OPERATING COAL TIPPLE My operating coal tipple has been around about sixteen years and a few of you have one of them. We sold them as kits about that long ago through an ad in Railroad Model Craftsman. Mine is mounted on its own plywood section complete with the operating levers that open and close the chute doors and raise or lower the chutes. The tipple holds enough coal to fill two strings of eight two bay hopper cars. When not using the tipple, a building is placed over the levers to keep curious fingers from dispersing coal. Adults fall into this trap more than the kids, knuckle heads.
	One reason why our video DVD has been delayed because a few areas needed improvement such as this scene. I wanted to have night time operations anyway, so lights were installed in the loading area.
	I elected to use standard sized sheets of tin plate material found in hobby shops. Brass angle is used for the supporting legs and cross supports. Loading is best accomplish with two people so one person can slowly move the train while the other attempts to work the levers for filling the cars. Next never day when the second level of the layout is built, loaded hoppers will empty and re-fill the tipple from the top. The hoppers do have operating doors and the unloading device will open three cars at a time to make this go quickly.
	Your going to spill some coal, so a clean out was made in the track roadbed for that purpose. A catch container is under the layout for sweeping the mess into. This picture was taken before I added the scenery. You can also see the cutout in the layout where the tipple section is dropped into place. The track to this area just got wired this Holiday season so the coal trains can now be loaded and run out on the mainline.