Coaling Station search

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T

Taggart

Member
Looking for a coaling station (HO) for period 1900-1930. Tried Cornerstone Concrete Coaling Station (933-3042) but instructions are non-existent and it's impossible to build. Plastruct's version is a toy. BORS Coaling Station by Model Power (#410) is also toy-like, and difficult to assemble (unclear instructions after first half). Walthers wood version has errors in instructions. Craftsman-type kits seem far too difficult for me. So what do you recommend?
 
Walthers has a very nice kit. I did have to modify it slightly to make it fit into the space I had available.

IMAG0794.jpg IMAG0454.jpg
 
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Great, thanks. Now ... how difficult did you find it, and how clear were the instructions when actually building it? I downloaded the instructions and, although better than those for the concrete coaling tower, still seemed to assume a lot. Specifically, are the parts numbered on the sprues so you don't have to guess what's what?
 
Walthers does make some very good kits, but they are notorious for not having the clearest directions. All parts are numbered. I did take a little more time by pre-painting some of the timbers on the tower as well as some other parts, but the kit is pretty straight forward and I had no problems at all putting it together. The main color of the kit is the lighter brown, anything darker I painted. For the 1900 - 1930 time period, this would be a good fit. I don't think you should have any problem with it. My old eyeballs aren't as good as the used to be and I got it together. There is another structure at the rear of the tower for unloading coal into the tower which I had to eliminate because I was limited on space.If you take a close look at the photo from MB Klein, you can see what I didn't use.
 
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Yeah, my eyeballs are old too :-) . . . final question . . . what was your color scheme for painting the kit? . . . I usually paint everything before I begin assembly, though in some cases (particularly with laser cut wood, which warps), I assemble first . . . Thanks.
 
I had no particular color scheme. If you look at the photos, I painted the large timbers a darker brown as well as the stairs to get a little more contrast to the structure and then lightly weathered id. I just winged it and it came out looking pretty good.
 
IMAG0383.jpg If you look at this photo, you can see where the building for unloading coal into the tower was eliminated. I put a pit directly under the tower fof dumping coal into the elevator. This tower can service two tracks. With the tracks servicing the background buildings, I didn't have room for the unloading track. Would have liked to have had it, but ended up not wasting the parts as they went into a kitbashing project.
 


I have the walthers kit , nice kit and took weathering nicely. I also have the Campbell's coal tower I will be building.
 
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