Coal

If you are just looking for stuff to throw into hoppers to look good, you can try either the charcoal that they sell for fish tanks, or the black stone that they sell for fish tanks. You could also (I guess they still make it) buy the bags of Lionel coal.

I know that when I put up the Christmas layout a few years ago, wanted some for the operating cars and loaders. I tired the charcoal. Looks and works great....until it gets in the operating track...and you start to see it arcing since it is a conductor!

The black pebbles were tried. They were a little too big for scale and the bucket on the coal loader would not work right with them. But, either one of the above ride real good and look nice in cars.

For the operating cars, I went out and bought some Lionel. About the right size and texture and works great. But two bags I bought, they had the right size coal, but also some black pieces that looked like small black spaghetti cut into about 1/8" lengths. Could not handle that - took it back to the LHS.

Hope this helps. Greg

I have heard of, but never tried to find roofing granules. If you have a roofing supply house near by, they supposedly have roofing granules in bulk bags, may be more than you want, might be more cost effective? than buying the small bags from Lionel. Do you know anyone else that might want to split some with you?

 At the HO club I am a member of we have a working rotary dumper and use a lot of "Coal", we use a black colored grit that is used for a sand blasting medium, I don't know if any of that would be available in a large enough size to look right for O-Gauge coal, but it is another idea to look into.

Doug

If you want really good (the best, in my opinion) looking O-scale coal, try

Smith & Son Ballast

13630 G.A.R. Hwy

Chardon, OH 44024

phone 440-286-4890 (after 6 p.m. Eastern time)

They do not have a website.  They sell 8 ounce bags of coal for $1.25 each and have sizes (smallest to largest) of slack (essentially dust), stoker, nut, egg, lump, o-scale lump and mine run.  The mine run coal is a mix of sizes with a few very large pieces just like real unsorted coal.

Here are a couple of photos of their coal on my layout.  Click on a photo to see a larger version.

The first shows nut coal on the left, stoker coal in the nearly empty bin and o-scale lump on the right.

Here is egg coal in the two bins on the left and nut coal on the right.

I would say Bob is the coal expert here, and has all of his bases covered.

Very nice job, Greg

Joey,

That is a great layout! I really like all the detail. Are there other shades of the material at Michaels?

Bob,

Your coal scenes really look authentic. Does the O scale coal work well in the accessories?

Joey

Congratulations, a very fine video and super train layout with lots of detail

I see its 2 rail, Ho Hum , NICE