Coaling tower
A coaling tower, coal stage, coaling plant or coaling station is a facility used to load coal as fuel into railway steam locomotives. Coaling towers were often sited at motive power depots or locomotive maintenance shops.[1]
Coaling towers were constructed of wood, steel-reinforced concrete, or steel. In almost all cases coaling stations used a gravity fed method, with one or more large storage bunkers for the coal elevated on columns above the railway tracks, from which the coal could be released to slide down a chute into the waiting locomotive's coal storage area. The method of lifting the bulk coal into the storage bin varied. The coal usually was dropped from a hopper car into a pit below tracks adjacent to the tower. From the pit a conveyor-type system used a chain of motor-driven buckets to raise the coal to the top of the tower where it would be dumped into the storage bin; a skip-hoist system lifted a single large bin for the same purpose.[2][3] Some facilities lifted entire railway coal trucks or wagons. Sanding pipes were often mounted on coaling towers to allow simultaneous replenishment of a locomotive's sand box.
As railroads transitioned from the use of steam locomotives to the use of diesel locomotives in the 1950s the need for coaling towers ended. Many reinforced concrete towers remain in place if they do not interfere with operations due to the high cost of demolition incurred with these massive structures.[1][4]
Gallery
Temuco, Chile
Tarnowskie Góry, Poland
SAR Class 25NC 3437 (4-8-4) at the coal stage at Beaconsfield, South Africa
Carnforth, United Kingdom
Immingham, United Kingdom
Cedar Hill Yard, Connecticut
Bluefield, West Virginia
Locomotive 2576 over ash pit at the roundhouse and coaling station at the Chicago and Northwestern Railroad yards, Chicago, Illinois (demolished)
Collinwood Yard, Cleveland, Ohio (demolished)
Grand Trunk Western coaling tower, Grand Haven, Michigan
Penrith, New South Wales, Australia, in 1930s (demolished)
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See also
- Grand Trunk Western Railroad Grand Haven Coal Tipple: A coaling tower on the National Register of Historic Places
- Coalinga, California: A town founded as a coaling tower operation.
- Motive power depot
- Roundhouse
References
- ^ a b "Coal facility". Archived from the original on September 29, 2010. Retrieved August 27, 2010.
- ^ Dixon, Thomas W., Jr. (2002). Steam Locomotive Coaling Stations and Diesel Locomotive Fueling Facilities. Lynchburg, Virginia: TLC Publishing, Inc. ISBN 1883089778.
- ^ Locomotive Coaling Stations: Yard Storage Systems, Cinder Conveyers, Sand Plants; Bulletin No. 73001. Reprint by TLC Publishing, Sterling, VA: Fairbanks, Morse & Co. 1935. pp. 4–5.
- ^ Railway Age. Simmons-Boardman Publishing Company. 1922-01-01.