Prewar Lionel 97 Coal Loader questions

Anyone? Bueller?

It will make a big mess with any coal size, that is the fun of it.

The buckets are very small so it takes a long time to full the hopper.

I will try black fish tank gravel. They are cheap and heavy, and coated to be fairly clean.

Plastic coal is lighter but messily.

I have two 97 loaders.

 

The older coal is better. I had a bag of "modern" coal that jammed up my Seaboard Coaler. It is cut up sprue, the pieces that you throw away when building  model. there is no uniformity to it. On the cars, as long as they are close enough to dump into the tray, you should be fine. The mess will come when you operate the loader and it "spits" out the coal from the chute and some of it gets in the hopper. If the receiving track is a little higher it will increase the aim. Something I plan on trying is to simulate a piece of tarp hanging from the chute to contain the spray.

Michael,

You might have better luck on the Tinplate Forum. Afterall, it is prewar is it not?

 

All you have to do is move it over .

Thanks for the advice guys! I never thought of black aquarium gravel. I'll try that first, and then if that doesn't work I'll try original coal.

 

Happy Pappy - I thought about that, but I figured since they made it in the postwar era, and re-released it in the late 90's as well, I'd have better luck here. I may ask there about the box though.

As, Bob points out the older synthetic coal was 'SPRUE' and I believe the coal, being synthetic, had a magnetic property, but not as strong of a magnetic strength, as other synthetics.

Sometimes, the coal pieces would clump together and cause a jam in the chute, causing the chute's door NOT to close properly.

Ralph

Thanks for that info. I'm not too concerned about the door not closing properly. I plan on making a setup for train to truck transfer with it. I want to build a 3 sided coal bunker, with a hole in it to make the coal flow through the bunker and into a container under the layout.