MTH Coaling Tower Ideas- Adding a Silo?

I guess folks have differing approaches to "figuring" what they want.  For me I would start with research on what coal facilities really looked like to see if the prototypical  designs provided enough architectural design elements that were interesting to me.  If you want to be prototypical then you could chose your design that way. If those designs are too "whatever" for you, and you want a unique structure you could look at various architecture designs, elevations, details for buildings other than coal facilities.  You could for instance think of a coal business that moved into an existing building and modified certain elements to suit the new purpose.  This could be a really neat project.  No rules (unless you want to be prototypical), just imagination. For me kitbashing is always a good option because the basic structural parts and details can be tailored to suit.  Scratch building for the higher skilled or adventurous.    

I did a simple modification on a lionel coaling building by just turning the brick part of the structure 90 degrees and relocating another part. 

But I also experimented with an elevated coaling building with a trestle track before I redid parts of my layout scenery.

Good hunting.

There is a fix for the slow speed of the raising and lowering of the bucket.  On place that sells the fix is Port Line Hobbies.  It requires a new pulley installation and does wonders for this accessory.

American Flyer by Gilbert originally design this accessory for the layout in the 50's.

As a kid I always wanted one but they were scarce and expensive.

Looking back though and trying to design into my current railroad, it just doesn't represent anything real that could find in the real word. Most coal loaders used conveyors...

The Lionel coal loader just seemed more appropriate?

Great idea on the pulley kit to speed up the MTH, I'll give the hobby shop a call- I did not see it on their web site.

J Daddy, You are on the button with where I need to go one day.  That is a beautiful conversion for the lionel, really neat.  The grandkids like the claw effect on the MTH so I am stuck for awhile.  Plus I need to get my weathering and scenery skills up to speed.

I did find a thread where people were talking about grain silos and used 4 inch pvc among other things.  Another person used plastruct tubing. 

hokie71:

If I understand you correctly then Plastruct is the place to go for plastic structural parts. Among other things they have plastic tubing from I believe 1/16 inch diameter all the way up to 6 inches.

WRT to your coal tower however I am thinking square legs rather than round. Take a look at the pictures below of a Suncoast Coal Tower I am customizing for a customer. If you are interested in how I put the legs together I can tell you.

Joe

Joe, Thanks for the encouragement and I downloaded a plastruct catalog today.  It does appear to be the way to go.  Details welcome on the square leg attachment- those pictures look super.

Hokie71:

The kit instructions called for gluing .040 inch styrene strips to a wood core with super glue. I choose instead to glue the styrene strips to ABS square tubing (ST-xxx) using Plastic Weld. I sometimes use the square tubing by itself but generally prefer to add styrene strips. This is because I like to sand everything I can in preparation for paint. The square tubing takes more effort to sand flat because the edges are usual higher than the middle (probably a function of the mold process).

You could also use white styrene square tubing (STS-xx) and Bondene since the joint is styrene to styrene. The only difference between ABS and styrene is that the walls on styrene are thinner.

Joe