Open-top operation idea - does anyone do this?

[doctorwayne]

Thanks for the suggestion, Mark, but there's little room for an elevator and dumping out the loose coal into a bucket or re-loading a dozen hoppers with a paper cup is hardly onerous enough to rate such construction.
The origin of the coal train is the lower siding in the photo below, with, surprisingly, a train of loaded hoppers ready to go. Slightly above that is a pair of tracks (there are three reefers sitting just to the right of the support post) which represents an unmodelled industrial district of the town at the south end of the layout (the town is just beyond the backdrop at the extreme right.
Above that is the south staging yard - northbound trains enter the same town as those two industrial tracks, on a slightly higher level of course. Above that, and yet to be built, will be the north staging yard, with tracks entering from the left (from across the aisle) and dead-ending at the backdrop at far right. As you can see, car storage is on shelves below the staging, so there's already quite a lot packed into a relatively small space.


Wayne