroying the whole yard and main line and starting over ain't gonna happen...)
1. Leave it as is and hope that no one notices it.........
2. Kit bash a longer chute that would reach the tender.
3. Remove the offending coal chute and just use the one on the left.
I'd remove just the chute, the activating mechaism and leave the "gate" (also has that short chute looking device in the pic) These towers would be kept as close to full as possible and to try to remove everything would result, on the prototype at least, a big pile of coal on the tracks. They generally weren't emptied except for a major rebuild, in which a substitute refueling method, (conveyor and coal truck(s) were placed close by), or relocation/replacement.
Just remove what has been circled in the pic attached. For contrast you may want to cement a piece of styrene over the opening to act as a "welded" in place plate to prevent the coal from being accidentally dumped onto the tracks, when a loco is underneath the tower.
I wouldn't remove the chute. Many of these coaling towers had one chute for sand and one for coal. That's why they had two chutes so close together on a single track. If there was no sand storage, it would be just one chute located in the middle of the tower. I'd extend the chutes with styrene so both could serve the locomotive on the curve. Many towers had diverters so they could service coal and sand for an engine headed in either direction.
You have something going on to the bottom left with a new switch track. Looks unfinished. Any chance of moving the coal structure to the left and have the chutes service the aproach track to the turntable? 20 years is quite a long time for the same layout. Still looks good though.
Only being familiar with coal chutes on flood loaders, can it be modeled in the 'up' position? Then it wouldn't be so obviously lacking in length. I wouldn't remove it unless the other one can be relocated to the center of the bin or else how will the one side be emptied?
I would keep it and in the upright position.
You have a large radius on the mainline track; can that be reworked to fit closer to the coal chute? There seems to be a small bridge under the loco. Don't know if that is a problem, but moving the track would certainly help the looks.
You have something going on to the bottom left with a new switch track. Looks unfinished. Any chance of moving the coal structure to the left and have the chutes service the aproach track to the turntable? 20 years is quite a long time for the same layout. Still looks good though.
It just sat there for over 15 of those 20 years.......LOL The coaling tower will service 2 tracks one of which is the service track to the turntable. Also, what appears to be a bridge is actually a grade crossing leading to the parking lot of the roundhouse. Unfortunately to redo the mainline would mean removing the roundhouse, turntable, and most of the yard, not to mention a whole lot of scenery.... So, I decided this AM to lengthen the chute so it will be long enough to service the mainline with both chutes (or at least look like it can...).
I added about 4 scale feet to the chute. Glue is drying right now, just need prime and paint and reattach it to the rest of the mechanism and see what it looks like. I think it will work out well.
Here is the area where the Tower will go:
To accommodate the coaling tower, I have removed the track labeled Outside 2, and the Turnout directly left of it. One track connected to the turnout is now a stub end track leaving me only one arrival/departure track with an escape track. Not a problem, small yard. The Y turnout you see sitting there in one of the photos has been installed to service both the escape track and the coaling tower. Real estate is at a premium.......
Thank you all for your input to this thread, and I will post some after photos in a few days.
Having found several prototypes that also had sand servicing facilities in the coaling tower, I would like to get some photos of what the actual sand pipes looked like. I am adding steam heat for drying the sand up near the top of the tower, but need to see what the piping looked like on these things for filling the sand domes on steam locos.
If any of you can point me to some, I would appreciate it!
Thanks Paul! I already have that site bookmarked. It was a great help as I have been working on this project. I only wish I could get a higher resolution copy of a couple of the photos as they do show exactly what I am looking for. Unfortunately, It only whets my appetite for a close up.....
Ray, I can't find a decent close up picture but a sand spout looks almost exactly like a water spout from a water tank. The sand spout is about half the diameter of a water spout but with a bigger cap at the end to direct the sand. Some of them also had canvas hoses attached to the spouts to better direct the sand into the domes. Sorry I can't provide more detail.
From Alco's link, what I see in several photos is a very similiar sand tower/drying house that is in Walthers kit #933-3182, p.439, 2008 catalog. I use this kit and it looks great. To reference the Marquette (D,SS&A) photo under menu/removed or demolished section, the sand tower is right beside the coaling tower, different than Walthers example picture. It is also that way in several other site photos. If you are going to service two tracks, then place the tower between them and close to the coal bin.
Thanks ALCO and Rex. Due to real estate restrictions, what I am modeling is the coal tower with the sand facility in the coal tower itself. From the site that Paul suggested I had already found the specs on several towers that had the sand drying and loading inside the coal tower. There are a couple that you can see the sand pipe but not close enough to get any detail from it. An example: http://home.earthlink.net/~railroad...isIronMountainAndSouthernRyStationCraneMo.JPG
In these the Holmen Bucket was used for both elevating the coal and green sand. The sand was dried near the top of the tower and then dropped into its own storage bin. I have spent hours trying to find a close up of the sand piping on these but no luck. So I guess I will guess at what it looked like from the available photos....
