Replacing Coal with Real Coal

[sigtech]

Just to add to the list, the Bachmann Ivatt 2mt 'Mickey Mouse'  mogul has a coal load that can be easily removed, and appears to have a correctly shaped coal space beneath it.  I simply put a small amount of real coal in the bottom to depict the loco at the end of its shift.

I have fitted all my stock of steam locos with real coal, mostly just a thin layer glued on top of the existing moulded stuff, improves the look no end - the plastic coal just looks too uniform and shiny.

 

Regards

Steve

[Graham Radish]

For a bit of added realism you could leave the odd one or two wagons empty with coal stuck to the inside walls of the wagons, coal is a funny thing its so varied in size but on a model layout smaller pieces tend to look better, i think coal that was delivered to the coal merchants didnt arrive in huge pieces, only the huge pieces were coming directly from the ground. you could of course use a sieve to sort out coal sizes, or a pestle and mortar to grind them down to smaller pieces. I use a pestle and mortar for my n gauge track ballast as even the finest javis ballast is hugely overscaled for n scale, it was labelled as "ultra fine" great for OO but not much use for n scale as the chunks of ballast were the equivalent of stones that resemble about half a foot long lol, (2mm=1ft) in scale.

 

 

 

 

Edited June 18, 2020 by Graham Radish

[Compound2632]

57 minutes ago, Graham Radish said:

For a bit of added realism you could leave the odd one or two wagons empty with coal stuck to the inside walls of the wagons, 

 

You'll be in trouble with those who will maintain that coal wagons were swept clean - coal merchants being thrifty individuals and lads with brooms being cheap.

[Graham Radish]

Lol! 

 

Doesnt take much to get in trouble on this site fella, im by no means a rivet counter haha

Edited June 18, 2020 by Graham Radish

[MoonMonkey]

9 hours ago, teaky said:

Wickes? (£3 for 10kg)

Wickes?  I shall take a look... I hadn't thought of that, must be head going mushy during lockdown.  Thanks for the direction.  

[MoonMonkey]

16 hours ago, Graham Radish said:

As long as its not overscaled (and a lot of them are) should be sound fella, i know a hell of a lot of the track ballasts are massively overscaled and look horrid, just found this video for you, hope you like it.

 

 

Thanks Graham, interesting video... I also noticed how 'un-dirty' the wagons were, I'd assumed they'd be muckier especially in  a colliery, although they are metal not wooden planks, so maybe not a direct read-across to discolouration of 1940s plank wagons.  I was looking at images I found in google searches, the coal does seem to vary in size, in wagons and tenders.  I think I might crush up the Gaugemaster stuff a bit and see how that looks in a tender before trying real coal.     

[Graham Radish]

23 minutes ago, MoonMonkey said:

Thanks Graham, interesting video... I also noticed how 'un-dirty' the wagons were, I'd assumed they'd be muckier especially in  a colliery, although they are metal not wooden planks, so maybe not a direct read-across to discolouration of 1940s plank wagons.  I was looking at images I found in google searches, the coal does seem to vary in size, in wagons and tenders.  I think I might crush up the Gaugemaster stuff a bit and see how that looks in a tender before trying real coal.     

 

The Hornby sentinel is a great little loco for this kind of thing too.

[MoonMonkey]

17 hours ago, Roy Langridge said:

To me it looks to be a little on the large side. The “black book”’ says that coal for firing an engine should be about the size of a man’ fist. Ok, you would have to break some up, but you wouldn’t have time to break it all up. As an aside, big lump under the firehole door can be ideal.
 

Take a look on Flickr and search for “NCB coal wagon. In amongst a lot of irrelevant photos, you will find a fair few photos that show the size did vary, but was generally finer than you have there. 
 

Roy

Thanks Roy.  I had a look around Google for images of coal from that era, some great ones exist of wagons with varying sizes / grades (not all in the same one though).  There are also images of locos with coal - some from ye olden days with what appear to be boulder sized pieces.  Coal in tenders does seem to vary in size somewhat.  I think I'll have a go at crushing it up a little and going with the Gaugemaster stuff unless it shatters into dust.  

[MoonMonkey]

6 hours ago, The Johnster said:

My coal is real, Welsh, and until last year was from a lump mined by myself at Big Pit, Blaenafon, a quarter of a century or so ago.  It ran out and I was very kindly given another lump mined from the same source by Tomparrishharry of this parry, which will probably last until I shuffle off my mortal coil and head for the great operating session in the sky...

 

Real coal was screened for size at the collieries, and available in a variety of lump sizes.  Loco coal was ideally fist size as has been stated, but at most sheds was whatever the railway could get, and larger lumps which could be broken up on the footplate adding to the poor fireman's work were probably better than dusty small coal which could easily block the airflow and draw of the fire.  I had a cab ride in 1966 on Lord Rowallan and employed myself in breaking large boulders; the tender was full of useless small coal interspersed with the boulders, and the fireman, a Kingmoor passed cleaner not much older than me, had never fired anything bigger than a Black 5 on local trip work.  This was of course at the end of steam when conditions had got pretty rough, but it had I think been a long time, possible before the war, since decent sized loco coal was guaranteed even at big main line depots; certainly poor coal seems a common thread in footplate tales from the period.

 

I'm old enough to remember house coal, delivered in sacks, and accompanying mother down to the merchant's office to order it at the ex TVR Salisbury Road yard in Cardiff.  There were, at least as I recall, 5 grades on offer, small or large cobbles, small cobbles being about fist size , and small or large nuts, which were smaller and tended to be anthracite, and more expensive but produced less smoke. Then there was nutty slack, which was a bit cheaper and contained a lot more 'small coal'.  You could specify a mixture if you liked, and the merchant would fill the sacks accordingly.  People tended to go for what experience suggested burned best and most cost effectively in their grates, which of course varied in size and shape.

 

I'm not sure how this related to commercial grading of coal, but commercial customers similarly ordered blends that suited their own needs best, so an urban gasworks might, for instance, use a different blend of coal to, say, a forge, or a factory with belt driven machinery.  Blends could be from different pits, or even different seams in the same pit.  These coals would have different calorific content, gas content, smoke producing qualities, acidity, sulpher content, and so on, and industrial boilers were built to burn specific types.  It's not just black rocks, you know...

Thanks Johnster, that matches with some of the images I found online.  I do remember my mother being over the moon when the coal fire (and therefore the dust) was taken out of the family home and replaced with some new-fangled electric thing.  The coal outhouse (next to the bog outhouse) was then knocked down some years later for a concreted yard and a small raised veg bed.  Progress indeed before computers turned up.  

[MoonMonkey]

Hi all, I did some research into coal - initially for tenders but then more about wagons.  Now I never thought I'd write those words before I signed up to RMWeb. It seems to me that the sizes varied in wagons, and locos through the ages, so there is probably a prototype for many sizes/grades of modelled material.  That ties in with the really helpful comments on this forum.  I guess the look is more important than a specific grade of modelled coal.  The Gaugemaster stuff is shiny and I gather that real coal is like that.  The Javis stuff is, I believe, more matt and brown like coke.  Personally, I'll give the Gaugemaster stuff a go and see how it looks.  I did think the video in this link might be useful on some level, if only about how to start a domestic fire using paper splints.  There are also some links to photos online that may be useful/inspirational.  

 

Great Pathe video:  

 

 

Other photos if you haven't seen them already 

 

https://www.warwickshirerailways.com/gwr/gwrw384a.htm

 

https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/684265737107326430/

 

https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/434527064032743786/?amp_client_id=amp-HxZUPQmMq_ybKONESOtvWw&mweb_unauth_id=e4f09d13eff34660b1034f555ee50fc4

 

https://www.gettyimages.co.uk/detail/news-photo/coal-wagons-in-the-sidings-of-the-london-midland-and-news-photo/613476494