I am finally working on my engine servicing/turntable/roundhouse area. One of the major features will be a modern 1920s-30s concrete coaling tower. I was unsure if I wanted to build a whole new coaling tower or reuse my old one, which was a stylized model based on a GTW 350 ton Ogle coaling tower still standing in Durand MI. It's twin sister also stands in Grand Haven MI as part of a public railroad display. After mulling it over, I decided I'd like to keep my GTW tower but I'd like to rebuild it to be closer to its prototype in dimension and detail.
When I originally built my version (in 2004-5?), I didn't have any plans to build from. I took some photos of the one in Durand and built it by trying to scale the proportions by eye. I also made it a bit narrow to fit an existing track spacing I had at the time. At some point after it sat on my layout for a while, I built the chutes and catwalks, basing them off of photos of other towers I found on the internet at the time since I didn't have any photos of the prototype with its rigging intact. I happened to walk into a McDonald's in Durand a couple years after building my model and they had some great black and white framed photos of the tower with all of its hardware still on it. Also, a pal of mine sent me scale drawings from the Charles Foss book 'Evening Before the Diesel: A Pictorial History of Steam and First Generation Diesel Motive Power on the Grand Trunk Western Railroad, 1938-1961' a few years back. Knowing what the rigging looked like and then getting the actual scale drawings, this model of mine started to bug me a bit.
I bought a copy of the Foss book (highly recommended if you are a fan of GTW in MI in the steam to diesel transition era) and also picked up book on C&O coaling towers and another based on a Fairbanks-Morse catalog of coal and sand facilities. I also searched for all of my old photos of the GTW towers.
The goal for right now is to get the major structure done first so I can lay out the trackage for it. Engines are served on the outboard sides, the portal track is the hopper track (neither tower had chutes in the center).
I wanted to take some final measurements to see how far off I was dimensionally. I built my tower 12' too high (the real deal is 80' tall), and 12' too long. I also built it 4' too narrow. The prototype is 28' wide but I decided my model will stay 4' skinnier. I am hoping this won't screw up the proportions too much in the end. The overall height was no big deal to correct but the extra length meant that I had to disassemble the base to correct the portal spacing. No worries, found the right tool for that:
I needed to free up the portals to cut them down to the proper height (22'). I am trying to reference everything from the base of the legs.
Here we are on the turnaround. I corrected the height and the portal spacing and set the relief for man door (sand drying room access) properly. I also took the opportunity to correct the chute openings.
This is the backside. The opening in the center is some type of bucket hoist access I guess. I should have two windows on the right side but I'm not sure I'm going to hassle that out since this side won't be seen so much:
Here is the belt access for the bucket hoist. I really like this prototype because of the arches:
And here is the top going back on:
I am going to work on the roofline today and then hopefully the elevator room.
