# How are coal bunkers loaded?



## musicwerks (Jan 4, 2012)

Dear friends,

I am trying to model a realistic coal train layout. 

There are closed and open top giant coal bunkers found in sidings, how are these loaded in real life? Must it always be a conveyor belt? I am sure I has seen some bunkers w/o accompanying conveyor belts

http://www.ebay.com/itm/140856507072?redirect=mobile

Thanks
Kiong


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## Big Ed (Jun 16, 2009)

musicwerks said:


> Dear friends,
> 
> I am trying to model a realistic coal train layout.
> 
> ...



The workings of a coaling towers are relatively simple. They were always gravity fed with the steam locomotive sitting below or nearby (if the tower employed chutes) and an operator would feed coal into the tender until it was topped off. To refill the towers they usually had a staging track or an area where loaded hopper cars could be unloaded and a pulley/belt driven system would pick up the coal and load the bin. Early systems were rudimentary using straight chain and pulley buckets but later systems used conveyor belts to efficiently load the coaling towers. 


That is from here,
http://www.american-rails.com/coaling-towers.html


Do your self a favor and don't click on any of the blue words......just annoying advertising sites come up.


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## Big Ed (Jun 16, 2009)

Did you ever see the Lionel 97?










The real ones operated similarly.


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## Big Ed (Jun 16, 2009)

Not the right answer?
Did you mean something else?


edit,
Some coal stations worked by gravity.

Pull the coal cars on top of the coaling spots and empty the coal into big wooden bins.
The trains would pull into along side of the bins at the bottom.
They would have chutes to gravity fill the coal.
Is that what your asking about?

I have pictures somewhere if that is what you are referring to.

Edit again, 
nope you are talking about my first answer, I went back and looked again, I forgot about the picture from e bay.

I see that you came and left with no response?


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## Carl (Feb 19, 2012)

Can not find a better answer than that.


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## musicwerks (Jan 4, 2012)

Dear Big Ed and Carl,

Sorry for the late reply. Been away due to work.

Thanks for the replies. I understand now coal bunkers will need conveyor belts to bring up the coal and then later tip into a hopper/ tender.

I was hoping to model a coal bunker without modelling a conveyor belt by the side, but it seems impossible.

Cheers 
Kiong


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## musicwerks (Jan 4, 2012)

Hi Big Ed and Carl,

I have the pictures of my coal towers and bunkers on my layout (a humble and small 4 x 8 in land scarce Singapore).

Anything missing? how to make them look more "prototypical"? Is there a need to add the walther's Conveyor belt next to it?





















Looking forward to your comments and suggestions.


Cheers
Kiong


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## sstlaure (Oct 12, 2010)

My coaling tower comes with a dump shed - the theory being that the conveyor is hidden. Coal hopper gets spotted inside the shed, coal is dumped out the bottom into a bin and transported up into the tower via conveyor. The bucket lift is the black structure going up the outside of the tower. (This is a Walther's Cornerstone kit.)

In these pics you can see the coaling tower, coal shed, sand bunker, water tower and cinder/ash pit. All would be present where steamers are being serviced.


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## musicwerks (Jan 4, 2012)

Hi,

Thanks for the reply.

Cheers
Kiong


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## norgale (Apr 4, 2011)

Try to think about the real thing. The coal is loaded into the hopper by gravity from the coal tower but how does the coal get up into the tower to start with? Some railroads would load the coal into the tower with a crane but as demand for more coal got bigger the RR's had to have a faster way to do this. Thus the conveyor belt system was installed. If there's room for the conveyor then put it in. If not then forget it. Most people today wouldn't know a coal tower from nuts if it fell on them so probably would never miss the conveyor belt. Pete


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## sanepilot (Mar 11, 2012)

Hi,all--Another way to load a coal tower would be to have a open bin at the top and a road leading up to the side away from the track and use a coal truck to take the coal up the hill and dump into the bin.Gravity feed to the tender. Need room of course.

We had one where they loaded rail cars with coal where I grew up.

Hope this helps,sanepilot


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## Carl (Feb 19, 2012)

Seems to me that you might well have a project to build form ground-up or kit modification. The conveyor belt might be a rubber band (if wide enough or some other flexible material), the buckets for hold the coal on the belt could be styrene strips or similar, the drums for hold the belt might be wood dowels. Why out in left field, you might be able to get a small AC or DC motor to drive the conveyor. 

Just thoughts, that might be something you can springboard off of.


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## musicwerks (Jan 4, 2012)

Hi guys,

Thanks for the reply. 

Its either more space and build up a hill side and tipper next to a open top bunker or scratch a conveyor belt.

Carl, any plans for HO conveyor belt?

Cheers
Kiong


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## Ren (May 31, 2012)

I just finished building the walther's wood coaling tower. Its a Beaut.


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## Carl (Feb 19, 2012)

No plans for a HO conveyor. Might want to look at the Walther's Tower.


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## mkear (Feb 29, 2012)

On our layout, we decided that the Diesel engine would move the coal from the mines to the heritage train (steam). You can see how the coal would be unloaded below the rails and conveyed to the bin, then loaded to the steam train via gravity chute.


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## Big Ed (Jun 16, 2009)

mkear said:


> On our layout, we decided that the Diesel engine would move the coal from the mines to the heritage train (steam). You can see how the coal would be unloaded below the rails and conveyed to the bin, then loaded to the steam train via gravity chute.




Is that a homemade tunnel you have there?
Or did you buy it like that?
I have never come across one that looks like yours.


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## musicwerks (Jan 4, 2012)

Thanks guys!


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## mkear (Feb 29, 2012)

I bought it some time ago, but they are still available.










Here is the link.


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## Big Ed (Jun 16, 2009)

You wonder why they put the side tunnels on it?

I guess so you can watch the trains, but to me that doesn't look right.
The other side looks good, but the side tunnels?hwell:


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## mkear (Feb 29, 2012)

Yes, I do think it's a little weird, but the cool thing we like about the tunnel is that it can accommodate two trains. Often, when we run one in reverse, they are passing in the tunnel.


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## Big Ed (Jun 16, 2009)

mkear said:


> Yes, I do think it's a little weird, but the cool thing we like about the tunnel is that it can accommodate two trains. Often, when we run one in reverse, they are passing in the tunnel.


I like every thing about it except those tunnels. A little waterfall on that side would have looked good.

Like they did in this one,


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## wolfeinmane (Feb 8, 2012)

norgale said:


> Try to think about the real thing. The coal is loaded into the hopper by gravity from the coal tower but how does the coal get up into the tower to start with? Some railroads would load the coal into the tower with a crane but as demand for more coal got bigger the RR's had to have a faster way to do this. Thus the conveyor belt system was installed. If there's room for the conveyor then put it in. If not then forget it. Most people today wouldn't know a coal tower from nuts if it fell on them so probably would never miss the conveyor belt. Pete


Lord is you right on this Norgale, everyone who sees my ancient Athearn coal tower asks what is that for? One person thought it was a switching tower


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## norgale (Apr 4, 2011)

It's pretty sad when you think of all the great things I've seen in my life and you in yours that kids today will never see or even hear about. They will never know the fear of a thundering steam engine going by or the power of four P&W radial engines pulling a huge airplane off the ground and you with it. They will most likly not ever have the chance of hitting an accerator pedal and unleashing 400 raw horsepower while riding in a five thousand pound automotive powerhouse from Detroit or feel the wind slap a huge sail on a boat and all but turn it over. Pretty soon they won't even know that Detroit was there the way it's going now. I always loved to challange myself just to see how close to the edge I could get and still be alive. Today we are wrapped in a soundproof cacoon that will go two hundred MPH but you'll still feel like your sitting in your living room. Today is just too damned comfortable if ya ask me. Ha! Pete


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## Carl (Feb 19, 2012)

Try this one, the local Houston newspaper reported this past week about a large meeting of railroad types and energy folks regarding the costs that can be saved by switching diesel locomotives to natural gas. Cost of conversions were estimated between half a million and one million dollars. Even with those seemingly high conversion costs, savings could be reached.


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