Easy Removable Loads

[P5se Camelback]

... This load, made with locomotive traction grit picked up at work, is meant to represent Anthracite coal: ...

No kidding! Locomotive Traction Grit!

I always wondered what that stuff was that I've used as toppings for some home-made removable hopper loads and coal loads for tenders and spillage at coal loading areas, as well as at the coal dealer's bins!

My daughter and I gathered up about eight 1 lb. coffee cans* full of that stuff on one of our Saturday afternoon visits to the small railyard in downtown Lansdale, PA before heading for our weekly trip to Hennings Hobbies together. She's 26 now, and remembers those excursions well as fun times with Dad. (I'm holding on to the Conrail GP38-2 and several Athearn Blue Box kits that she built, for her son when he's old enough. I supervised the building of the kits, the airbrushing thereof and then I applied the decals -- I figured decals would be too much for a six year old!)

But thanks, doctorwayne, now I know what that material is and that I had gathered it for all the right reasons!

* Yeah, it's been a heavy box of stuff to move each time i've had to move! Much like the box that's marked "LS&W - STRATA" that my former spouse never questioned when we packed to move each time. It said "LS&W" and so she never gave it a second thought. 8-) But she never would agreed to paying to move a box of rocks, but I have since pulled a couple dozen gorgeous latex out-cropping molds from chunks of coal, red shale and the like from upstate Pennsylvania! :mrgreen: