# Simulated Coal



## Bill Swindell (Jan 2, 2008)

I need to make simulated coal loads for locomotives. I used to use fish tank charcoal but it appears that all they have now is pellitized and would look ugly. What do you use?


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## Bob Pero (Jan 13, 2008)

I have successfully used black aquarium gravel.


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## up9018 (Jan 4, 2008)

I also used black aquarium gravel. I dusted mine with some black powder chalk and then sealed it with Krylon Flat.


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## toddalin (Jan 4, 2008)

I use #5 granite crusher fines (same as my ballast) dabbed with India ink straight from the bottle.


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## East Broad Top (Dec 29, 2007)

Coal... and a Big Honkin' Hammer. 










Later, 

K


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## Ron Hill (Sep 25, 2008)

I have used fishtank activated charcoal for years and it has worked very well. 
Ron


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## NTCGRR (Jan 2, 2008)

much of the coal loads I have seen is too large for the scale.


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## Bill Swindell (Jan 2, 2008)

Ron, where do you get aquarium charcoal that looks like coal? The stuff that I found is all small pellets shaped like chuncks of pencil lead.


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## Andre Anderson (Jan 3, 2008)

East Broad Top,

What would you charge for some coal to be shipped to OREGON, all I am guessing that I would need would be a couple of pounds. There is no coal to be had here in Oregon.


Thanks 
Andre


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## East Broad Top (Dec 29, 2007)

Andre, try these sources: 

Farrier Supplies, 26729 Highway 99 West, Monroe, Oregon 97456. TEL: (541) 847-5854. 
Valley Farrier Supply, 21383 S. Yeoman Road, Beaver Creek, OR 97004. TEL: (503) 632-4366 

They're both blacksmith supply shops in Oregon. Here's a link to a blacksmith page that lists coal suppliers throughout the US and Canada. 

@ Marty, the size of coal used by the railroads varied greatly depending on where the railroad got its coal, and what size they bought. The EBT (and other coal companies) sold coal by size; "stoker" was a very fine, almost pea-sized pebble. "Range" was around 1 - 1.5". "Furnace" was between 2 - 3", and "lump" was in the neighborhood of 6". You could also buy "Run of mine" coal which wasn't cleaned or sorted at all. The EBT dumped "run of mine" into their tenders, so lumps could be pretty much any size up to around 12" or more. 










That sledge hammer is there for a reason. With "run of mine" coal, the fireman spends as much time breaking up the lumps as he does shoveling them. The same holds true today. A few years ago, the Colorado RR Museum's coal pile was "run of mine," with lumps of all sizes up to soccer-ball-sized chunks of the stuff. (An afternoon in the cab of #346, with the head-end brakeman spending a great deal of time with a sledge making littler lumps out of big lumps was the inspiration for the hammer in my tender.) Their most recent delivery of coal is very consistently softball-sized lumps of coal. It's doubtful the hammer would be necessary. 

Later, 

K


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## Dan Pierce (Jan 2, 2008)

I used the hammer method on real coal and mixed it with a box of HO scale real coal.


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## krs (Feb 29, 2008)

There is a source of scale coal in Germany that starteed as a school project years ago and then the students received so many requests for these products (they offer the real coal in different scale sizes)that they started a small business under the supervision of the school. 
http://www.klasse-kohlen.de/index.php?a=produkte 

G Scale would be Spur IIm for 1:22.5 scale or maybe the slightly smaller ones for 1:29 scale.


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## tj-lee (Jan 2, 2008)

Bill,

I get my aquarium charcoal from a local pet shop here in Central California.

http://tjstrains.com/wp-content/uploads/coal-load-2.jpg

It's called "Aqua-Pure".


More about coal load modeling here: http://tjstrains.com/877/bachmann-c...-the-look/


Best,
TJ


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## Bill Swindell (Jan 2, 2008)

I went to a different pet store and found some better charcoal, I also found the following site:

http://www.buyactivatedcharcoal.com.../6x10_mesh


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## aopagary (Jun 30, 2008)

Posted By Bill Swindell on 23 Feb 2012 04:28 PM 
I need to make simulated coal loads for locomotives. I used to use fish tank charcoal but it appears that all they have now is pellitized and would look ugly. What do you use? 
i went to one of the pet superstore sites and saw what you are referring to, a hi-tech spherical carbon, but they also had the traditional granulated carbon i have also used before. i hot glue pieces to the top of shaped foam inserts, mostly with O scale tinplate, so one large plastic jug has lasted me years. i can see how a string of 1:32 scale hoppers could chew up a considerably larger amount. but look around, especially online. it's still out there.


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## Bill Swindell (Jan 2, 2008)

I finished the project. It started with a metal, simulated coal load..









And now, it looks like this...










The whole reason I did this was to make the load removable to get to the ON/OFF switch.


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## Jim Agnew (Jan 2, 2008)

Nice job on the coalload Bill.


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## Bill Swindell (Jan 2, 2008)

After all of the fussing around, the charcoal that I found did turn out pretty nice.


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## tj-lee (Jan 2, 2008)

Bill, 

Looks great! 

Best, 
TJ


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