I was joking about the Weeden steam engine. It doesn't have enough power to run much of anything. The fly-ball governor is just for looks, but it does rotate. I put a new sight glass on it, but can't get it to seal. Anyone have some tiny asbestos packing? :-)
I was thinking about making a mine tipple somewhere else on the layout and wondering if the conveyor from a 397 coal loader would work for loading train cars. My current thought is to build something that holds the "coal" and dumps it into the train - similar the 497 coaling station. I still like the idea of the conveyor belt from the 397 to do the actual transfer from the building to the train cars, but don't know how well it would work. I have a bag of what I think is Lionel coal, it has rough edges and anything will cause it to clump up. I think a speck of dust will stop it! It did not work well at all.
Reproductions of the 97 coal loader probably have a DC motor. This 97 coal loader had the original AC motor, now it has a DC motor/gearbox. It runs on my 12VDC accessory power supplied by an old computer power supply. The relay reverses the polarity of the power to the motor. The cell phone vibrator is powered from the 97, but I used a resistor to reduce the voltage to 3.5V. The vibrator motor on the receiving hopper runs around 1.5 to 2v. The cellphone vibrator will be replaced by one similar, but slightly small than the one on the receiving hopper.
Hokie 71 - I graduated from Va Tech with a mechanical engineering degree in 1980. Still have my textbook on power plants - always loved the fact that it had a chapter on stationary steam engines.
