Hello All:
As someone who is considering a outside railway in 1:32 scale, I am enamored with the idea of using actual coal in my PIKO two-bay hoppers. But it looks like it might take 3 pounds of coal to fill up the hopper! And if you are running a string of 15-20 hoppers, that's a lot of weight before you even think about ascending a grade. Now I could still use a live load but use, say, ground black rubber as the coal.
The reason for the interest in live loads is I also want to do some animation. Coal tipples that actually load coal cars and coal piers that discharge those coal loads into a ship.
My guess is that if I do run live real coal loads I would have to repower the locomotives, weight them and use brass/steel gears.
I would like to especially hear from those who have actually wrestled with/have experience with this issue.
Hilary Smith
Pacific Northwest