Subject? How do coal towers work?

If you look at most towers you'll see a column up one side that houses a bucket coveyor. There should be a pit in the track next to the tower into which the coal was dumped from hoppercars, then the bucket conveyor carried it to the bin. From there, the feed to the tenders themselves was strictly gravity.

Don

-- snipped-for-privacy@prodigy.net

snipped-for-privacy@yahoogroups.com moderator: snipped-for-privacy@yahoogroups.com co-moderator: snipped-for-privacy@Yahoogroups.com

Coal would generally arrive in a hopper car, this would discharge into a pit between the rails of a siding behind the tower, from the bottom of the pit a (usually) vertical bucket elevator would lift the coal to the top of the tower. Regards, Bill.

Others have addressed your "how does the coal get up there question." You also ask about a book. TLC Publications reprinted F-M Bulletin73001, "Fairbanks-Morse Locomotive Coaling Stations" a little over 10 years ago. It cost about $7. I believe it's now out of print, having been replaced by another, larger TLC paper cover book, "Steam Locomotive Coaling Stations", by Tom Dixon, copyright 2002, selling for about $17. Either of these should tell you all you need to know. GQ

In 1964 I asked why NYC coaling tower shell was still standing in Collinwood (Cleveland). I was told they didn't think they could get the massive poured concrete structure down without rupturing water mains all over east Cleveland.

Since I've seen some rail pictures in later years with it still standing. Did they finally get it down? There should be others in Ohio, I think there was one on the Nickel Plate in Conneaut (spelling?)

-- Dave Johnson xNYC, xUP, IATR

Letting you know the huge coaling tower in cleveland still stands take E.152nd south from I 90 about 1/2 mile on right (at overpass) apparently a trucking company owns the property now.some excellent pictures can be taken from the overpass though. As for Conneaut,I live near there and go to the r.r. museum they have there. Haven't ever noticed any coaling towers on the NKP or Bessemer properties there.Used to be another big one just west of Youngstown on the north side of 80 somewhere also.

There's one to the NE of Marion OH. YOu can see it from US 23. It's an old Pennsy tower, and NS coal trains use that mainline, so if you can get a pic of that train going underneath it....

It's built tough, and it'll cost more to try and tear it down than it would saving the money.

Kennedy

The railroads hired men to carry the coal up ladders in baskets on their backs. Then basket men, known as coal porters, then climbed up the tower and dumped it the elevated bin. It was very tedious work and to pass the time they made up songs and sung them. People around the railroad yards liked them and encouregd them to write them down.

The songs became know as the songs of the ledgendary American song writer, Cole Porter.

Eric

Kirk wrote:

I have a question. I live in the northern ohio area and as far as I know there are no old coal towers around. I want to model a coal tower on my G-scale layout. I see pictures in all the magazines of the coal towers but what I want to know is, how do they work? How does the coal get into the top of a free standing tower? I see how it is dumped off into the coal cars but not how it gets into the tower. Is there a small conveyor coming out horizontily out of the ground? Can anyone suggest a good book that might explain the process better? Any help would be appreciated.

Huh???

See

It's a joke, Joyce!

Dear folks, Wasn't Cole Porter actually a coal porter in a coal mine in his younger days, before he became famous for his songs? In other news, there are some pictures in THE NICKEL PLATE STORY which show coaling towers without conveyors of any kind, that were filled with the use of a clam bucket-equipped locomotive crane. There are also pictures of a terminal where locos were coaled directly by one of these cranes with a much shorter boom. Cordially yours, Gerard P.

I was thinking about these photos when the thread started, Gerard. Also there are coaling towers where the bunker is filled by a single bucket running on rails and hauled by cable to the top.

In the UK there were a number of coaling towers where the wagon used to deliver the coal was lifted up by means of an elevator and it's contents tipped into the bunker by inverting the wagon. Not unlike a US-style car tippler in concept, but the distance lifted was usually far greater.

Not to mention the trestles that just got the hoppers high enough to drop into bins.

There is a large Fairbanks-Morse on US 12 in south-west Michigan, just over the Indiana line. I'm betting most of the people in the area have no idea what it is. Several years ago I asked if I could photography the still standing coaling tower in Newport News, Va. The CSX employee didn't know it started life as a coaling tower. Apparently they use part of it as a sanding tower now. Gene ABV61-1043.001.HCB

"Skinny Dipping and Other Stories" On the web at or and look for "Into Joy From Sadness" soon.

While driving across upstate New York, I saw what looked to be a coaling tower along the highway at the turnoff to Newton's Falls. There seems to be a modern paper mill there now (just through the sad little town and sadder restaurant, down by the river), but no clue as to what the abandoned buildings and tower out by the highway are. Anyone know the history of that town and the railroad?

PS: New York Central Alliance Division - the paper mill is currently served by a short line called Mohawk, Adirondack and Northern, a subsidiary of Genessee Valley Transportation.

Go back to Spanky Wanky and his friends.

You need a new line since this one makes you look like a bigger idiot than usual. You are obsessed with spanking and bare asses. Why? We know why!!!!!!!!!HAHAHAHAHA BOHICA pal.............