Bucket Coaling Station - JBRR

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Bucket Coaling Station

Structures > Railroad Property

Many years ago, when I was doing HO, I built this neat little coal and sanding station from a kit by Fine Scale Miniatures.

I've always wanted to do something like that in 1:20. While poking  around my Model Railroader collection on CD, I found that the June 1955  issue had the plans and the prototype.  (The plans are also featured in Garden Railways magazine April 2012.)

From the article:
"The fireman scrambled up atop the tender and amidst a great rattling of chains, compressed air and hoist united to lift a bucket of coal up 12 ft. or so where it would clear the tender as the crane was swung around. The fireman smacked the bucket latch bar with a large hammer, the bottom dropped open and coal cascaded out."

"A gondola spotted behind the shed indicated that the drudgery of this facility was not the dumping of the coal into the buckets. Section hands shoveled the coal onto a platform in the rear of the shed, and then shoveled it a second time into the buckets! That's a lot more work than I care to think about. What's more, the crane was originally equipped with a hand crank. The air hoist mechanism was added in a 'modernization' program."

 
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