WOW! I can't believe how long it's been since I've posted anything on this blog. Some folks have even emailed be to ask if everything is OK, to which I'm happy to report - Yes, all is well. Sometimes life just gets in the way, and by nature I'm prone to bite off more than I can chew. And, couple that with a full time job, a part-time business, five children and a couple of grandkids, it's no wonder that I can accomplish anything.
Enough with the excuses though. As I have repeatedly posted, most of my free time has been absorbed by finishing the layout room. And, I'm happy to report that it is going well. Most of the drywall work is now behind me and this week I actually applied the finish coat to one of the walls. I can actually see myself securing the benchwork to the walls in the upcoming months.
So you're probably wondering why the title of this post is "Progress on the Coaling Tower". I did take a little time recently to work on the coal chutes, which is something that had been troubling me since the project started. At the big Amherst Railway Society's Train Show in Springfield, MA this January I purchased some HO coal chutes from Tichy. I was hoping that they could be adapted to S scale and the short answer was "no way". But they did serve as a pattern for developing the S scale version that I needed to scratch built. Also, the Tichy chutes are different than the ones used at Southport. If I was modeling in HO, I wouldn't think it was a big deal, but since I had to scratch build them anyway, I decided to make them as close as possible to the Pennsy chutes. I had no drawings or dimensions to work with, but there are very good photos of the Southport chutes in a photo by Jim Shaughnessey in Bill Caloroso's book on the Elmira Branch. It's a night photo but clearly shows the hinged chute in enough detail to create a reasonable model of it. With that and the dimesions from the Tichy HO chute, I fabricated the two part chute shown here:
I was pleased with the end result and felt that it represented the scale and proportion of the Southport chutes. But I needed to install them on the tower to see how they looked and make sure that there would be enough clearance under the chute (when raised) and that it was sufficiently clear of the tower. Here's a photo of the chute attached to the tower:
I think it looks pretty good. And though it's hard to tell from the photo, there's more than 19-ft. of vertical clearance when the chute is horizontal and the horizontal clearance from the tower compares well to the Southport photos. What do you think?
Now I just have three more to build and then I can go on to the next challenge of building the hoist mechanism. Fortunately for me the hoist faces the back of the layout and would not be seen under normal circumstances.
I'd really appreciate hearing your comments. For now I have to run off to Home Depot and buy some more wall paint.
