Strasburg coal delivery?

Bob Yarger · **Posted:** Wed Dec 31, 2003 9:41 am

Just curious. Does Strasburg RR get its coal by rail or truck? With their long term plans for a roundhouse and turntable, is a coal chute part of them?

http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=24497
ryarger@rypn.org

Erik Ledbetter · **Posted:** Wed Dec 31, 2003 9:43 am

By truck I beleive, though surely our SRR frields will correct me if otherwise. Certainly I saw the stuff arriving by highway on a kind of neat scissors-lift-bed truck back in the 80s.

eledbetter@rypn.org

Phil Mulligan · **Posted:** Wed Dec 31, 2003 10:28 am

Ahh, you youth.

Those high lift scissors dump wagons and trucks have been the standard for retail coal delivery for all of the 20th century. The high lift allows gravity dump (using a chute) across the lawn and sidewalk into the cellar coal bin.

I'm not sure why Strasburg never built a proper coal wharf just because that's the way it was done, but the loader and ramp method works just fine.

Electric City Trolley Museum Association

Erik Ledbetter · **Posted:** Wed Dec 31, 2003 10:34 am

> Ahh, you youth.

I'm getting old enough that I'm now really, really happy to be accused of being young!

eledbetter@rypn.org

Stephen Hussar · **Posted:** Wed Dec 31, 2003 11:31 am

> Those high lift scissors dump wagons and
> trucks have been the standard for retail
> coal delivery for all of the 20th century.
> The high lift allows gravity dump (using a
> chute) across the lawn and sidewalk into the
> cellar coal bin.

Just a photo of my dad's from 1961. Blount's ex-CN Baltic #47 taking coal in Bradford, NH. Note the phone number on the truck. It simply says "phone 03" ...Life was so much simpler.

SJHussar@aol.com