Large Scale Central

Coal-like stuff

Modeling
#21

Gong strictly from memory (slept WAY too many nights since then), my grandfather was a Gold Seal steam engineer, firing the boilers at our local movie house. I used to go in early with him sometimes in the winter months and ‘help’ (I was about 8 or 10). The theater used hard coal (anthracite) which my grandfather called ‘pea coal’. I think the reference was due to the grading being something 1/2" x 0. I always remember the stuff having a sort of shine to it, similar to the ‘coal like stuff’ above. Later in life I worked for a company whose products were sold to the coal mines, and I learned about the very dull, smudgy look of soft coal (bituminus). I have never seen up close and personal large chunk anthracite coal, but the older fellas in the mines tell me it used to be available, same as the large chunk bituminus coal available today. So I kinda think it depends on which kind of coal you are trying to portray.

From the cobwebs of my mind…

Bob C.

#22
Jake Smith said:
Look great Ken. Where did you get yours here in the states?
I didn't..................tac sent me pix so I could post'em...;)
#23

So now we’ve got pix of both. Shiny stuff in a shiny tender and dull stuff in a dull tender.

No, no, fellas, this is turning out wrong!

All wrong: you’ve got to have shiny stuff in a dull tender. Or dull stuff in a shiny tender.

For the artistic effect, you see, otherwise there’s no contrast! It is writ.:cool:

“Stir it up” - Bob Marley :wink:

#24

If anyone wants real coal I have access to a large pile. I have no idea what kind of coal it is other than black.

Terry

#25

On the old Great Western Railway in the UK many years ago, so the story goes…a guy living alongside the line used to hang a chamber pot on a pole in his garden. Train drivers threw lumps of coal at it to see if they could smash it. The crafty guy got free, best Welsh Steam coal!! Shame no more steam…Welsh Steam coal costs a fortune nowadays…if you can get it. :slight_smile:

#26

For information
Searching for info regards what I was told as a kid hanging around railroad steam engines with my father , a search for steam locomotive stoker coal , and it was a different size for stoker use …

Around 1900 large steam locomotives reached the limit that a fireman could fire by hand. This was somewhere around 5,000 pounds of coal per hour. A mechanical substitute for the fireman and shovel had to be found. The tasks that a stoker had to perform were complicated. It had to bring chunks of coal of various sized from the tender through a flexible joint to the engine and into a very hot firebox. It then had to enable the coal to be spread evenly across the surface of the grates in the firebox. A number of methods were tried. The successful design for a mechanical stoker that emerged was an augur screw that lay in a trough at the bottom of the tender that brought coal through a tube to the firebox and up into a funnel-shaped container where jests of steam were used to disperse the coal throughout the firebox. By the 1920s most medium to large steam locomotives had stokers.
The pieces of coal used in mechanical stokers needed to be smaller than the pieces of coal used for hand firing. As a result, most coal docks had two chutes to each track. Stoker coal was about 1"-2" pieces, while hand fired coal was larger, from about 4" to 6".

Coal stoker augers (feed screws) would often jam on a chunk of coal that would not feed through the tube. The fireman would reverse the stoker engine, which would usually free the jam. Sometimes the chunk that jammed the auger would refuse to break, and the fireman would have to run the stoker engine in reverse until the large chunk was pushed to the rear of the coal bunker. Hopefully it would stay there until the bunker was emptied. Having stoker coal crushed to a smaller size than hand-fire coal was supposed to prevent this, but large chunks slipping through was not uncommon.

The largest coal-burning locomotives before the invention of the power stoker were around the 2-8-2 and 4-8-2 size such as Southern 4501. These would require two firemen when working hard.

#27

Very informative Dennis…thanks…

#28

My bad Ken. Reading comprehension sometimes slips by me.

#29

I worked with a guy who had been a fireman on the NYC 2-8-2 locos going north with coal trains from Petersburg IN , and they carried TWO firemen per loco , and he had told me of how much work that really was .
How often do we see two firemen in a model steam engine ?
And at the same plant I also worked with a guy who had been a fireman on steam engines on the L&N going south from Evansville IN , and he admitted he was a poor fireman , he actuallly clinkered up a mike out on the main line , and ended up blocking the main line South with a steam engine unable to pull the train …which was the end of his railroad career .

#30
Jake Smith said:
My bad Ken. Reading comprehension sometimes slips by me.
No problem since I wasn't very clear about that anyway. Shoulda mentioned they were tac's pix..........
#31

(http://1stclass.mylargescale.com/eastbroadtop/EBT7/EBT748.jpg)

Ain’t nothin’ like the real thing, baby… (And genuine Broad Top coal to boot.) Later, K

#32

If I’d known, and I really SHOULD have known, what a plawk I feel for daring to start this post, then I would have saved my bandwidth for something useful, like how to knit a full-size trumpet.

Lesson learned.

tac

#33

I agree you can’t beat the real deal when modelling a coal load.
I have used a sand blasting agent called black beauty to simulate coal in my HO days but it is kinda heavy if your were going to fill up a tender or hopper. In GR mag tips an tricks I put in a idea for a hopper coal load. I used a piece of foam about 1.5 inches thick cut it to fit the hopper then picked at it to break it up then hit it with a mini blowtorch to even the rough edges out then painted it black. Doesn’t look to bad and is light weight and easy if you have a string of hoppers. For a tender I think real coal is the way to go.

#34
tac said:
If I'd known, and I really SHOULD have known, what a plawk I feel for daring to start this post, then I would have saved my bandwidth for something useful, like how to knit a full-size trumpet.

Lesson learned.

tac


You see, tac, in America it’s been a slow news day.:lol: :lol: :lol:

#35
tac said:
If I'd known, and I really SHOULD have known, what a plawk I feel for daring to start this post, then I would have saved my bandwidth for something useful, like how to knit a full-size trumpet.

Lesson learned.

tac


On the contrary, Terry. It was a good post. Folks learned about coal, and the modeling thereof.

#36

I agree with John. I think this was a great post Tac. I learned about some alternative solutions to using real coal.

In fact I went over to my local PetSmart and found a jug of Aquarium Filter Carbon. I did that based off what someone suggestion here. It looks great and has a varied size in the mix.

#37

Todd,

I believe ‘Black Beauty’ is furnace slag from steel making that has been pulverized. It is a great blasting agent, when finished blasting it will skin the hide of ya’ if you slip and rub against it hard (been there, done that).

Bob C.