Anyone tried a method of loading and unloading open hoppers with loose coal or other material. Say through a flood loader at a mine and unloading at a power plant.
Haven't tried loading & unloading, but have operated with LIVE (read loose) loads in hopper cars. It was a real pain in the A**. You find out real quick where your track work is faulty. After you have the fun of cleaning up 4 or 5 derailed hoppers, that were filled with live loads, I'll pass on the live loads idea. There have been a couple of live loading operations around, but most didn't seem to operate or look too prototypical. The have also been several modelers that built unloading equipment that lifted and tilted the cars on their side to dump into ships in a wharf scene.
It has been tried over the years. I don't think any were hugely successful from what I've seen/read. I have seen an HO rotary dumper that worked somewhat well and I know that one guy made a hard core heavy brass rotary dumper in O-scale. Regardless, there are multiple problems in all of the scales. One is the live loads as mentioned above....not only a pain when they derail, but they are also unnecessarily HEAVY when full. I've thought about it over the years and even might have found a way to combat the weight issue but then there are other things like the rotary couplers (in my case) or some type of working hopper doors. In N, it just isn't feasible....there's already to little room for error with rolling stock and how it performs in N. Not saying it's impossible, but you better have some good skill and tools, lots of patience, and nerves of steel. (and maybe some good mood-altering pharmaceuticals...hehe)
I have sketched out several possible solutions but in the end said - not happening. My solution will be the old "Empties In / Loads Out" arrangement using hills or loaders to obscure the scene. Well, more accurately I'll simply be using the "Loads Out" illusion. I also intend to use sound or activity to distract viewers.
What about using ground black foam for the loads? I remember seeing unloaders where thewy unload one car at a time by using a rotary method.
Just as bad as loose coal load when a car derails and falls over or is bumped. At least what is used for a coal load other then foam will stay on one place. Small pieces of foam would tend to get every where if there is any air blowing or if one was to blow on it while making an expletive such as, !@#$%^&.
Close! You guys are touching on it. Foam. Only not in little pieces. One piece. As a modeler of the "Route Of Anthracite" I thought a lot over the years, of how I would do the loads and empties if I ever got to build my dream layout. Live loads was out. Loads in empties out was not entirely out, but my cars would not be going to a power plant. They would be going to staging to be returned empty to the "mines" or mine or collecting yard. I do get to run my 100+ car coal train on our Ntrak layout, they are MT M-T cars. Someone (Was that you Allen?) told me about making loads from foam, like the soft dark gray stuff that comes in lots of different model items, like GHQ kits. Cut the foam into rectangles a little larger than the car, snip the top around the sides with a sharp scissors until they looked like piles of coal and paint them black with a water based paint. The foam stays flexible enough to fit snug in the car, but soft enough to remove easily. It was simple enough to make a few, but since I never built my dream layout, I lost interest in making a few hundred loads. It could work for operational purposes on a small layout where a few cars are delivered to small dealer or power plant. You could remove the loads then replace them in the cars at the mine or staging.
Years ago a friend of mine tried it on his layout. Fine in theory BUT N scale trucks and bolsters are not set up to take any sort of load. The loaded cars were, in effect, top heavy and would derail at ANY imperfection in the track. If you modified all of the trucks and lowered the car bolsters to eliminate ANY side-to-side rocking plus body-mount the couplers, you might pull off loading the hoppers with a prototypical "loose" load. Did I mention having broad curves (say not less than 24" radius at an absolute minimum).
A good friend of mine has this working on his N scale layout very well. He models Iron Ore in North Western Australian in N scale and havs live loads. He runs trains made up for around 20 x 3 bay hoppers and loads the cars live and then runs them down to the port and runs them through the rotary dumper and unloads the live loads into a ship. The layout works a treat. The cars have roatating couplers on every second car and the cars stay coupled to the train while in the rotary dumper. See the pictures in the attached link. These were taken some time ago but you will get the idea.. The layout is great fun to operate.. http://www.melbntrak.com/photos/noelp/noelp.html If you want to see it in person, come to the N scale convention in Melbourne Australia next March. http://convention2013.nscale.org.au/
I do have removable loads for various car types to do a empties in, loads out operation, just none that are auto loading or unloading. For my woodchip gons I use the coal loads that came with a lot of the cars, added styrene sections underneath the load to raise it to the extended sides of the converted woodchip cars, and sanded the sides and ends of the load slightly to allow a loose fit for easy removal. The loads have a texture glued on that is actual fine sawdust and the whole load is light enough to not cause a stabilty issue. For my quarry flats I made loads from stone block sheets cut and glued on to square styrene tubes. Again they just slip in between the car stakes and are light enough to again not cause stability issues. And the last loads I have to be placed on cars are my log loads which I make up by laying the cut logs across shipbuilders thread actually in between the log car stakes, with a touch of glue on the logs, and then tie the logs together while on the car. Again another load that can be easy removed and is very light. I use trimmed Azalea branches for the log loads. The tied log loads can be stacked together to make a cold deck at a sawmill. Doing auto load and unloading is possible but is certainly takes a skill level to fabricate working parts I don't possess. It has been done commercially since one only has to look at Lionel Trains to find it. Coming up with some way to have covered hopper hatches open and close top and bottom to dump grain or flour at elevators has always intrigued me. I have seen several working rotary dumpers in N scale including one set up for ore boat loading. However that technology is not in my modeling era so for now I will stay with empties coming in and preloaded cars going out. Probably to only thing I will do is to set some very fine brass wire loops into the loads to faciltate removing the loads with fine pointed tweezers when I need to have empties or loads prior to an operating session. Wood chip hopper with removable load. A wood braced stone load for a gondola. The secret is to have the truck bolsters tight fitting but with some limited side to side play and the other secret is to have the load itself being very light weight. For wood board loads use balsa wood. Dried Azalea makes very realistic light log loads.And as somebody suggested using foam with a light glued on layer is an excellent idea.
If you are asking about "live" loading, I have two loading and two unloading facilities on my layout. I use loose n-scale coal bought in bags at train shows, a bit finer than ballast. It's dusty. The most reliable loader is the flow loader. If you move the train real slow (clean the loco wheels and rails first slow) you can load a car every 20 seconds or so. It dumps a measured amount into each car. Key technology is the "valve" for stopping the flow of coal. Hint - stay away from tight fitting moving parts, they will jam. The fun unloader is a dumper with a kickback ramp. There are better ones on you tube. I have a functional but extremely not a model of anything modern dumper. You pull the loco thru, uncouple it, take off, and flip the switch. An arm pulls the whole train forward car by car and dumps them one by one. Key flaw is I can't figure out how to make reliable rotary couplers. Best I have is a drawbar that can spin, but I can't get it to pull straight so the cars tend to derail. Last and least is a New River Mine that loads cars using a foot peddle attached to an aquarium air pump. It's a pita to load cars properly. Wear a dust mask.
