We used a wood trestle from scenic express to run a single track stub over near the bad part of town as they get coal in their stockings. Ms Eclair thinks we should build a coal dealer at the end of the stub track. Cool idea. I expect I will need to scratch build something.
Anyone have something like that on their pike they could share? I could use some design assistance.
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Steve I will have to find it but I have a backissue of MR that has a coal dealer with scale drawings. This particular dealer was in sayer Pennsylvania . The coal dock had multiple shoots / dumps for trucks. You would have to winch the loaded coal car up a ramp to dump it into the bins. I'll fins it scan it and send you the article. Happy Turkey Day
Thank you both - I subscribe to MR but not sure I am caught up on reading issues - I will gather them up and take a look - thanks much....
BTW - Rich - did you get caught up on the sell out of the apartment complexes?.... I still need three.....
Berkshire Valley has a kit that is very close to a coal/grain dealer. Valley Coal and Grain. Kit #815 Display area 23 1/2" X 18" $210. Kit #817 is just the coal dock and scale house.
The Berkshire Valley kit is very close to the famous Frank Ellison coal/gravel yard on his Delta Lines. The scene was featured in Model Railroader as well as Model Builder magazines.
It's been on my "to build" list for years.
From Model Railroader magazine - May 1945:
Jim
There is an O scale kit for a coal dealer on the Bay now. And another for Cobleskill, N.Y.
has shown up from "Okhwari Sales" in months past. I kitbashed mine as a combination of the three styles, silo, covered trestle, and enclosed shed, using articles in old
issues of RMC, and those photos of my effort were posted on here. The base was a trestle shed kit from the coal mine kit builder in York. Check him out..his ads are in OGR. I have since gotten a wooden coal silo kit from a Canadian kit maker, also. I like
that wooden fence in the Ellison photo..will have to add that...
Check this out
http://www.ebay.com/itm/O-Scal...;hash=item25625e075a
Looking at this it would be easy to scratch this and just buy the conveyors.
Dear Rich, Your apartment house is a great addition to O Scale. IMHO, the most lacking structures in our scale is industries. It would be great if Korber fills in with a coal dealer and perhaps a cement/ stone dealer. On the real railroads, even today, aggregate loads account for 40 plus % of loadings. Just my 2 cents. Thanks, John P.Dunn Sr. Scale2Rail Promotions,Inc.
Don't forget there is also this coal dealer!
on sale at Valley Model trains!
In the picture below, the far left building is J. Harry Jones Coal Company. This is a kit that is available from K&P Brick Company. They advertise every month in the OGR magazine. This was a super kit as is all of their kits. Just another idea for you.
The above K&P/Harry Jones kit is the one I used as a base, adding a scratchbuilt covered
trestle along side it to deliver the coal, and vertical "concrete" (PVC pipe) silos on the
end, as a way to combine all three types into one, and to get something different. I moved the office to the right end to narrow the footprint (and promptly lost that
advantage by doubling the width with the covered delivery trestle). The silos lengthened the footprint, too. I did not think of it, but it might be possible to run the trestle into
one end of the basic K&P kit, getting that difference and a way to deliver coal, but
upper structure might have to be widened, and then you would need to add silos or
covered bins like the Crosby structure to replace that lost storage. Like wooden grain
elevators, probably no two were alike, so your imagination can run rampant, unless
modeling a specific protoype.
Sidetrack Laser has a nice small coal trestle and the price is $54.95 plus shipping. I have not built any of their kits but have seen the assembled models at shows and they lokk very nice. Russ
http://www.sidetracklaser.com/...erationPass.htm#Coal
Image from their website.
I just discovered another style of coal dealer, in an HA (uh) HO kit of a structure in
Medina, NY (I mentioned the Cobleskill, NY one in O). This looks like it would take up
a very small footprint (for a fairly large commercial coal dealer facility) if you move the office wherever..www.lasermodeling3.com...This is different than any other version I
have seen, in the RMC articles, or as kits. It is called the Gillmeister Co., and Medina
is halfway between Buffalo and Rochester, so somebody on here may be familiar with
the area, as it is purported to be still standing. Looks like it could be built with a
section of PVC pipe or a cardboard tube, as it is a round silo on stilts.
I shoulda done an eBay search of HO kits before my comment above..there are LOTS of choices of styles... which I should have searched before I built the one I did....look under HO Structures, and type in "coal"...and away you will go....
I know of one dealer that simply sat the hoppers on a bridge and dumped the coal straight through down below. From there it was shoveled into the small trucks.
Afterwards the trucks would drive to a row home, backup to a basement bunker and extend a small conveyor chute. Thence the coal would flow into the bunker in the basement.
Thanks for all of the great suggestions - I may just use some more of them and build a second one..... I sort of copies the ideas in the MR cover article..... Looks pretty good....
Here is a coal dealer I built using Evergreen siding, Plastruct roofing and PVC tubing. 
Very nice, Richard....
Here's the ramp of Nick's Earthmoving, Coal, and Gravel; named for my oldest Grandson:
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