What's a coal pile?
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Blutorse4792
Now T:ANE I can get into
It really is what it says on the tin. You can find them outside of most (if not all) coal power plants.
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Ok, so a coal dock is a track that a truck or other container can get under and receive coal released from the bottom of coal car, yes?
How would you expect a spur labeled coal pile to work or look? Just a track on the ground with piles of coal around it?
This is a spur off the M&Pa in Baltimore, in a location that isn't close to any consumer. Right next to it is a "Coal Dock" and it's labeled as being an elevated trestle... Guess I need to try and find some photos...
How would you expect a spur labeled coal pile to work or look? Just a track on the ground with piles of coal around it?
This is a spur off the M&Pa in Baltimore, in a location that isn't close to any consumer. Right next to it is a "Coal Dock" and it's labeled as being an elevated trestle... Guess I need to try and find some photos...
Blutorse4792
Now T:ANE I can get into
Try to find it on Google Earth, and we can get to the bottom of this.
The whole railroad died in 1958, and the boilers weren't even cold when they started ripping up the rails.Blutorse4792
Now T:ANE I can get into
I've never heard of this place before. It is AWESOME!!! I've found great old pictures of the Monessen steel mill for my Mon Valley Route (if I ever manage to get back to route building:hehe
and don't tell me "a pile of coal"....
I have a map that shows trestled coal docks, and I know what that is, but there is one siding that is labeled "Coal Pile" - leading me to think it's something else, but just what I have no idea.
Do you?
Does the siding have an unloading area for coal?
Hi,
I suppose you refer to a part of the coal storage of a major user, a coal fired power plant, a coke factory or an iron works. Even during the first half of the 20th century these facilities were highly mechanized. --- Alas there were numerous ways of doing that. I have done und uploaded some loading and unloading facilities for lignite fired power plants.
Coal delivered by train had to be unloaded first, which could be by crane, by dumpers, which would turn entire traincars either sideways or lenghtwise, or by discharging coal from bottom- or side dumping coal cars into deep bunkers. Since the storage capacity of deep bunkers was generally low, the coal would then have been transported to the storage area proper by means of cranes, conveyor belts or scrapers.
Another option was to lay an unloading track on stilts leading across the storage area and dump the coal from special hopper cars directly on to the storage area.
Since "coal pile" is not a recognized and thus defined technical term, we would need more information to figure out how the plant worked you are referring to.
Cheers,
Konni
I suppose you refer to a part of the coal storage of a major user, a coal fired power plant, a coke factory or an iron works. Even during the first half of the 20th century these facilities were highly mechanized. --- Alas there were numerous ways of doing that. I have done und uploaded some loading and unloading facilities for lignite fired power plants.
Coal delivered by train had to be unloaded first, which could be by crane, by dumpers, which would turn entire traincars either sideways or lenghtwise, or by discharging coal from bottom- or side dumping coal cars into deep bunkers. Since the storage capacity of deep bunkers was generally low, the coal would then have been transported to the storage area proper by means of cranes, conveyor belts or scrapers.
Another option was to lay an unloading track on stilts leading across the storage area and dump the coal from special hopper cars directly on to the storage area.
Since "coal pile" is not a recognized and thus defined technical term, we would need more information to figure out how the plant worked you are referring to.
Cheers,
Konni
WOW! Perfect!
I can see now, between this resource and the ground photos of the OTHER coal sidings what was meant by the map text.
The "Coal Docks" were flat tracks (no grade) that went over a pit in the ground. Coal would be released from the bottom of the hopper into a pit below (or perhaps trucks waiting in the pit)
The "Coal Pile" was a raised trestle, the track ascended a grade above ground. Once "up in the air" the coal was once again released from the hopper. I'd further extrapolate that THIS coal siding elected to shove the coal into piles beside the trestle to be loaded into trucks at a later time.
FWIW, this was in the M&Pa Baltimore yard, and NOT at a power plant or any facility that was the end user (such as a hospital or university). M&Pa had 3 coal companies that received deliveries from the railroad. Funny thing is that these "docks" were a stones throw from the B&O which undoubted was the SOURCE for that coal, since M&Pa didn't connect to any coal mines or fields.