Rotary Coal Transfer by bendorsey

philskene

Well-known member
I'm not sure if bendorsey's Rotary Coal Transfer has been used in any routes available from the Download Station. If not it's a pity because it is a great piece of kit.

I'm working on the next iteration of "Urban IndustRail". It includes a loop to the north that incorporates Alexander grain terminal:

IR1_001.jpg


And a small mineral working:

IR1_002.jpg


IR1_003.jpg


The route then heads south into a grimy dirty industrial precinct once more, and it is here that I have used bendorsey's the rotary coal transfer:

IR1_004.jpg


IR1_005.jpg


Now, that's certainly not the way it is intended to be used. As set up by bendorsey, loaded narrow gauge coal cars use the upper level. A coal car is positioned between those two big cog wheels, secured to the tack, and a cable actuating mechanism pulls the cog wheels so that they move up the rack strips. In the process the track on which the freight car is resting rotates, inverting the freight car over a hopper so that the coal is transfered into standard gauge cars underneath.

While the device is not animated, all the intricate workings are shown in amazing details.

I've actually used the device to dump ore from the Alexander mine into the hopper that feeds a calcification and cementation plant (sounds good, but don't ask me to explain what it does!).

Now if anything is worth using, it's probably worth using twice.

Here specially selected logs are unloaded onto a conveyor at XL-Ent Furniture:

IR1_006.jpg


IR1_007.jpg


In both locations a ProtoLARS section of track is used on the transfer table. This is an ideal application for ProtoLARS:
1. ProtoLARS is height adjustable (most other industry tracks are not).
2. It can be configured so that unloading takes place after a pre-set time.
3. The locomotive can be uncoupled and moved away before unloading occurs.

Test and packaging of the extension to IndustRail is under way. On the Download Station next week, possibly.

Phil
 
yet another excellent example of your work, I allways get drawn to your posts to see what your up to and yet again another doozy.:mop:
 
Oh I'm sure the layout will be a real beaut, an' lots of interesting industries to muck about with (yay!), but the names?

XL-Ent Furniture? :hehe:

I'm surprised you were able to resist Cal-C-Fication & C-Mentation Services Ltd!

Cheers

Nix
 
I love it, I love it.:udrool: :udrool: :udrool:

Glad to see someone is using it and I particularly like the way you have integrated it in with other structures.

Folks are gonna love what you've done with it and its things like this that make my effort worth while.

Thanks,

Ben
 
Unfortunately no. If you think about how the real one worked (there is a README file in the folder with quite a bit of info on this subject), it would be very very difficult to animate. I'm not saying it couldn't be animated but doing so is lightyears beyond my capabilities. I strongly suspect it would require a script file as well.

Quickie explanation:
The ng car is clamped into position and the entire rotary part rolls up the inclined cogged tracks. When it gets over the std ga car, a part flips out of the way (its been preventing the load from dumping to soon) and the contents are dumped directly into the hopper above the std ga car (tho in the model it might have to be directly into the std ga car). It then rolls back down the incline and is unclamped. Coaltower.gs can load and unload the cars but not one into the other. The load trigger would be directly above the unload trigger and they would probably drive trainz insane trying to load and unload continuously.

Sure woulda been nice though.

Ben
 
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Ben --

Thanks.

I wasn't sure how you would react to my "innovative" use of the tippler.

In reality, of course, no sensible commercial company would use such an expensive and complex device for such menial tasks as unloading a few tons of ore or a few logs.

But what if one or two were just lying around, left over from some other operation? Maybe ... .

Phil
 
Thats one of the pics I used to make it.

It was designed for solid bottom cars. The clamping mechinism often tore the car sides to pieces. After a while no two cars of the same class looked alike after being re-built. In later years when-drop-bottom gons were available the mechinism was modified in a way that allowed the drop-bottom-gon to rotate in the opposite direction as the big roller went up the incline (to stay upright) then dumped normally. Quite an interesting gadget.

Probably a lot of similar items existed (if ya find a pic send it to me, hint hint hint), lol.

Ben
 
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