Returning empty Cars

[tootnkumin]

I would imagine (never having seen one of these) that anything smaller than "O" scale, it would be difficult to find material that would flow effectively out of the discharge chute.

 

[Boris]

I would imagine (never having seen one of these) that anything smaller than "O" scale, it would be difficult to find material that would flow effectively out of the discharge chute.

Yo Toot:

You are right. Mantua, back in the day, before they sold the TYCO brand, IMHO, tried to duplicate the Lionel Line. The box cars, gondolas and flats were not only similar to the AAR 1937 car designs, but the Lionel product line.

When it came to "operating" or animated accessories (as they were referred to at that time); the HO stuff never lived up to the expectations, or the actual performance of the Lionel (and American Flyer) product.

That's why the "Introductory" products available during the Christmas Holiday Season, by Bachmann, TYCO, Life Like et all; were such disappointments to most people. the product did not perform as well as Lionel, or AF.

These HO products were never intended to appeal to serious HO Prototype modelers, instead, they were designed to appeal to the Hi-rail crowd desiring a smaller footprint than 0-31.

The Mantua "Tipple" hopper dropped some of its load over the coal trestle, but more often than not, didn't. On the other hand, the Lionel side dump always dropped its load into the receptacle, regardless of whether it was coal, logs or other material.

Joe

 

[kjd]

Rico, I found a box of 20 (or was it 25) lbs of walnut shells at Harbor Freight. They are grit blasting media. I dyed them black with black Rit dye, (I should have also added some green, the 'coal' turned out slightly purple) and use that in my loadout. I made rotary couplers for the cars and converted the Walthers dumper to operate but I don't use it because it would only last a couple trains before it ground itself up. The loadout, however, works very well. I can load a train of almost 30 cars with one filling and the loads all come out the same shape, just like the real ones. There are some photos in the link in my signature.

Here's a video of the loadout:
http://members.trainorders.com/pmack/temp/load out.WMV

 

[tootnkumin]

kjd, you deserve a medal. Absolutely ingenious. What a shame you don't think the dumper would last after all that work you put in making it go.

 

[TrinityJayOne]

Here's the magnet load tutorial mentioned earlier- http://www.elthammrc.org.au/index.p...-wagon-loads&catid=59:rollstockinfo&Itemid=91

 

[Rico]

Paul I was thinking of the ground shells, a place I deal with has various sizes that has my interest. Good to know it can be dyed. I was wondering how long the dumper would last, could copy it into metal I suppose.
Love that loadout! I had similar plans using an auger system.
I think I saw an article about your rotary couplers somewhere??

 

[Alcomotive]

There is a guy that managed to do a coal operation on his layout using 3 or 4 rotary dumpers on the top section of his layout "upper level". He would "dump" the coal and it would then go down into a container hidden below that was built into a mountain scene that is the "lower level" in which he had a coal mining facillity that ran conveyors out of the mountain. It was pretty cool and functional. I will look for it and post it. Very well thought out operation.

 

[Jefreyy]

Well the engine then uncouples, from the complete cars partners onto the empties and continues, around the come back bend going eastbound with the empties. Meanwhile the three roads switchers go through the canal to choose up the loaded hoppers.

 

[cajon]

Has anyone made a removeable piece of track that can be lifted out with the carriages on it to return the full coal cars from the industry to a mine or something similar? It seems silly to have to run a train loaded with coal from the industries back to the mine.

This reply more than a day late but hope not to short to help. The image shoys a staging tray that be used to take your "loads" & another tray used to put your empties in their place. But you'll have to figure out a way to "hide" this at your mine.