You nailed it Cliff. After reading the patent description. You are correct in that ballast is dumped with side dumps on the shoulders and then the spreader pulls it into the center and then spreads it between the rails with excess being pushed to.the shoulders again. 

Very cool and economical design and I think with the drawings and the patent description it can be modeled. May give it a go after the challenge. 

Very cool MOW car Devon. Had to check out the plan view from your link,

From the bracing and the shape / orientation of the blades, I'd say the car's operational direction was toward the left. The big blades scooped the loosely-dumped gravel toward the center, and the little vee-blade toward the right spread the ballast evenly over the ties, inboard and outboard of the rails.

If so, maybe that's the opposite of how Jordan spreaders work, with their blades acting like a plow (vs a scoop). 

[edit]

After some poking around, I found the additional patent figures; lot of detail! Would be a great model, Devon.

The last figure shows how the gravel is scooped from outboard piles and distributed; figure 7 shows how the derrick is used to lift and stow the blades.

Ballast-spreading car

David Maynard said:

John Caughey said:

OMG! A naked jordan spreader!

Don't look Ethel!

LMAO

Thanks for that chuckle David.

John Caughey said:

OMG! A naked jordan spreader!

Don't look Ethel!

Devon Sinsley said:

So came across this track ballasting car while looking for work train stuff. Pretty cool and a fun project to add to the work train. Patent Track Construction book

Yeah that sums it up

OMG! A naked jordan spreader!

So came across this track ballasting car while looking for work train stuff. Pretty cool and a fun project to add to the work train. Patent Track Construction book

* if you can't tell there are two links. The one that says Patent has the description and all the drawings of the spreader. The language of the patent does a good job of describing what it does and how the part work together. I think with some creativity a person could make this from the patent information. 

Well, this would be a cool little project, especially if you're looking for something for the "Challenge".

Bob Cope said:

Interesting design Fred. If my memory is correct, Bruce Chandler did a similar article here http://www.largescalecentral.com/forums/topic/17266/bucket-coaling-station.

  Thanks, Bob...don't know how I missed it, or whether I've forgotten, but I felt that build should be brought out of the archives for a second look.

Thanks Fred, I am aware of CPR's light locos in a couple of provinces. Trains and later Classic Trains magazines have shown them.

I also appreciate how much manual labor was used. I only saw the sand house to the left and weeds behind the stand, so here coal must be delivered by boxcar to keep it dry and neat.

Yes, Bob; Bruce did build one which was similar in it's method of loading coal. It had more of a protective building around it, with a roof and 3 sides, if I remember correctly. He made a great job of it.

  Fred Mills

Interesting design Fred. If my memory is correct, Bruce Chandler did a similar article here http://www.largescalecentral.com/forums/topic/17266/bucket-coaling-station.

John;

   There was a bit of information with the pictures that didn't get included...

  The method of coaling, shown in the pictures  included a lot of manual labour, often involving maintenance of way workers, or any railroad labour handy at the time.  Labour was relatively inexpensive, even into the middle "50's"

  The box car in the photo, may have been used to bring the coal to the stage, after coal was manually shovelled into it from a coal pile, somewhere in the engine facilities. Its floor was at the correct height to match that of the coaling stage.

 The hand truck, in one of the pictures, being used by the "White suited" worker, was used to load the coaling buckets. Each bucket had a drop bottom.

     You must understand, that in Chipman, New Brunswick, at the time, there was seldom if ever, more than 2 4-4-0 locomotives in service. There were 3 of them that the CPR kept in service, just for the branch line, late into the 50's, due to the need of a very light locomotive, to cross a particular bridge. The locomotives were CPR numbers 136, 144, and 29. All were preserved at one time. 144 was possibly lost in a fire somewhere in Nova Scotia; 29, and 136 still exist...29 is in Ontario...I'm not sure where 136 is...

   There were a number of coaling stages such as this one.  There were at least 3 of them, not far from Ottawa, at one time, up until the end of steam in the very early 50's.

 Fred Mills

Is the coal brought in by boxcar?

Loved the white uniform.

That actually seems to have worked.  Enjoy. 

Fred commented that the topic of small coaling facilities often arises, and also that engine servicing, which I hasten to add is often under represented, can make a significant contribution to our operations.

Thanks for this, Fred! (Mills - is there any doubt?) 

Fred has asked me to upload these four pics for him.  Wish me luck....

OOps, all that and I uploaded the sort of almost but not quite done version.

Here is the proper version

So I spent the afternoon with MS paint, and when it came time to paste the lettering into the artwork, I discovered that its too long, and not quite the right font. But hey, its close enough for this non-rivet-counter. I just had to alter the image by compressing it horizontally a bit.

That should be good enough to put on an HO Tyco 10 wheeler, if I ever get that far.

Incidentally, MS paint behaves different in Winders 10 then it did in XP (or 7), and that caused me quite some frustration.

Once I settle on the actual colours, its a simple matter to go back into MS paint and change them before I have the thing printed out.

Now I can continue working on my insanity. Thanks guys.