Where would someone get some actual, real, coal to use for detailing and scenery? I've found lots of places that sell coal looking materials, but not the real thing.
Years ago I've got a few lumps at the local coal yard, anthracite! I've milled the pieces with an old mincer. Wolfgang
Walk along side a coal hauling route and you should find some. I have some a friend pulverized for me. Jeff
This is a good suggestion. I have a jar of coal lumps I got from the tracks in Charlottesville, VA. Right near where the CSX and NS cross. There was a siding near there where hoppers were stored from time to time. I was down there taking pictures and just scarfed up a few lumps off the ground near the roadbed.
Coal If you are lucky you'll have a trainwreck somewhere close by and can get all you want. Years ago about 5 cars turned over near here and after they cleaned up the mess the bushes were full of leftover coal, my kids brought home some everytime we went walking that way so now I have a big bucket of it. You can smash it with a hammer (wear eye protection) and make nice model coal.....dave
When I lived out in Grand Junction, the coal trains off the North Fork branch would be found at either East or West Yard. Lots of spillage or leakage from hoppers, and therefore lots of free scenery materials. When I had the HO scale Frisco Spring River Sub, my coal train (all Frisco hoppers) were loaded with western Colorado low-sulfur bituminous- 19 cars with live loads. I still have a bag of the stuff in storage......................
the area around where our house was built (actually almost the hole mannor) there used to be a BIG pile of coal (actually i'd call it a very small mountain) but then they moved it so they can build houses and i can find hundreds of lumps of coal around here i have my own little mine
I have also used Woodland Scenics real coal......it looks good and you don't have the mess of breaking it up...... Also, I felt this was a better option than standing by the tracks praying for a coal train to derail......
I use real coal that came to me already "scale" size as it is pulverized at the heating plant for the local university. They blow the coal into the boilers as kind of a spray...and some of the coal doesn't make it into the boiler. A friend got a five gallon bucket of it, with as much as we would ever need promised should we use up the five gallons.
