I had not planned on running steam on my in-progress little table top layout, but my Xmas present is a Bachmann 2-8-0. Now I need to find a location for a small coaling tower. My water tower and standpipes will be located on the main near my river and bridges, similar to a DT&I prototype I saw that was still in existence in the 1980s (and may still be). The problem is that I have never seen a coaling tower to have any clue where they were located. Due to the small overall size of the layout, I'm going to have to stick with the smallest unit I can find. Do I position it along the main, like my water standpipe, or should I put it on a siding somewhere?
Bachmann makes a nice ready to use small built-up coal tower (the N scale version is built-up) - very typical of small coal towers found on branchlines on the C&O and many other railroads. You need a siding track to go under the tower where a coal hopper would dump coal to be fed up into the tower - or it could be delivered by dumptruck... Anyway, typically the coal tower would be on an engine service track siding, but could be right on the main line.
