and he notes - Retail coal suppliers varied with the size of the town and the needs of customers. Home furnaces usually used lump coal, either bituminous or anthracite but a school or office building could be stoker fired and used a different grade. So a town of 35,000 (like the one I grew up in) had two suppliers that stocked more than one size and type of coal. (You could buy coke, but that was very expensive). As I recall neither had silos but one had a hopper arrangement for loading trucks and the other used a conveyor.
What is interesting is both companies used the 'lay of the land' for their coal yards. The larger (Nashua Coal & Ice Co.) had a 30 or 40 ft. high wooden trestle that ran out from a hill about three car lengths with coal hoppers beneath so wagons and later trucks could be loaded in much the same manner as a locomotive tender. The smaller company (Balcolm Coal & Ice) had their trestle cut into the side of the embankment along a small pond, which for many years also supplied them with ice. Balcolm's trestle was only a few feet or so above the level ground and coal was dumped into piles for various customers and workers either hand shoveled or (as I recall) used a conveyor to load delivery trucks. Both companies had a shed built over the trestle to protect the coal from ice and snow. (The coal wasn't effected, but delivering wet or icy coal to a home wasn't a good idea). What is interesting is that both (as well as most elsewhere) coal dealers also supplied ice which in Balcolm's case was bigger than their coal business. For many years they cut ice from the adjacent pond in the winter (the reason they were located there) and held it under sawdust through the summer months. In later years, they switched to a compressed ammonia plant which still exists today (accompanied by oil tanks for home delivery). At one time, ice was the most delivered product in the U. S. - not everyone used coal for heating but everybody used ice. Our house was heated with wood but I can recall the iceman bring in a 25 lb block, splitting it in two and dropping one piece of it into our icebox (of course my kid brother and I always got a small chunk from the truck - on a hot summer day it was better than ice cream!). Coal was delivered by dump trucks and I often wondered how it was measured. As it happened, the late George Balcolm (a grandson of the ice company's founder) opened a hobby shop in Nashua back in the late 50's. On one trip to his shop I asked about it and he told me that the driver knew how much coal it took to fill an average coal bin in a customer's home and that was all there was to it. So you got a delivery, not necessarily a fixed amount. At 3 or 4 bucks a ton nobody bothered measuring. There were sacks of coal available from the coal companies, but these were usually bought from independent dealers who sacked the coal and delivered them by horse and wagon. I can recall seeing them dropping the coal into a neighbor's cellar window. They would also leave a sack on the rear porch for the kitchen stove. The sacks were the same size as a 50 lb. bag of potatoes and probably weighed as much or more. The home owner would leave empty sacks on the back porch for the delivery men to pick up. It was backbreaking work for a quarter's worth of coal! (But back then a pound of hamburger was a dime and a good job paid 40� an hour). Coal and ice was ordered by placing a cardboard placard in the front window. The housewife would turn the card so that desired amount was at the top. The supplier usually gave out ice picks (I have one) and a risque calendar (which my mother would promptly trash). You could call for ice if you ran out but it was usually delivered on a certain day a couple of times a week. They charged extra for 'special' delivery so snitching a piece of ice from the ice box was a no-no. The trucks (as I recall) were chain driven, i. e. no crankshaft. I'd like to find out more about these. We moved to a farm in an adjacent town in 1943 and when we moved back in the late 40s, most homes were heated by oil and the chain drives were gone. The Nashua Coal & Ice trestle was torn down in the 50s leaving Balcolm as the only coal supplier. By the 60s it was all gone. In retrospect, a retail coal & ice supplier would be an interesting business to model - the yard would be blackened with coal dust and dropped nuggets - a coal trestle - a brick office and couple of dingy buildings for ice storage - a line of delivery trucks or wagons (depending on the era) - a hopper car or two spotted on the trestle and of course, a residential street with placards in the windows for ice and coal deliveries. One more possibility I may never get to! Ah well - them was th' days - and so much for my recollections... Raleigh >Kelvin White wrote: > > Greetings > > > > A 1950s coal question for a proposed S scale 'North Michigan > backwater' layout. > > > > Whilst some domestic coal moved in boxcars and was shovelled out into > the coal sheds, the majority of it was carried in 2 bay hoppers. For > domestic coal I presume a hopper would need a raised coal trestle or > drop. What was the minimum clearance required under the trestle - did it > have to be a full six foot to allow somebody to stand at the back of the > cell to shovel it out or could it be less. Would the floor of the 'cell' > under the trestle be sloped to ease unloading and drainage. It the 50s > would coal be bagged or loaded into a truck and delivered in bulk to the > cellar? In all case I'm talking about minimal provision - no towering > great coal elevator/silo! > > > > Thanks > > > > Kelvin White > > Oxford, England > > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] Change your membership, change your message settings, use our CALENDAR, view shared files or photos, view the list archives, GO TO http://groups.yahoo.com/group/S-Scale/ Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/S-Scale/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! 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