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How did the railroad LOAD COAL into STEAM TRAINS? | History & Today
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- Опубликовано: 1 фев 2023
- Coal loading is one of those "I didn't think about how they did that!" topics. The answer today isn't really the same as what it used to be, but there's a lot of fun nuances to it, so let's take a look at how it's changed throughout the years, with the D&RGW and the RGS as our investigation specimen.
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The more I hear about 'Little Engines and Big Men', the more I like. I might actually motivate myself to finish a whole book for the first time since highschool.
A great choice, I've finished it at least 5 times at this point. Something to look forward to if you usually struggle with finishing a book is that this one is more like a large series of short stories with a common theme. So it makes it easier to move through as you have time and attention. You never need fear you'll be stuck trying to finish a huge chapter.
This is the wholesome posting I didn't know I needed...
I’m glad you found a copy! I finally ordered a copy of “Rio Grande Glory Days”
The "ignore the giant scary margarita mixer" part made me crack up laughing, but hey anything is a margarita mixer if you're brave enough, although the owners of the snow plow machine might frown on me bringing a giant bottle of tequila and a ton of margarita mix though
Man these behind the scenes looks are really cool. I know it may just be a backhoe loading coal but its not something you often see when going to ride trains and the different camera angles are really neat to see.
You know, some old stories make you wonder if theyre embellished (my time as a tour guide on New Jersey has taught me old navy guys love their stories) but that Paddy one sounded very true and a wild ride. all for some coal
Oh man, I gotta ask, how exactly does one find themselves as a tour guide on such an awesome ship as New Jersey? That sounds like a massively cool thing to do!
I love that you do nice references to Railroads Online as clearly that is the origin of a lot of your audience and what we get to see most of!
Hopefully you can do a video on that coal loading structure the next time you are down there, as it seems really exciting and scary (It looks a bit rickety.)
Thanks for these informative. Unconventional and sometimes experimental videos. My wife doesn't "get" why I've put GoPro's under my jeep and done time lapses of painting cars at work but these kind of videos can be enlightning and fun to make and watch
Every time I rewatch “Ghost Train,” I’ll always be amazed about small NN 40 is when put next to whatever type of front-end loader they were using at the time to load the coal. Obviously it was a loader that had been used at the Robinson Mine, hence why it was being used.
"ignore the giant scary margarita mixer" I don't know why but that sent me harder than it should have
The New Haven's Chedar Uards has this huge Coalinga tower. It was so over bult that after the steam service was terminated, trying to sismantle rhe tower was too wzpemsive. It still stands in an abandoned part of the yard as a monument to a previous era.
There is no snow… Does that mean your railroad museum got the spring update?
Lol I think it does mean that
Lmao, it got the "I filmed this in August" update. Well, parts of it... Lol
A lot of places in England would use, at stations along branchlines at intermediate stations, a coal bin and they would use shovels and buckets.
Some yards had just a raised structure with some wagons full of coal above tender height and just wheelbarrow'd the coal into the tender. Those were still going by end of steam.
Thanks Mark for this excellent history of loading coal. I often wondered how it was done back in the day. The ultra cool C&T tipple looks both amazing as a feat of engineering but also a scary structure as it looms over the tracks. Love the excerpt you read so Wild West! A different time for sure. Omg! Thanks again Professor!
Cheers Patrick!
Can confirm that splitting and loading wood is a major pain, no experience with coal. It does help that our wood goes into 4' long chunks (vs stove sized 12" or 16"), and we can use a forklift to move racks onto a platform for loading. Still, I can imagine having to do it by hand, and load the tender of one of the Mikados back in the old day. No wonder SVRy and OLC went to oil once the mallets showed up.
Worth mentioning several lumber companies, like the Oregon Lumber Company (OLC), burned wood partly because slab wood left over from the milling process was cheap and otherwise useless. Eventually OLC converted partly because an oil distributor pointed out just how expensive it was to actually split, move and load all that wood wherever it was needed. And also because oil is less prone to setting the country on fire.
Worked for a heating company, coal and oil, we had huge silos and a hopper car would drop its load underneath and a conveyor belt would take the coal up 80 feet to the silo. To position the car, with no engine, the men would use a 'come-a-long' to inch the car over the grate.
In NSW, some locations had a dedicated steam powered shovel known as a coal grab
Very cool Hyce, not something many would really think about ... Another good railroad book to check out is Stephen Ambrose " Nothing like it in the World "
. It goes into detail what was involved in building The Tanscontinental Railroad ... I read it twice before giving it back to my uncle that loaned it to me ...
Regarding the "modern solution" I am again reminded of the old documentary "Thunder On The Rails" and their segment on Nevada Northern 40 when they tried loading it with a front-end loader.
The narrator went "Front end loaders. Shoot, this ain't no way to run a railroad!" and to be honest, I heartily agree. It's easy, sure, but not exactly authentic.
Still though, sometimes you gotta take those modern-day liberties. Sure beats the many-men-with-shovels method!
EDIT: Nice driving Hyce! Slow and steady is better than buffing out dings and dents! Or worse, the kind of damage that DOESN'T buff out.
Steam engines may be my favorite, but you can't go wrong with a CAT Machine!
"Smells like Kenosha"? Try "Smells like Construction"!
An interesting and amusing coincidence is that the shortened URL for this video has FEBT in all capitalized letters together in it.
With hyce putting cameras on literally anything and everything, it's only a matter of time until we get a camera cam
Your engines run on anthracite coal that has been mined from the railroad’s start. The reason they gummed up when you tried to buy coal from elsewhere is because what you got was soft coal or “bituminous”, which is oily and has tar mixed into it. Previously in another video when you mentioned the coal that gummed up 491 from an alternative source, I had assumed it also to be hard coal or anthracite, and so I wrongly believed it might have had Gilsonite mixed into it by accident. So, there’s your answer, Hyce: your ladies like anthracite hard coal and don’t run well on cheap bituminous soft coal as they’re not designed to do so… and don’t like cheap coal anymore than my soulmate likes cheap wine-except for Yellowtail. Though, I keep telling her she needs to try Prairie Berry from Hill City, SD (home of 104, 108, and 110 on the Black Hills Central).
At my heritage railroad one of our stations used to have a crane for loading coal. Sadly it was demolished in the late 60s alongside the turntable and water tower connected to the engine shed.
I knew there was something special about your channel and there it is, the picture of Zeppelin behind you. Hammer of the Gods. Thanks for the wonderful content.
Will drive our ships to new lands... :) Always happy to find a fellow Zeppelin fan.
I can tell that you took engineering classes by your serious, academic attitude about everything.
Interesting thing the Henery ford museum recently installed a new coal tower they use.
Hey Mark nice cool to see this done now and how they did it back in the old days. Hey did you see the East Broad Top fired up and ran the number 16 a bit yesterday if so what were your first thoughts? Hope your doing well. Jeff aka NW611J.
I did see that! 16 is cool. Excited to see more.
@@Hyce777 ok cool yeah I can’t wait to see more with her soon either man.
Little Engines and Big Men is a really good read. The author was a locomotive engineer for the D&RG, and started firing for his dad. The stories are great, I’m glad he took time to share them with us.
What they did on most locations in Sweden is that they built a elevated platform that used narrow gauge tip wagons that they loaded at ground level and tipped straight into the tender.
Best shovel/bucket cam moment ever on the channel Mark! To the steamers of the CRRM, enjoy the yummy coal!
Yup. Definitely an interesting time from the era the book brings you too
I grew up in Michigan City, Indiana in the 1950s-60s where the New York Central (formerly Michigan Central) had a huge concrete coaling tower straddling its two track mainline. It was no longer in use by then, but it's still there, as are others in various locations around the US. That line also used water pans between the rails for picking up water on the fly to avoid a stop at a water tank. The tenders had a scoop that was lowered to grab the water at line speed. My great aunts had a lodger who was an NYC engineer. I recall him telling me how now and then when visual conditions were poor a crew could mess up lowing or raising the scoop and the ties would get torn up. Cheers from Wisconsin!
Hyce, may I suggest that you do a reading of little engines and big men on the channel?
“Scary margarita mixer” that’s something that I’ve never heard them been called. I’ve heard “spinning machine of death” and “The Propeller Train” but nothing like that lol.
That was fun.
Oh, love the classic Zepp pic in the background.
👍 😁
This is kind of lengthy but here we go:
Hyce I can tell you for a fact if you get an articulated “cat” you gonna love it. I used articulated cats that were 10k all terrain F/L when I was in the USAF and they a BLAST!!!!!! Granted mine wasn’t a dozer but they were awesome to use when uploading and unloading C-17 Globemaster 3 cargo jets. So yes when you get an articulated cat you will indeed love it! With coaling procedures at least here in Missouri. The town of Washington “use to” have a huge coaling tower that was concrete structure. Washington MO was a servicing site for Missouri Pacific steam locomotives back in the day. There use to be more rail activity even back in the 90’s when I was a kid like diesels shunting the yard and what not. But that’s all gone since the city it trying to become a “pretty area for tourism” anyway the black and white photos I have seen of this coal tower are just awesome and I wish it was still around. And I agree with the “little engines; big men” book. I wouldn’t shocked if anyone actually murdered others on the old days of railroading. It was a different time indeed.
"Articulated cats" are known by most people as wheel loaders. I've spent quite a few hours in a jd 544b and a cat 928. Cats largest model, the 994k, weighs 535,000 lbs and could lift the 491s tender straight off the rails
i would have said the primary way was gravity but then again i live on a narrow gauge RR built to haul coal so just filling the tenders like the hopper cars was fairly easy tho if you fired wood it was man power or nothing
The museums running the smaller stuff load coal in 20 kilo bags in addition to filling up the coal bunkers by hand using the same bags.
The larger machines (DRG Class 01.10, DB class 23 and the like) are loaded by excavator, or by a dedicated coal crane. A frontloader won't work as the tender is about 3-4 metres high.
In the past most depots had at least a crane of some kind. The largest installations were overhead bins that you could park under and have your tender refilled.
I love the content you put out. You are a busy man having two jobs and all. Keep up the good work everyone out here is pulling you.
When I joined a tourist railway in 1982, the tank engines were coaled by hand from a coal stage. About 10 years latter, the coal stage was abandoned and the engines coaled with a front end loader.
In 2001, I applied to become an engine driver (engineer) and during my interview I was asked what I thought about installing a coal stage and coaling the engines by hand as it was the historic way of doing things. I was not in favor due to my past experience of hand coaling.
The front end loader seems to be the way to go to coal your steam engine.
can you do a video on the red rail bus by the round house? keep up the good work, Hyce
I don’t live too far from the old Illinois Central main line. Over in Carbondale IL, there’s a small yard left over from when IC had a large Depot there, and there’s still a pair of massive concrete coaling towers that still exist, towering over the scourge that is CN rail 😂
In Lebanon junction Kentucky there’s still an old L&N coaling tower over an active CSX double main
Nice vid- I did some research on my own, and I found once at Denholm, PA the Pennsylvania RR had a massive coal tower stretching across their entire 4 track main. Trains would stop right on the mainline and coal from hoppers above would drop their loads into the tender. Trains going to Pittsburgh through the Horseshoe Curve would have to tackle a 2% grade from a standstill. No surprise it was gone by the time Penn Central rolled around.
Stumbled across something like that in Michigan City, IN a couple years ago. Giant concrete thing, Amtrak still blasts by at 110. Hard to imagine what it looked like back in the day though. They must’ve been everywhere!
There's a video that shows the Denholm coaling facility. The video is Railway Journeys the vanishing age of steam. This is a 5 disc video mostly from the 40's and '50s and is excellent.
Thats a pretty rough story, shot just trying to keep your men warm.
Dale from Toy man television did a series on the coal tipple at chama. Went inside the sand house, even showed the demonstration The Friends put on operating the tipple. Theres a wonderful bit of engineering involved on how they tip the buckets and keep them from getting hung up.
Who said you can run me backhoe. You already get to run some fun pieces of equipment. What am I going to do if you take my job. LOL
New Hyce video is always a great time!
The story is probably true. Hyce the music is some of the best at the end and love listening to it.
Another great video Hyce, you're so good at conveying information in an easily digestible way!
Look for stronger magnets and you easily can make videos like that, Hyce!
Either look for magnetic stands with bigger magnets or have a look into adding more Neodymium magnets to those you have.
Good driving of the digger for someone who does it rarely, better to do it a little slow than miscalculating the speed when rushing.
I'm more used to the 25-140 tons machines, so with the bigger machines you could fill with less than a bucket.
The biggest excavator I've been around was 140 tons and used a 7 tons solid steel ball to crush bigger blocks of rock.
The diggers were from 25 to around 100 tons, so it's a different scale in a quarry than fuelling trains.
I've wondered if the loose coal you use in the trains has a tendency to set together or if it stays loose for long time?
Other crushed ores and rock products have varied degrees of settling together when the product are stored.
You are awesome at this Hyce, that can't be said enough!
My first thought when you were talking about loading with a backhoe was "I wonder if they ever loaded coal with a steam shovel?"
My second was "I wonder if anyone with a preserved steam shovel could come spend a fun Moring filling tenders with it?"
Do you know of anyone with a steam shovel? I know of a few, but only via seeing them at shows in the background of Diesel Creek videos.
I know there’s a handful of monster shovels at Rollag in western Minnesota, other than that I don’t know. It’s a real shame how rare they are.
I’ve seen some photos of a way it was done in Germany, they have a crane that grabs the coal out of a car and put it in an area next to the track &/or on bins above the track that I’m guessing that coal dropped down from.
Dollywood also uses a backhoe to load coal into the tenders of their ex-White Pass & Yukon 2-8-2’s.
Early in Britain (1830s/40s) loco fuel (coke) was kept in sacks in the tender. Enginemen hoicked the sacks into the tender by hand, and were not to open a new sack on the run until the first was empty. Shovelling from a sack sounds grim. Maybe they'd upturn it into the tender on the move and shovel from the resultant pile? All were glad when the switch to lump coal was made, I'm sure. Loaded much the same way - an elevated chute at big locations and a shovel and a bin or wagon at smaller ones.
Highest you said that you basically running the machine into the pile.could snap or it could be a mounting bracket that breaks. I hope when you go into the pile you try to lift your bucket. Also the transmission and axle might we're out prematurely if you just crash into the pile.
I was on my way to Shatto Dairy farm in Osborne, MO with my 3 hour class when this came out
(Good milk by the way so if you stop in Osborne MO I suggest you go there)
The random ass visitors in the background watching you flim this be like mmm very interesting
I told my friend about the story from "Little Engines & Big Men", and he was just like. :| ... "Well shit okay then." XD That is quite the story honestly. Never thought I'd hear that from a train book of all things, lol
We use a convoyer belt and wheel barrows
With 3 people it takes about 3 hours to fill a tender
And its a huge tender thats empty
I'd listen to a Hyce audio-book of Little Engines and Big Men.
I can’t find a copy of little engines and big men anywhere to buy but I managed to grab a copy of rip grande glory days before they’re gone online. I also found out that the library in the city near me has little engines and big men as a “read in library only” copy, so looks like I know what one doing on my day off!
I plan on coming here again! Hope to see ya!
"First, let's fill up with coal. Drive your train to the coal tipple on the right. Stop the train when it's under the tipple. The coal tipple will automatically fill the train."
- Lionel TrainTown
I think loading wood would have been/is a huge headache! Coal at least flows. We have one working coal stage in South Africa as far as I am aware. This has a ramp up where 5 gondolas can have the coal shovelled off. Most of the preservation places use a tractor with a crane (the coal is delivered in giant bags)
Oh, wood loading is awful. That's for sure.
stories with hyce
So cool you get to drive a backhoe
You need to get coal in the hole!
With the predominance of coal being processed for power plant use, it must be hard to find other size grades of coal such as lump or egg.
I'll visit my grandfather tomorrow, if I remember, I will send you a coalloading station my grandfather has at his model-railroad.
R&N loads 2102's tender with a front loader, one big enough to reach the tender without a ramp.
The Dollywood express uses a backhoe too
My guy lost all his chill when his precious coal was threatened lol. Tragic, obviously, that two men had to lose their lives over an insignificant amount of coal, but the reasoning is worth half a laugh
Amazing video and Story telling Hyce 🐻🤟🏻
Hello hyce! I was wondering if you could do a video talking about the general electric diesel locomotive at the museum
I can understand using an excavator to load coal: it works, and when not moving coal, it can move dirt, ballast, ties, ash, or any other thing the railroad museum may need moved and can fit in the bucket.
Also, i want a copy of Little Engines and Big Men, but that is NOT a common book...
This was interesting and fun.
Hyce would you be interested in crowd funding a reprint of Little Engines and Big Men? That way we could all buy a copy!
The publisher unfortunately doesn't seem interested, as much as I am!
Can we please Establish the Hyce´es camera rights organization?
Thank you for this awsome look into this topic :D
I might need to pick up that book at some point, even if some of the facts are, well, exaggerated. Sounds like a good read.
If you ever visit the Henry ford Greenfield village that have a 2 mile track that run 3 stranded gauge steam locomotives and they still use a old-fashioned coaling tower I was riding the train when they stop for coal and it gets pretty dusty so they have to water the coal down as it comes down the slide thare are some videos of it
Thank you for this great info
There is a video where they modified the bucket of a big articulated loader to load 30 tonnes in one pass. Lignite for a powerplant
Enjoyed the video!
Who was in the cab with that glorious mustache while dumping the coal?
The story you were reading honestly sounded like a more mature thomas the tank engine story in progress.
If I would have waited 1 more second I just seen that you got a mostly full bucket. But what I said before still applies.
Bro do you get to drive the front end loader? haha 😂
Soon Coaling Towers will litter our landscapes in RRO. Can't wait to wield a shovel in the game.
In England it would ether a coal tower ,coal stage (platform) or some poor sod with a shovel and a wheel barrow
You win again, gravity.
The railroads move coal more in the age of electricity, ordered by the mile.
Ok im gonna have to go find this book.
If you love Hyce’s videos make sure to smash the like button subscribe and post your comments of what videos you want to see. I’m a huge steam locomotives fan
If you google map Carbondale IL, look just north of town on highway 51. You can see the old IC turntable pit and the concrete coaling towers still stand over the now CN main. Look for a wye junction.
Another thought, isn’t the “goblin” in Chama a double sided coal tower?
Hey hyce love your vids can't wait for more railroads online and derail valley
The Museum did a Big Train Tour: Feeding Our Furnaces on Gondola Cars a while back - ruclips.net/video/LJtYWXEfl5w/видео.html
Scattered about the northeast US are a few enormous coal tipples on or adjacent to railroad property. I suspect that, like the German U-Boat pens on the coast of France, they are so heavily constructed that the cost of demolition exceeds any possible benefit and may be there forever. LOL
This is an amazing video! I also wonder if RGS 20 will visit the Durango and silverton some time again
We hope she can!
I know the North shore scenic railroad uses a bucket crane on a hyrail truck.
It was a different time indeed.
Wow, that story took a turn. 😮 🪓
Shovel cam: Front loader edition
Lots of fun